Travelling couple reveal ‘hardest thing’ about life on the road after ditching work for a 4WD

Living in the city, feeling “a bit stuck” and wanting a break from their careers, Tiaan and her financé Lewis made a decision that seems to becoming more and more common among young professionals in Australia. They left the rat race for the open road.

Instead of waiting for retirement, they gave themselves a year to save and get used to the idea before setting off on a no-thrills trip across the continent. Since January, they’ve been travelling around in a high top Land Cruiser 4WD that will be their home for the rest of the year.

“We were getting to that point where we just wanted a break,” Tiaan told Yahoo News. “We wanted to travel while we were still young and fit.”

Tiaan, 30, works in Indigenous affairs while Lewis, 31, is a soil scientist by trade and worked in corporate consulting. Tiaan still manages to do the odd bit of freelance work from the road, while Lewis isn’t working at all. Instead, the couple spend their days enjoying the outdoors and even finding hidden treasurers on the beach.

“A big thing Lewis wanted to do was fossicking,” Tiaan said after spending the previous months in Tasmania. The island state has a number of dedicated areas that are home to geological material that is of interest to collectors, and where you don’t need a prospecting licence to engage in the activity.

One of those areas is the Weld River, in the northeast of the state, known for harbouring sapphires and other gemstones.

“Lew spent a couple days in the creeks there and found some sapphires which was really cool. And this was fossicking that anyone can do, we didn’t have a lot of gear, it was just time and patience and knowing what to look for,” Tiaan said.

“He came out with some blue sapphires, some quartz… semi precious to precious stones.”

Related: Man’s ‘very rare’ fossicking find at Aussie camping area

Likened to amateur prospecting or fossil hunting, the activity is intended to cause minimal environmental impact and at most requires basic hand tools. According to the Tasmanian government, “some of the best areas have been set aside for the use of fossickers”.

“A lot of people don’t know about that,” Tiaan said.

Couple tout budget 4WD travel amid sea of ‘grey nomads’

The pair are currently making their way through South Australia before “heading up the middle” and have been taken aback by the sheer number of caravans moving across the country.

“We’re seeing lots of grey nomads,” Tiaan said, adding that they’ve been “kind of surprised” at just how many there are caravanning around the country. But the couple are also running into others like them, who have decided to momentarily tap out of the hustle and bustle of city life.

“Sort of the late 20s, early 30s van lifers,” she explained.

According to the latest data from the federal government’s Tourism Research Australia, there were more than 901,00 caravan and campervan registrations across the country last year representing a near 30 per cent jump since 2019, while there were 15.2 million caravan and camping overnight trips taken in 2024.

Tiaan admits they can get a bit jealous seeing the large “luxury” caravans pull up beside them at campsites, but says you don’t need to spend that much money to travel the country.

“You can spend $1000 a week, easily… we talk to people who say that’s what they spend,” Tiaan said.

However her and Lewis typically average about $500 to $600 a week, mostly on fuel and food. “If you times that by 52 (weeks), that’s pretty modest,” she said.

“We’re not experienced hikers or van lifers but we just want to get out there and have a go … that’s what we try to get across in our videos.”

Total freedom ‘the hardest thing’ about living on the road

The couple rely on their vehicle’s water supply for showers and admittedly don’t have very many luxuries at the moment, but surprisingly that’s not the hardest part of being on the road full time.

A few months in, Tiaan spoke of the mental fatigue of not knowing exactly where you’re headed to next and the subtle anxiety that comes with trying to make sure you’re seeing everything.

“The freedom of the road, is also the hardest thing of the road,” she told Yahoo.

But it’s definitely something the young Aussie couple are adjusting to.

“We met someone who has been on the road for five years and she said she still hasn’t seen everything,” Tiaan said.

“You can’t see everything. Australia is ridiculous.”

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