Travel is an integral part of my life. As you may know (or have seen via my Facebook page) over the last 9 years, my wife Katherine and I have travelled to over 70 countries, most of which have been with our kids, Finn and Callan. But that hasn’t always been the case…
In my early 20’s, I was always working. I worked seven days a week and very rarely took any breaks. However, when my sons were born, I realised I needed to change. I realised that I had only one opportunity to be a parent so I needed to set my priorities right. I had to balance growing my business with enjoying time with my wife and children.
The Secret to Success and Travelling
Luckily, I’ve already established Business Blueprint so I’m able to work remotely anywhere that I travel around the world. For every two months that I spend working in Australia, I spend one month travelling abroad with my family.
During the day, we visit places in that country and create experiences with our kids. Then when they go to sleep, I’ll do four to five hours of work to catch up and stay in touch with my team back in Sydney.
The Australian Outback
On our most recent trip, we decided against going abroad. We decided it was time to explore more of our own country. So we embarked on our first adventure outside of our major capital cities and headed for the red centre of the Australian Outback. And what a journey it was.
After booking in the trip to fit within the school holidays, we spent 12 days and tried to pack in as much as we possibly could. Not always the best plan with kids (because of the early starts and late finishes). But after two days, we all got into the groove and ticked off at least 4-5 things every day.
This is not the full list, but some of the main attractions we enjoyed were…
View more photos of our amazing adventures on Facebook.
Travel Essentials
Now to cover this much ground (with kids), we needed a good planner. Thankfully we didn’t have to look too far because one of our awesome Business Blueprint Members specialises in running tours of Uluru and Central Australia. His name is Patrick Bedford and his company is called Emu Run Experience. They do this for a living, day in – day out, and are the leaders in tours of the Australian Outback.
Also, we decided to opt for a private charter so we could move quickly and enjoy the surroundings without busloads of other tourists. This included our own Land Rover 4WD and a personal guide. However, this guide was way more than just your average guide. They were our private driver, chef, bartender, historian, zoologist, geologist, cultural educator, photographer, bed maker, fire starter, babysitter and at times, child tracker.
The guides were seriously amazing and meant we could cover so much ground in such a short space of time. They also take you to all the best spots. Most of which are inaccessible by tour buses and unknown to city folk driving through.
Now, of course, you could try and do all this on your own, but these guides make it a totally different experience. For starters, they save you weeks of planning. They know exactly where to go, what to do and they have everything needed in their trailer. So all you need to do is sit back, relax and soak in the experience.
If you have any other questions regarding our trip, say so in the comments below and I’ll be happy to answer them. But as you can tell, I recommend everyone should go sooner rather than later. I would also highly recommend getting a professional like Patrick to plan it out, to fit in your available time and budget. He can answer all your questions, help you work out what to do and not. And then he can organise the whole thing and make it happen.
Finally, a big thank you to our guides Eric and Christie for making our trip sooooo amazing. We will be forever grateful.
Love, Dale + Katherine & Finn + Callan
