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“You’re so lucky!”

As travelers, we hear those words on a very frequent basis. “You’re lucky to be able to travel!” “You’re lucky to be able to spend this time with your family!” “You’re lucky!”

And we are. We certainly understand that we are fortunate that we’ve been able to live the life of our dreams.

But in many ways, our lifestyle hasn’t been luck at all. It’s been hard work and wise choices.

We didn’t wake up one morning to find all the pieces of the puzzle had magically dropped into our laps overnight. We spent many, many years cultivating the right environment and making it happen. It wasn’t handed to us on a silver platter. We made it happen.

We’re not the only ones who made it happen. Each and every traveler out there worked hard to get all the pieces of the puzzle in place. It doesn’t happen overnight and it doesn’t happen easily, but it can happen if you make it happen.

Amy and Jarred travel with their four children

My friend Amy, who blogs over at Livin on the Road, made it happen. She and her husband and their four children are now living life on the road in Australia. Here, in her own words, is how they made it happen:

Life was pretty good.  Each morning my kids would crawl into bed with me for cuddles after my husband had left for work.  My kids finished their homeschooling lessons before the other neighbourhood kids even started school.  Then came the usual discussion, “Mum, can today be our zoo day?”  “No, I want to go to the museum today.”  “Oh, but what about the planetarium?”  “No, I want to go to a National Trust property,”  “Mum, please please can we go to the zoo.  I want to sit in the butterfly house and take my watercolours to paint the butterflies.”  “Oh yeah, that’s a great idea.  I’ll take my pencils and paper, too.”  “Are you sure?  I wanted to go to a friend’s house and play with them in the cubby house today.”

After a day of sipping coffee while chatting to my friends and watching the kids playing in the backyard, or picnicking on the lawns of a National Trust property, or spending the day at the zoo, we’d head home tired, but happy.  As my husband pulled in the driveway from work, I’d run out and swap keys with him so I could work the evening shift at a pharmacy I loved.  The work was interesting and enjoyable, and I liked my co-workers and customers.

Sometimes someone commented, “You’re so lucky.  You’re so lucky because your husband is an electrician and you are a pharmacist.”

Then we decided that our lifestyle, wonderful though it was, in the city wasn’t enough for us.  We wanted to travel.

So many times we’ve heard; “You are so lucky to be able to travel.” “It’s fine for some people to travel, but we couldn’t afford it.”  “We just aren’t as lucky as you, so we can’t make those sorts of choices you have.”

We’ve been told this many times as we’ve headed around Australia in a caravan with our four kids.  We believe some of it.  We are incredibly lucky to be able to travel.  We’ve made our choices.  They weren’t easy choices to make.  We struggled.  We worked towards it.

I was in my final year of high school when I met and married my husband.  When I sat my final exams, I was already three months pregnant with our first child.  Everyone told me that we were ruining our lives.  What about our education?  At eighteen, I was expected to finish school, go to uni and maybe take a year off to travel.  But now?

The opinion of family, friends and strangers in the street was universal – we were ruining our lives.  I was conscious of strangers checking my finger for a wedding finger.  Classmates wondered at how I, who excelled academically and was the school geek, could throw away my bright future.

That first child was born, and our first house purchased the following year.  I was in my first year of university studying naturopathy, and switched to night-school.  I didn’t have time off for when the kids were born.  It just wasn’t worth it to me – I actually sat one of my second year final exams the day after my second child was born.

I spent all day with our baby, while my husband slept.  He woke up in the evening and stayed with our newborn son while I went to night-school.  When I got home from school, he left for work.  The next year we added another baby to our family, and decided that Jarrad would go back to become an apprentice electrician.  We went down to one small car, and I rode a bicycle towing my little ones in a bike trailer.

For two years, our little family of four had $60 each week to spend on food and fuel after paying our mortgage and bills.   We worked so hard … and at the time we had nothing to show for it except an empty belly.  The kids never went hungry, but my husband and I often were.

I started a pharmacy degree after I’d completed my naturopathy.  We didn’t want to put the kids in childcare, so I found a university that was prepared to let me attend only for a practicum every second week on a Friday.  They recorded the lectures for me.  The catch?  That university was 1000 kilometers away.  Once every two weeks, I’d catch the overnight interstate train to the next state.  I would get there at 1:30am and head off to another student’s house to sleep until my practicum the next morning.  I wanted to take my bike as that felt safer than walking and would give me transport, but the interstate train wouldn’t allow bikes.  As soon as the morning prac was over, I’d catch the train back home, getting in just as the kids were going off to bed.  I only missed one day every two weeks with them.  They got to spend that day with Dad.  But when did I study?  I got up at four each morning to get in a few hours study before the kids woke up.

I had my final pharmacy exam a week before our fourth baby was born.  Jarrad had been qualified as an electrician for a year at that point.  For a year, we continued on much as we had been though much better off financially.  Jarrad left for work before we woke up.  We’d homeschool and entertain ourselves all day, but as soon as he drove in the driveway we’d swap keys and I’d head out to work all evening at a local pharmacy.  After a year of doing this, we decided that it wasn’t what we’d worked so hard for.

What had we worked so hard for?  I had everything I’d wanted.  It was great.  But we wanted more.  You see, it didn’t seem like enough just to build up that nest egg.  Had we really worked so hard just to be able to earn a lot of money now?

We are now following the path less taken.  We work a few months, then travel for a few months before we stop and work again.  We earn a good wage in those few months that keeps us going in the mean time.  We love this lifestyle and have been traveling for almost two years now with no plans to settle down any time soon.

I know we are lucky to make be able to travel.  That’s the luck that we made.

Follow Amy, Jerrad, and their kids at Livin on the Road