The new Aussie dream: ditching the daily grind for life on the road

It’s the 21st Century Australian dream – packing the family into a caravan to travel in your very own moving home. Watching the sun rise from Uluru, swimming in the Great Barrier Reef and sleeping under the open night stars. 

As more and more families pack up their lives to live on the road, a nagging question has surfaced — is this really a dream, or will the stark reality be nothing more than a nightmare?

This Sunday on 60 Minutes, Tara Brown meets the Aussie families turning their backs on the rat race’s daily grind in search of a life filled with adventure. They’ve sold their homes, furniture, quit their jobs and let go of all financial security. And as they reveal, giving it all up to travel carelessly around the country certainly comes at a price.

For couple Nick and Lyndy, turning their daydreams into reality meant selling their spacious Port Douglas home and swapping it for a 40-foot catamaran. They now sail the world with daughters Lily and Sayuri, waking up each morning to the beautiful crystal clear ocean. 

As Brown puts to the couple this Sunday, are they missing out on society’s conventions – schools, friends, routines – and what will the impact of this whirlwind adventure be?

“You are obviously living in the moment now, but are there moments when you think about superannuation, think about what life is going to be like in the future, when you panic?”

“Oh, sure, yeah I mean it’s something we always live in fear of,” Lyndy says. “We don’t know how much it’s gonna’ cost to live in ten or twenty years’ time. So you know, we can sit around and worry about it or get out of there and just yeah live our life.”

For former journalist Sonia Lear and her partner Remi, their dream trip involved relocating their twin boys – then one – and three-year-old daughter into an airstream trailer. They left behind the cold Melbourne city in 2012 to follow the sun through the red centre of Australia.

“We had this crazy idea that we would go travelling around Australia, ‘cause I was bored,” Sonia admits. “You know, bored housewife in Melbourne, I’d given up my career… I was running away.”

However as the family candidly reveal this Sunday, sadly the new Aussie dream doesn’t always come true.

“You still took it with you,” Sonia reveals. “Everything that you had at home, all the shit that you have to deal with you still have to deal with and you’re in a tin can.”

Overnight, the 60 Minutes sneak peek has gained momentum online with some viewers questioning not only how the families could afford to fund their trip, but also the degree of ‘selfishness’ the parents are making when uprooting their family.

Do families – children in particular – need the routine and structure of school and social interaction, or are the life skills developed on the road more than enough to fulfil their needs?

The Great Escape airs this Sunday on 60 Minutes, 7.00pm on Channel 9.