Read with your cuppa tea ☕

Hey

The question I get asked more than anything else.

It's not "where should we go first?"

It's not "what's the best van to use?"

It's this: "We want to do a Big Lap — but where do we even start?"

I get some version of this almost every day. And thinking about it, it was the same thing I was asking before our first big trip!

I could find a million posts about campsites and routes and van setups. What I couldn't find was someone saying, the, well kinda, boring stuff - This is what you need to do!

The stuff that is do this first, don't worry about this, do this next... all to save the mad panic just before you leave!

So today I want to answer that question properly.

THE ORDER THAT ACTUALLY WORKS

There are five things to sort before you go. And the order matters more than most people realise, because each one builds on the last.

1. Your timeframe

How long can you actually go for? Not how long you'd love to go , but how long would be possible. A week, three months, the full year? Work this out first and everything else gets a lot easier.

2. Your daily number

Fuel, accommodation, food — those are the three things that consume the majority of your budget. Then the sneaky ones: coffees, laundry, back-home costs that keep rolling while you're away.

We averaged $700 a week over 11 months, but this is on the very low side that most people spend. This is why it's important to work out your actual number, not anyone else's.

Check out the budget planner here if you need some assistance with the daily number :)

3. Your house situation

Rent it, sell it, house sitter, or leave it vacant. But there a few tricks that can keep the costs down whichever way you look at it. Do some research early, and you'll come across some of these things.

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4. Your van setup

Caravan, camper trailer, motorhome. On-road, off-road. New or secondhand. Have a think about the destinations you want to go to, and work from there. You might not need a full off road van.

5. Life admin

The unglamorous one that nobody talks about until it's too late. Medicare, mail redirection, school exemptions, ambulance cover, subscriptions, bank accounts, health insurance. Life back home doesn't stop just because you're travelling. None of this is hard. There's just a lot of it, and it takes longer than you expected.

IF YOU WANT TO WORK THROUGH ALL FIVE PROPERLY

I've put together the Big Lap Starter Course to walk through each of these in detail with practical information that you can do as you listen along.

It covers everything above from our experience, working with other families and what they've experienced, the traps to avoid and where you can save money.

You can get through the whole thing in an afternoon if you choose, or set aside some time each week to work through everything and put your plan together.

​See what's inside​

Hope that info helps — wherever you're at with the planning.

Margie

P.S. As this is the first launch week of this course, I'm adding in the " When Do We Go " workbook for free. It is a PDF you can download and work through together to get some ideas on your departure date. You could have it written down tonight!

Launch ends in:

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​Find out more here​