Tradie couple 'sell everything' for endless 4WD and caravan trip: 'We'll never go back'

More than four years ago, Mal, 53, and Cathy, 54, “sold everything” and packed up their 4WD truck named Chuggers and their caravan. With some nerves and $10,000 in the bank, the tradie couple backed out of their rental home’s driveway on the Sunshine Coast and headed west.

“We had been thinking of doing it for a while,” Mal told Yahoo of their decision to become nomads. “It was a long time coming.”

Ever since, the pair have been travelling and working across Australia’s east coast, picking up odd jobs along the way to fund their adventures.

“We work when we need to, and then we have a break and go do some sightseeing, and then when we’re getting low on cash again we just find [another job],” the carpenter said.

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The 'travelling chippy and his tradie chicky' head west

The couple first pulled into Jundah — a rural town south of Longreach in Queensland’s southwest — in their “eye-catching” 22-year-old 4WD truck emblazoned with a logo reading “the travelling chippy and his tradie chicky”.

There they worked as caretakers on a 350,000-acre cattle station, doing "a little bit of everything" including cooking, gardening, mustering and feeding animals.

After a few months, “the local postie who lives 90km down the road” told Mal and Cathy about another job up for grabs in Yaraka — a town with a population of just 14 people.

“We managed the pub out there. I was actually the cook and Cathy was in her element socialising behind the bar,” Mal told Yahoo. “It ended up being an experience of a lifetime. We both loved it tremendously.”

Following the hotel’s “silly season”, the couple “went on the tools” and “hopped around to different stations” in the area for three years before wandering south along the coast and landing in Tasmania.

Caravanning couple vow to keep travelling: 'No end date'

Mal and Cathy, who also sell healthcare products at various markets to help supplement their income, have now been living in Tasmania for a year and are currently house and dog-sitting in Port Arthur.

Finding work has been pretty easy thanks to “word of mouth”, the chippy said. “Once you are known in the community, it just flows.”

Next, the travelling tradies plan on helping an elderly woman with upkeep at a nearby bush camp before driving to Western Australia — with no plans of halting their new transient lifestyle any time soon.

“Being on the road did take a little bit of getting used to, but both of us have agreed that we will never go back to what everyone calls normal life,” Mal said, noting the “life-changing experiences” and friends they have made along the way.

“There is no end date. [We’ll do this] until we can’t, I suppose. It’s beautiful.”

The couple certainly aren't alone, with a growing number of young and middle aged Australians deciding to throw away a normal working routine for life on the road.

“The younger markets are definitely surging” as more young Australians and young families take life on the road, a spokesperson from the Caravan Industry Association of Australia told Yahoo this week.

In fact the 30-45 age group emerged as the dominant force in caravan and camping travel in 2023, undertaking nearly 7 million overnight trips, marking a new record.

Better connectivity through portable internet satellites and a taste for home schooling during the pandemic has seen a rising number of young workers and families take the plunge and adopt a nomadic lifestyle across the Australian continent.

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