Road Tripping Tip #25

The continent of Australia is so vast and varied that it is literally impossible to experience it all in one lifetime. The distances are incomprehensible for just about anybody who doesn’t call this place home and is one of the few places on earth where people still drive the length of a small European country just to pick up the mail.

For this reason, many people choose flying as their first choice of travel when visiting a faraway destination, but just how much of this beautiful country do we miss out on while we doze-off listening to our iPods thousands of feet in the air?

It sounds cliché, but in the case of travelling around Australia, it really is the journey that can make a trip, rather than just the destination.  There really is nothing like stumbling across a small country town in a region you had never even considered visiting before you decided to stop off for a steak in the local pub and consequentially found a place bursting at the seams with true-blue Aussie characters. I physically couldn’t count how many great people we have met on our road-trips around Australia. In-fact I am writing this right now in a small town in Northern Queensland on a mate’s computer who we have just met a couple of days ago - We have just packed up our van with freshly caught seafood the locals have given us and are about to head off into the dessert with no idea where we will end up – that is the beauty of a road trip, to discover something new with each bend in the road.

So next time you decide to make that trip from Sydney to Melbourne (or Darwin to Perth), think before you buy that plane ticket. Wouldn’t you rather experience what lies down below, rather than zip past it in an instant. Even if you do have to rough it a bit, at least you’ve got a great place to stay at the end of it.