Travel & Holidays A Different Lifestyle

My friend gets 99.99% of her mail via email. Occasionally they have something important-looking arrive at my house or his sister's house. We phone them and she tells me to open it and either bin, scan and message via phone, or forward to the post office in a real town where they go to in a week's time and collect. They almost always get Telstra where they camp.

 

This strategy seems to be quite popular Angel with a lot of Grey Nomads.

I intend to retain my villa here in Yamba and have family frequent it whilst I am away to give the appearance that it isn't vacant. As you said the majority of my mail is now through email so no real biggie. The only issue I may have is with car / boat trailer registrations if interstate when they are due for inspection. The vehicle not so much as it will be new and a simple payment will suffice, however boat trailer requires inspection yearly. I will be spending most of my time between Yamba (far enough south) and Broome as I am not a fan of the cold or cities.

 

My folks did it, they sold up in Syd (still had a few places in Hervey Bay, one of which they now live in) and bought the Winnebago.

They drove it to Stanthorpe and tried their hand at fruit picking and packing for 6 months. Then on to somewhere else for 6 months then somewhere else. Whilst picking and packing, the motor home was a very expensive tent really, they towed a car behind it so once they parked up the truck didn't move until they left.

A few years later they went to Hervey Bay and parked up the truck for a while (about 3 years) and "settled in" to retirement.

A short while later they decided to finally follow their dream and live on the road for the foreseeable future, they got just passed Uluru, about 3 months in before they decided they hated it and went back to Hervey Bay and sold the truck. The life was okay but they missed the ocean, they hated everything being covered in red dust and I think they just got tired of the solitude to be honest. Maybe if they had stuck to roads more traveled they would have enjoyed it more.

It had only 30,000 k's on it, it was absolute top of the range with loads of enhancements on it, they lost about 80 grand over the 8 years they had it between purchase price and sale price.

They did the sums and they could have actually gone somewhere and stayed in cabins then on to somewhere else and done the same and they could have kept cabin hopping for years for the same money.

I am glad they followed their dream because they always wanted to do it, sometimes things don't turn out as you expect but that shouldn't deter us from our goals, if anything I have learned from them to try before you buy, give it a go with a cheaper option before jumping all in and spending a motza on a "maybe" .

 

I'm with you - would love to travel more - for months at a time ... but need the security of somewhere to come back to when the bones are tired and the teeth can't chew the fat as well as they used to.

Which is why I get concerned when people say they've "sold up everything".

 

Thanks for the insightful reply Dan.

Your parents certainly went all out with their purchase of a Winnebago and a tow vehicle! The fuel costs alone would scare a lot of potential nomads off.
It seems prudent to retain a home that you can return to when you are over being Willie Nelson.

I'm definitely looking at a cheaper option. Glad your parents are happy in Hervey Bay.

 

Adventure before Dementia