I never planned on driving a Lap of Australia. It wasn’t something I set out to do. But on 18 March, I arrived back in Sydney and finished driving around the entire country of Australia! This is one of the greatest achievements of my life, and I genuinely can’t believe I actually did the damn thing!!

 

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A post shared by Maja Proescholdt | Travel Blogger (@awaywithmaja)

Life feels like it’s moving about a million miles an hour right now – I fly to New Zealand in less than a week! – but I wanted to take some time to reflect back on this journey. It’s been the adventure of a lifetime, and I’m so proud of what I’ve done!

You can make anything happen if you really want to – you have the power.

I truly had no intention of driving a whole Lap of Australia when I first left Sydney. I actually had no plan when I flew to Sydney in the first place. But I knew I wanted to travel, and I worked really hard to set myself up for lots of different opportunities. I’d been saving money for YEARS for an Aussie adventure. So, with a good chunk of money in my savings account, a tiny amount of income trickling in from my blog, and a car I could travel/live in cheaply, I decided to hit the road.

I made this happen. I made a plan, I budgeted hard, I drove 36,000km, I did this. I am not extraordinary, I am a normal person who had a dream of an Australian adventure. So, I think this just demonstrates that if you want something bad enough, you really can make anything happen. YOU have the power to change your life, accomplish your goals, and make shit happen. If you want it badly enough, you can make it happen.

You can’t depend on anyone but yourself.

This was a solo journey. I did this on my own. I depended on no one else but myself. Over the course of the year, I can’t even begin to tell how many times I was let down and disappointed by others. Friends who said they were going to come travel with me – they never booked a flight, they never showed up. The work exchange I planned a month with – they sent me packing with five days’ notice for a weird mixture of reasons, meaning I had an extra two weeks to plan and budget for. Rolling my car and becoming legitimately homeless in Exmouth, WA – no one could help me figure out my life and what to do, I had to do it myself. I am independent to a fault, but this journey reinforced that I am the way I am for a reason. I would rather take care of myself all on my own, then depend on others just to be let down.

No matter how much you plan, things can and will change.

I am a master planner extraordinaire – I love planning everything out, I always have a plan. But driving a Lap of Australia proved to me that regardless of my plans, life will do what it wants. Who would have thought I’d total my car and end up stranded and homeless? That was definitely not in my plans! I didn’t expect the road in and out of Karijini to close due to a big car accident while I was there. This meant I couldn’t leave Karijini the day I had planned, and ended up staying another few days and completely changing my route because of the road closure. I’d planned two months in Tasmania, one month on a work exchange and one traveling. I had to change that plan after the car crash, and spent a month housesitting in Adelaide instead. I skipped the Devil’s Marbles in the NT because of a bushfire, and the risk of getting stuck/trapped. I had to miss out on so many hikes due to bad weather that would have made them dangerous.

As a planner, this journey around Australia humbled me. For an adventure like this, you are totally at the mercy of things outside your control: weather, car mechanisms, visa politics. I planned so well. But, at the end of the day, life will always take its own course.

I’ll never take the little things in life for granted ever again.

How many times have a cried over not having a fridge this year?! Traveling in a minimalist style and living out of my car for 11 months absolutely changed me. I will never take anything for granted, ever again: being able to eat refrigerated food, clean sheets, good weather, access to drinking water, a safe place to sleep, a healthy body, drawers to unpack my clothes, reliable transport, wifi and phone signal, plugs, being able to charge my phone at night… the list goes on.

Driving a Lap of Australia on a budget meant that I was roughing it for months at a time. I appreciate so many simple pleasures and little things in life more than ever. I will never take them for granted ever again.

Long-term solo travel can be very lonely.

I love traveling solo, and I’ve been doing it for over a decade now. Being alone does not mean you are lonely – it’s one of the most common misconceptions about solo travel. But, over time, you can and will feel lonely. I experienced a lot of loneliness at the start of 2024, as I left Adelaide, road tripped through “popular Australia” on the Great Ocean Road, and went to Tasmania. If it wasn’t me, and I wasn’t as strong or experienced as I am, the loneliness would have been truly debilitating. I can’t count the number of amazing moments that were marred by the overwhelming feeling of I wish I had someone with me to share this with. Or how many times I was so exhausted, and thought I wish had someone to help me – whether that was simply cooking a meal or planning the next camp spot.

And then, there’s the pure isolation of traveling in Australia. There were so many times that I felt lonely because I was SO ALONE. Sleeping alone in my car, in the bush, 200km from the nearest gas station and God knows how many km to the nearest town, with no phone signal and no way to contact anyone. Australia is a BIG country, and there were times during my Lap where I didn’t have a real conversation with a real person for DAYS. Not having phone signal and being able to contact anyone during these times was so hard. Traveling through different timezones and being so far ahead of most of my friends and family – not being able to receive a response to a message for 8+ hours because they’re sleeping – was so shit. It’s so fucking hard.

And then, there’s the worst kind of loneliness on the road – when you meet amazing people, and have to leave them. This is truly the hardest part of long-term travel. While I’m so grateful for how many wonderful friends I’ve made over the last year, having to part ways was so heartbreaking at times. It was a physical, visceral, reaction – a truly emotional rollercoaster. The mental and emotional struggles of driving a solo Lap of Australia were so difficult.

I lost a lot of people in my life this year.

I try not to focus on it, because it’s sad, and it hurts. But I had so many people walk out of my life this year. And it wasn’t just one or two – the end of April, when I hit the road, felt like a mass exodus. People I thought would always be there, weren’t. Each situation is different, so I can’t pinpoint what exactly it is – besides that the common denominator was me, traveling and living my best life.

But while I lost a lot of people, I also gained so many new friendships. And I am so extraordinarily fucking grateful for the new friends I’ve made, and for the friends who have stuck by me this last year. I wouldn’t have been able to do it without them.

The kindness of strangers is second to none.

I can’t even count how many strangers helped me at some point on my Lap. The people who helped me in the immediate aftermath of my car crash and subsequent homelessness in WA. The Instagram friends who I’d never met before, but who gave me a (free) place to stay for weeks at a time. The German couple who repaired my tire for me when I got a puncture alone, 16km up a winding unsealed mountain road in Mount Field National Park. Hayley, who gave me a hug when I was crying after getting my car stuck on day five of my adventure, and ended up becoming one of my best friends. The friendly grey nomads who chatted with me at free camps – who, I know, kept an extra eye on me overnight to make sure I was safe. The random woman I asked to take a bunch of pictures of me in Sydney after I finished my Lap (including the one above)! I can’t keep listing them, because it was so frequent. When I had no one, strangers showed up for me.

Most of the people in the world are good people. It’s just the few bad ones who ruin it. And Australians are, truly, some of the greatest people in the world. Laid back, friendly, welcoming, honest – they will literally break their back for a stranger. I will be indebted to the people of Australia for the rest of my life, because of the adventure they gave me this year.

Thank you to everyone who helped me on the road.

So many people have helped me on my Lap of Australia, I couldn’t even begin to start listing them all. Whether it was helping me with my car, giving me a place to stay, giving me a hug, hanging out with me at a campsite for a night, sharing food or beers, having a chat, or just sending me a message – thank you. From the bottom of my heart, I needed it, and I am so grateful. Most people I’ve met, I’ve stayed connected with on Instagram – please always stay in touch!

And last but not least, I wanna thank me.

You actually thought I’d write this post without quoting the one and only Snoop Dogg?! Yes, there’s a lot of people I can thank for my Lap of Australia. But, I wanna thank ME. I wanna thank me for believing in me, I wanna thank me for putting in all this hard work, I wanna thank me for having no days off, I wanna thank me for never quitting. I DID THIS. No one else made this happen – I did. I hustled, I worked hard, I budgeted and managed my money, I drove every one of those 36,000km, I problem solved constantly, I created itineraries and plans, I made this dream come true.

I drove a Lap of Australia alone – no one else did that for me. And that’s why it will be the greatest accomplishment of my life.

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So, here’s to the adventure of a lifetime in the Land Down Under!

Thank you for following along on the journey – and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for me on my next adventure in New Zealand!

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Moving to Oz on a Working Holiday Visa: How to Start Your Life in Australia

How to Get a Work and Holiday Visa (WHV 462) for Australia in 2023

My Top Solo Road Trip Safety Tips

My Top Travel Experiences of 2023

My Worst Travel Moments of 2023

All of my Australia posts!