Before starting this trip there were three known unknowns: a). how was I going to handle travelling by myself; b). how would it be living in a confined space, and c). what would it be like mingling with fellow travellers.

After twelve weeks on the road I’m now in a position to offer a few comments based on my experience…so far.

Alone Again:

For whatever reason I have always been reasonably self sufficient and in truth I’ve probably been more comfortable being alone than in a group of strangers. This might date back to being an only child but even after I left home and lived in college at university and then, in my 20’s and 30’s in a number of shared houses I was always comfortable in my own skin and often chose to spend time alone. While I enjoyed others company I didn’t need it.

This pattern continued as my career developed where from my late twenties I chose the path of the entrepreneur preferring to work for myself than in an organisation. This was either due to my youthful arrogance where I thought I knew better than my bosses or because I didn’t like the politics involved in larger companies, or more likely a combination of the two. In the early days I was pretty much a one man band trying to realise my ambitions and later even when I’d created a medium sized company with several hundred employees the reality is that it can be lonely at the top. Throughout my career I spent a lot of time travelling, including living overseas for fifteen years, which involved arriving in a new country where I didn’t know anybody and where the onus was on me to make new friends and broaden my experience as well as spending time on my own, both of which I enjoyed.

This all changed in my mid-40’s when I returned to Australia and was lucky enough to get married and have a family. Since then I have loved sharing my life with my wife and kids and like all families what we did and where we went on family holidays was always a bit of a compromise. For the first ten or so years of married life I was able to balance family and business travel and this allowed me my alone time.

My life pivoted again about twelve years ago when as a result of the GFC I was forced to bring partners into my business which changed the dynamic and didn’t end well. As a result I needed to try and reboot my career but now that I had the responsibilities of having a family I was more “risk off”. Instead of starting from scratch I tried my luck as an investor which came with a different set of frustrations but with the benefit of being able to spend more time with my family than most men at my age. Ironically I went from not spending enough time with my family to spending too much time at home which can be a double edged sword – be careful what you wish for!

Having said that, in hindsight, I loved every minute and it’s only now that our kids are in their twenties, my wife is busy doing her own thing and I have time on my hands and the opportunity of rediscovering the art of being alone.

So now I get the chance to act out a thirty year dream and hit the road. I admit travelling alone with an open itinerary is a act of supreme selfishness in that I get to decide where I go, how long I stay and what I do but I did wonder if I’d get bored with my own company. So far I’m surprised that I haven’t felt bored or lonely at all, in fact I often find myself choosing to be alone. I’m sure part of the reason for this is that I’m in contact with my family most days which wasn’t the intention when I left but we keep it to a brief chat or text and it seems to be working. The other thing is that between the old friends I’ve caught up with and the new friends I’ve made there hasn’t been time to get bored of lonely.

Another factor is the role of technology. In this digital age it is easy to remain connected virtually anywhere and this can be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing in that it’s easy to communicate with the rest of the World and a curse because it’s too easy waste time and avoid the solitude and thinking time that I expected when I set off on this quest. Not surprisingly one of the only times I really felt that I was looking inside was when I was incommunicado for a couple of days and I vowed then to spend a day a week off-line. So far I haven’t done that but think I will try do this when I resume my travels in the new year.

So in summary, what may seem obvious to many is now clear to me. There is a vast difference between being alone and being lonely. Strangely enough, so far I have never been more alone or felt less lonely!

Simplification:

Unlike the preceding chapter I’ll try and keep this one simple!

One of the best outcomes of my trip so far has been realisation that less is better.

In preparation for this trip I spent a lot of time researching what equipment I’d need and tried to cover every contingency. What I didn’t have I bought and accumulated an array of stuff that I needed to cull. I packed and repacked and eventually squeezed everything I thought I’d need into Max knowing full well that I would have forgotten something – and I did, an umbrella (but as it turned out I didn’t need one until week 9)!

The reality is that I haven’t used half of what I packed and can’t wait to get home for Christmas to offload all the superfluous stuff. As long as you don’t mind being a bit grotty from time to time and having a fairly limited wardrobe and menu it’s surprising how little we actually need, all the rest is baggage! In a weird kind of way it’s satisfying, maybe even zen like, to reduce your material needs to the bare minimum.

The other side of this coin is learning to live in a confined space. Again it’s quite carthitic to shrink your physical space while at the same time stretching your horizon. I am very comfortable in my “tin can” but qualify this by saying that it works for me being alone and would be a different scenario if I had a copilot with me, especially regarding basic bodily functions! It’s interesting how we can organise a small space with minimal things to suit our needs.

This may change a when I head south especially with winter coming on. I remember from past boating experiences that being wet and cold is no fun, but so far so good and hopefully the lessons I’ve learnt will stand me in good stead for the next stage of my travels.

Tribes:

As an inexperienced van man I wasn’t sure how I’d relate to my fellow travellers and frankly I’d head a few things that made my hair stand on end, i.e. that at any one time there are up to 12,000 women travelling around the country alone! I’m not sure why this alarmend me but it did! In a similar vein whilst I probably could be considered one, I didn’t see myself as what I’d imagined the typical “grey nomad” to be, and correctly as it turns out, didn’t think I’d have much in common with them. So far these fears seem unfounded, on the contrary I’ve met lots of interesting and friendly people, both travellers and locals.

Based on my limited experience, and it needs to be said so far I’ve avoided peak “Grey Nomad” which evidently runs from the beginning of June until late August, and school holidays, there seem to be four or five distinct tribes on the road.

Firstly there are the ubiquitous Grey Nomads, usually these are retired couples who tend to travel with all the creature comforts in massive caravans towed by late model 4X4 trucks. They tend to frequent caravan parks, spend a lot of time setting up camp for longer stays and watch a lot of television, which seems at odds with why they’re traveling in the first place. They often travel in packs with other couples, possibly neighbours from wherever they’ve come from and the men must sport a grey goatee to be admitted to the clan (hence my decision to rid myself of mine once a month on the full moon).

Then there are the young couples, usually male and female if they’re Australian or two girls (either a couple or friends – I’m never sure) if they’re Euro. This species either travels in older campervans if they’re surfers, rental vans if Euro or fully kitted out utes with roof top tents and all the off-road gear if they’re Aussies tradies on a break.

The last group, of which I’m one, is older blokes and ladies who are travelling solo and either trying to find something or running away from it. I’m not sure what the “it” is, in my case it’s Lighthouses but each to their own. This mob travel in anything from brand new $ 300k campervans (usually the women) to contraptions that look like they’ve been salvaged from a wreckers yards (the blokes) and can be found almost anywhere although the ladies tend to stay in paid sites where it’s well lit, safe and with ablutions while the blokes prefer to try and dodge the rangers and stay off piste where your not supposed to.

Despite these generalisations almost all of the above are generally happy, helpful and interesting in their own way.

So there you have it, Van Man, make of it what you will!

p.s. For some reason what started as a fairly simple update kept getting bogged down and has gone through a number of edits and I’m still not sure I’ve got it right but I just need to get it out there so I can get on with it! If you’ve got this far I thank you for your indulgence!