Going from passing each other at the dinner table to living in six metres of van — discover how families actually cope on the road together.
Here’s a thing people rarely admit out loud before they leave: they’re a bit worried about the togetherness.
Not the money, not the schooling, not the van. The fact that in a few months’ time they will be within arm’s reach of their entire family, all day, every day, for a year.
And it’s a fair thing to wonder about. Think about how it works now. Between work and school and after-school everything, plenty of families are only genuinely all in one room at dinner — and often not even then. Then you sell up, hitch up, and go from that to permanent close quarters overnight.
It is an adjustment. Everyone who’s done it says so. But almost nobody who’s done it regrets it, and the ones who found it hardest at the start are often the ones who’ll tell you most emphatically that it was worth it.
So we asked our TAWKers how they managed. Here’s what came back.
What’s on this page
It takes longer to settle than you expect
This is the single most reassuring thing in all the answers we got, and the thing most likely to stop you panicking in week three.
Nobody settles immediately. The families who told us how long it took gave remarkably consistent numbers:
It is a huge adjustment, the family together 24/7, so having ‘me’ time for everyone is really important…roster it in if you need to. It took us at least 6 weeks to really settle into things.
It took a good 8-12 weeks to unwind from our previous life of working every day.
Six weeks. Eight to twelve weeks. That’s a long time to feel like it isn’t working — long enough that plenty of families quietly conclude they’ve made a terrible mistake somewhere around week four.
You haven’t. You’re decompressing from years of a completely different life, and that takes as long as it takes.
We found it tough initially. It’s a huge adjustment, being together as a family 24/7. When I found other people to talk to – and hubby did too – that helped. In the end though (travelled for 9 months) we were great and he was great with the kids too.
Roster the time alone. Actually roster it.
If there’s one practical instruction running through every single answer, it’s this: alone time doesn’t happen by itself out here. You have to build it in deliberately, the way you’d build in fuel stops.
Everyone does need space and time too – you really need to sit down and have a conversation about how you both see the trip working for everyone.
Make sure you are not a family together 24/7. Set up camp earlier and take turns in taking the kids for a walk after.
That second one is a lovely, small, immediately usable idea. Get set up half an hour earlier than you need to, and that half hour becomes somebody’s.
The most structured version we were given:
Have a day each! One day kids choose what they want. Then a mums day, no hubby no kids and the same with dad’s day, let him have a day with no one also.
And the simple swap that most families land on eventually:
Take it in turns with doing stuff with the kids. Let her take kids for an afternoon one day and leave him at home (maybe a Saturday afternoon footy match on the radio with a few beers, go fishing or biking or walking). Then he returns the favour and takes the kids out for the afternoon another day (or lets Her do something by herself). We did this a LOT when we were away.
One family with little ones found a version that solved two problems at once:
When our kids were really little and we were travelling we would go on a solo expedition. i.e. I would visit whatever attraction we wanted to see one day and he would visit the next. It gave us both time out, a chance to interact with other people and less stress.
Note what they said there — a chance to interact with other people. That matters more than you’d think, and it’s easy to miss when you’re focused on getting physical space.
Everyone finds their own escape hatch
The forms this takes are wonderful, and worth reading purely for the reassurance that whatever yours turns out to be, it’s normal.
My husband did the Australian tour of Bunning’s stores. It was his time out. A break from everyone and time for him to wander around in peace. I think he thought that his fishing time might be that, but the kids always wanted to join him then.
That last line will land for a lot of people. The activity you assumed would be your quiet time is very often the one the kids most want in on.
Daddy alone time every day is what saves us. He has a kayak and he goes for a fish, or a bike ride if we aren’t near the water.
It’s OK to do something’s by yourself – I went for a run from time to time and my husband did something’s by himself also!
And our favourite, because it’s so practical it’s almost sneaky:
I found that I could spend a few hours at the end of each leg going over the whole rig and finding things to fix, tighten, adjust, clean, change or prod. This is essential anyway, and it made sure we had no surprises and I got a bit of time to myself.
Maintenance you have to do anyway, doubling as an hour nobody will interrupt. If you’re the one who looks after the rig, that’s your window.
A routine holds the whole thing together
Almost every family who said things were going well had some shape to their day — not a rigid timetable, just a rhythm that meant nobody was negotiating from scratch every morning.
We had a routine e.g. I showered the girls whilst he did the dishes . Kids stuff in the afternoon and adult stuff in the morning.
One family whose partner had been working away gave us the fullest picture of what a day can look like:
We had a routine most days, except for driving days. Morning was school time, he took the older child for one on one. I had the youngest we occasionally swapped depending on the work. In the afternoon, kids would watch a DVD or chill and hubby had his own couple of hours too. Our kids always went to bed early and still do giving us one on one time round the fire or under the stars.
Look at how much that one routine is quietly doing. Each child gets one-on-one attention. Each adult gets a couple of hours. And the early bedtime buys the two of you an evening.
Which brings up something several families mentioned independently — splitting the kids up between you isn’t just crowd control:
Also good to split kids between you, so you have quality one on one time with each child, teaching new things, learning more about the individual personalities, delving into personal interests etc.
If one of you has been working away, expect a bigger jolt
This came up often enough to deserve its own warning. Families where one parent had been FIFO, on a roster, or simply out of the house from dawn to dark are making a much larger adjustment than they realise — and so are the kids.
If hubby was not home a lot before travelling, it can be a big adjustment with the whole family together 24/7. Give yourselves both time for yourself. Talk about when and how would work for you all.
We went from hubby working away on a roster of 26/9 then together everyday. He and I were fine but kids were killing us. Laid down the ground rules real fast. Now in our 5th month and all going well.
Notice which relationship strained there. It wasn’t the marriage — it was the parenting. A parent who hasn’t been doing the daily discipline suddenly doing it full-time, with kids who aren’t used to it, is a predictable friction point. The families who got through it did the same thing: named it early and set the rules together.
One family found the answer was not to go all-in at all:
We do a working trip so that one of us is always working and the kids go to school where possible. I find this keeps everyone sane and it also prolongs your trip. You also make external contacts which I find is essential for traveling sanity.
The hard conversations get harder to dodge
This is the most honest answer anyone gave us, and it’s worth sitting with:
We certainly have this issue, some days are honestly not very much fun. Taking time apart is useful as are those hard conversations about how the family is progressing. Most people want to be good parents (don’t we?!?) time in a caravan can force you to confront things in your family that’s easier to ignore when there’s more space. Think of it as flooding family therapy.
Time in a caravan can force you to confront things in your family that’s easier to ignore when there’s more space.
That’s true, and it’s not really a warning. A big house lets you avoid things almost indefinitely. A caravan doesn’t. Whatever you were stepping around at home is going to be sitting in the van with you.
Most families find that’s ultimately a good thing. It just doesn’t feel like one at the time.
And there’s a healthy dose of perspective in this one:
We all have bad days sometimes that’s what makes us appreciate the good one. Remember we have good days and bad days back home too.
You’d have had rotten days this year anyway. Having one in a caravan doesn’t mean the caravan caused it.
It’s also fine — normal, even — to need to send someone off for a bit:
We work really hard on making sure we communicate and I have been known to send hubby away if he’s getting unreasonably short with the kids (or with me).
What actually happens to couples out here
People will tell you travelling together will test your marriage. They’re right. What they usually get wrong is which way it goes.
Everyone thought we’d end up divorced choosing to live on the road, but it was the best we’ve ever got along. Now been back home for 2 years and the cracks are showing. We wish we were once again a family together 24/7! We all hate it being back in the house.
We’ve read that one a lot of times and it still gets us. The trip wasn’t the hard part. Coming home was.
And this, which we’d put on a fridge magnet if we could:
My man has no tolerance or patience but we seem to get along better together than apart.
One more, from a family three years in:
We’ve always said it would make or break us…three years on and life is good.
What we’d say
- Have the conversation before you go. Not a vague one — an actual conversation about what each of you needs, how often, and what it looks like. It is a great deal easier to agree on a day each while you’re still in the kitchen than to negotiate it in a caravan park at week five.
- Give it three months before you judge it. Six weeks minimum, eight to twelve is common. If you’re miserable in week three, you are exactly where everyone else was in week three.
- Build the alone time in, don’t wait for it. Set up camp early. Take turns with the kids. Let someone wander a hardware store for an hour if that’s genuinely what does it for them.
- Talk to people who aren’t your family. More than one family named this as the thing that turned it around. You’re not only short on solitude out here — you’re short on other adults.
- Take it a day at a time. As one TAWKer put it: “The best thing is both to have some time alone. Guys really struggle sometimes with the adjustment of always being around the family together 24/7. Just take it a day at a time.”
The families who struggle aren’t the ones who find it hard at first. Everyone finds it hard at first. They’re the ones who assumed it wouldn’t be, and took the hard bit as a sign.
And the other close-quarters question everyone asks but nobody asks out loud? We’ve collected the answers to how families keep romance alive on the road.
Still at the convincing stage — with a partner, or with everyone else’s opinions? That’s a whole other conversation, and we’ll get to it.
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