Sometimes the best travel plans are the ones you didn’t actually plan.
When we started our journey back in February, Australia was the first chapter. We began in Shoalhaven and slowly worked our way north along the east coast, eventually reaching Hervey Bay. The original plan was to keep going — through the Whitsundays and all the way up to Cairns.
But long-term travel has a habit of reminding you that a plan and reality aren’t always the same thing.
Fuel prices had risen sharply following the conflict in Iran, accommodation and car rental prices around the Whitsundays were eye-wateringly expensive, and eventually we reached the point where continuing north simply didn’t make financial sense.
So we changed the plan.
At the time, it felt slightly disappointing. Cairns and Far North Queensland were places we’d really wanted to experience, but one of the biggest lessons we’ve learned from travelling long-term is that changing a plan isn’t the same as abandoning it.
And, bizarrely, the story of how we’re finally going to finish that journey begins several months earlier — and eventually involves an IKEA in Kuala Lumpur.
Our First Attempt at House Sitting
Back in September 2025, while staying in Mona Vale on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, we’d signed up to Aussie House Sitters.
The idea seemed almost too perfect for the way we wanted to travel: look after someone’s home and pets while they’re away and, in return, have somewhere to stay without paying for accommodation.
There was just one problem.
We had no history on the platform.
We applied for a few sits, weren’t accepted, and eventually stopped looking. House sitting became one of those ideas that sounded great in theory but hadn’t quite worked for us.
Until Kuala Lumpur.
Months later, we were at a home-education meet-up in an IKEA — because apparently some of the biggest decisions of our travels now happen next to flat-pack furniture and Swedish meatballs — when house sitting came up in conversation.
Someone mentioned something we’d completely missed the first time around:
You could link your Airbnb profile to demonstrate your history as a trusted guest.
That tiny piece of information changed everything.
We updated our profile, started applying again and suddenly the responses were completely different.
Fast-forward just four weeks and our Australian accommodation is now booked from 27 August 2026 until 19 January 2027.
Instead of hotel rooms and Airbnbs, we’ll be looking after an ever-growing collection of dogs, cats, geese, chickens and parrots as we travel from Brisbane all the way north to Cairns.
And the financial impact is enormous.
House sitting has effectively cut our monthly travel budget in half and allowed us to extend our journey by another five months.
But perhaps the biggest lesson isn’t actually about saving money.
It’s about staying flexible.
When we turned around at Hervey Bay earlier this year, we could have looked at it as something we’d failed to complete. Instead, we accepted that the numbers didn’t work, changed direction and carried on.
Now we’re going back.
Except this time we’ll travel more slowly, live in local communities, look after some wonderful animals and spend a fraction of what our original trip would have cost.
Long-term travel doesn’t have to mean stubbornly sticking to the itinerary you created before you left home.
Sometimes making travel affordable is simply about being willing to change how you travel.
And occasionally, the solution turns up months later in an IKEA in Kuala Lumpur.
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