We took our kids out of school and spent a year living on the road. We’ll do 5 things differently on our next adventure.

Two years ago, my little family of four made a big decision to spend a year focusing on travel.

We packed up our belongings, gave our house key to a rental company, and put a handful of our belongings into an 18-foot caravan.

We didn’t have any real itinerary for our 12 months of travel. We just headed west and started circumnavigating Australia, a dream many Aussies have.

It was absolutely amazing, and we’re now in the early stages of planning our next road trip for 2026. However, there are a few things we plan to do differently next time.

Our planned stops will be closer together

Australia is huge, and that feels extra evident when spending time in a car with kids.

Our ideal plan was to arrive at a campsite no later than mid-afternoon, spend the next day resting or exploring our new stop, and then drive to our next campsite the next morning.

However, we soon realized that this itinerary only works when the towns are fairly close together.

We learned three hours in the car was the most any of us could handle — however, on some days, we’d go hundreds of kilometers without seeing civilization.

So, our next road trip will be to a section of Australia that has many towns close by, meaning fewer long stretches of road to cover.

We may not travel as far, but limited driving chunks will be better for all of us.

We didn’t need to pack as many gadgets and basics as we thought

Although we didn’t take many big items on our yearlong trip, we still ended up shipping a few of them back home from the road.

The first gadget to go was our barbecue, which was quickly made redundant by our caravan’s outdoor kitchen setup.

We also packed more kitchen essentials than we needed. We only ever used our main frying pan, while the other pans we’d packed stayed hidden in a cupboard somewhere.

On our next trip, only our favorite pan and most essential tools will be coming along. In general, we’ll probably pack less than we think we need since we picked up so many things on the road anyway.

However, we might actually add a coffee maker to our next packing list. I found I missed having easy access to fresh coffee each morning while on the road.

Next time, thrift stores will be a key part of our packing plan

Our kids grow really quickly, so I packed outfits for them for all four seasons in a range of sizes.

However, like the pans that remained in the cupboard the whole trip, the kids’ clothes mostly stayed in storage. They only wore their favorite pieces.

We ended up donating many items of clothing on the road as the kids grew out of pieces before wearing them. Next time, we’ll pack as if we’re leaving for a week or two and visit local thrift shops to stock up on seasonal clothes as needed.

There will be much less to carry, and occasional shopping trips will keep things exciting for the kids.

We should’ve scheduled downtime in houses or cabins

Traveling with a caravan is amazing because we can essentially take our full house anywhere while stopping at so many awesome campsites.

At the end of each day, we know we’ll be jumping into a comfy bed that we’ve already made our own with cozy pillows and blankets.

However, spending so much time in the same confined space can get exhausting, and sometimes it’s nice to have extra room to stretch out.

Next time, we’ll budget for an occasional Airbnb or cabin stay. By staying in a real home for a few nights every few months, we can spread out and give each other a bit of space.

I’m going to pack more hard drives

As an avid writer and YouTuber, I took so many photos and videos from the road. However, I completely underestimated how many gigabytes of data I would gather along the way.

I ended up having to buy numerous new hard drives from small country towns where the prices were exuberant. Next time, I’ll be sure to pack plenty from home.

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