Swapping routines for road trips: Meet the women travelling across Australia solo

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When you think of people on road trips around Australia, your first thought might be backpackers, families doing a lap with their kids, or a retired couple of 'grey nomads' whose kids have flown the nest, but these women are changing all that.

"For me, it’s like swapping routines for road trips and responsibilities for relaxation. It's a sense of curiosity and a desire for freedom. When I’m home, I’m putting others first, I’m raising families, looking after people, but when I get away on the road, it’s my time."

Ten years ago, Michelle Lang, a dental technician from Sydney, thought to herself, "Why wait?", she'd wanted to go travelling and as her two children were getting older and more independent, she wanted to start taking the opportunity to travel.

Within a year she had set up a group for women travelling by themselves, Rolling Solos, and organised a major annual event attended by more than 500 people, with it becoming her full-time job eight years ago.

"At first, I just started going on short trips on my own," says Michelle, 51. "I like the freedom it gives me. I don’t have to cook meals, I don’t have to plan out people’s school clothes for the next day or do school runs. I can sleep in, I can wake up early, I can stay up late, I can stop where I want to stop and if I don’t want to stop there, I go some other place. 

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"For me, it's just about wanting to explore and start living now. I didn’t want to wait until I was in my sixties to start travelling."

Increasingly, more Australian women like Michelle are setting out on their own, heading off around the country in a caravan, camper, or perhaps even just their car and a tent in search of adventure, personal growth and new horizons.

New research from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) has shown many women, particularly those over sixty, are hitting the road solo instead of waiting for the "right time" to travel with someone else, embracing the fear and doing it anyway.

Older women are going on road trips solo

"For many of these women, this isn't just about travel," says Margaret Yates, a PhD candidate from the Faculty of Health and retired nurse who interviewed 29 women travellers to explore their motivations and experiences. 

"It's about developing self-knowledge and self-confidence, experiencing the new and unknown, and taking control of their life and decisions, often after years of caring for others.”

Yates said the decision to start a new life on the road takes courage and resolve, and is often made in the face of considerable opposition from friends and family, who question whether the women can manage alone.

Terry Talty chose to hit the open road for herself five years ago and has never looked back. 

The mum-of-three from the Gold Coast, now 65, says she was "existing, not living" and it was time to do something for herself.

"I was in business for myself as an accountant and I had just been doing the same job since I was 17. All of a sudden I realised I had just hit a brick wall," Terry says.

"So I politely said, 'bugger it', put the business on the market and went full-time on the road."

Terry, unlike some other travellers Drive spoke to, doesn't keep a home base, instead hooking her Isuzu MU-X up to a caravan and going where the wind takes her with the main goal just to get out there and see Australia.

"I have, over the last 15 years, done a few little overseas trips and had some cruises and I thought, 'Well, while I’m still young enough and fit enough, I’d like to travel Australia'. I go wherever the roads take me basically," she says.

"I’ve been everywhere. When I left, I headed up to Townsville and then went west. I ended up doing the dinosaur trail, right up to the top. I went up to Normanton and did the train, and back down through the middle to Kings Canyon, went to Coober Pedy, Port Augusta, across the Nullarbor, everywhere."

Kerry Byrne, 71, left on her adventure across Australia four years ago after retiring from her job as a waitress at the local pub in Normanville, SA, and her son, now 28, went to university in Adelaide. 

"I just love gypsy life. I love it. It’s just great," says Kerry, who travels around the country in her 1976 travel home endearingly named 'Alice' towed by her Toyota Kluger.

"Everybody says, 'Don’t you miss going with somebody else?' There are lots of people out there who are married who wouldn’t go without their partner. Whereas I think you can get out on your own and if you like your own company to start with, which I do, I love my own company, you don't have to argue with anybody else.

"I've seen some amazing places and met some amazing people. It’s gorgeous. I’m not one of those grey nomads – well, I don’t think of myself as a grey nomad. I certainly look like one, but I’m climbing mountains that some people my age wouldn’t even think about doing.

"I went to Tasmania on the ferry with Alice on the back and climbed Cradle Mountain, it was fantastic.

"The longest I've been away at once is about six months before coming home again. I remember the first time I went around Western Australia – I got up to the Pilbara, and I did a lot of things on my bucket list up there. I went swimming with whale sharks and took a flight over the Horizontal Falls, a flight over Lake Argyle and The Bungle Bungles – that was amazing. There’s always two bits going on the bucket list for the one you’ve just taken off."

Kathy Young, 53, decided it was finally time to go travelling on road trips for herself two years ago after separating from her husband. Her children had grown up and so she rented out her house and set off around Australia with the goal of working odd jobs to keep her going and to meet people along the way.

"My initial thought was just to go travelling during my holidays, and then I did a road trip over to Perth, did a 10-day trip in the last two weeks of May," says Kathy from north-east Victoria.

"The first week was beautiful, 26 degrees. And then the second week – it’s vivid in my mind – it was 21 degrees at Perth Airport, and it was pouring rain, but it was still warm. When I got back home, I was living alone, so no one had been in my house for two weeks and it was minus six overnight.

"I couldn’t warm the house up. And I just thought, 'Stuff this, what am I doing?' So I went travelling. Now's the time, my kids are grown up and independent, I haven't got any grandkids yet and I'm also just young enough to enjoy the experience and be active and do things."

While some of the women Drive spoke to have set off once they'd retired, Kathy decided she wanted to work her way around the country, seeing and exploring Australia differently, staying anywhere from six weeks to a few months.

"I have done a lot of different jobs in my career, mainly just because I had casual part-time jobs working around the kids and school hours. That set me up for just being able to do whatever jobs come along," she says.

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"Part of why I want to travel is not just to see Australia, but also to meet different people, do different jobs and experience life in those areas. I’ve done; retail, front of house, waitressing, cafe work, cleaning motels, cleaning caravan parks."

Kathy originally started off travelling with a hybrid – a cross between a caravan and a camper – but now tows a caravan with her Isuzu D-Max ute. The caravan has both a shower and toilet ensuite which is useful for when she's working, though she prefers to free camp when she's not.

According to Margaret Yates' UTS research, solo female travellers often find friendship along their way at campgrounds and rest stops, sharing tips, stories, and support – something mum-of-two Michelle found in abundance after her first big trip to Port Douglas.

Finding friendship on road trips

"As much as I love travelling on my own and doing what I want to, I started thinking it’d be lovely to catch up and make friends along the way or stop at different towns and say, 'Hey, you want to grab a coffee or watch the sunrise, go for a walk or grab dinner or something?',” says Michelle, who travels with either a six-berth motorhome with a Toyota Yaris behind or tows a caravan with a Ford Ranger.

"And when I got back home from the trip, I thought, 'Wouldn’t it be great if I could create an event that we could all see each other sometime?'

"When I got back home from that road trip, I started working on creating a membership, so people who were interested in going to events going forward could be involved. It was our community."

While Facebook is full of groups of like-minded travellers swapping notes and sharing stories, Michelle created Rolling Solos as a private entity to avoid scammers who target the social media platform, and also as a way of keeping members safe. 

The membership of Rolling Solos covers a wide breadth of ages, though most women are in their 60s or 70s.

"There are ladies who are divorced, who never married, who've lost their husbands and just wanted to keep travelling and wanted to find a way to do that. Some people have partners and they’re really happy to support and encourage them to go on trips with the ladies – there’s a real mix," says Michelle.

"They are looking for a bit of adventure and connection because it's harder to make friends as you get older and you lose the social circles like school and sport. And then also ladies who are going through maybe a change in life, change in direction, that sort of thing. And then people who are just thinking, 'Why wait, why am I waiting for a partner to come along?'

"They’re just a fun bunch. They just want to get out there and experience life and explore and do things on their own time in their way. Some have big vans, some have just a tent and a car, but they just get out there any way they can.

"A lot of them have said, 'I don’t know where I’d be if I hadn’t joined Rolling Solo. They go to each other’s houses for Christmas and get to know each other’s kids and grandkids. It became bigger than me.

"There’s always someone around to have a coffee with or share travel tips. It just happens when you’re in a travelling situation. People are kind of in a good mood and they want to be out there. So communicating with others seems to be a lot easier."

Kathy too said one of the highlights of her travels has been the people she has met along the way.

"The people I have met has been one of the best things; especially when free camping because you meet like-minded people who are just out there enjoying life and just want to have a chat and hear your stories and so forth," says Kathy.

"And seeing Australia itself – it's just such a beautiful, diverse country. One thing that’s been a real eye-opener is realising that each state is so different, and even life within each state is very diverse."

While Terry admits she enjoys her own company and that of her 12-year-old chihuahua, Paco, who joins her on the road, she also loves connecting with the strangers she meets too.

"I’m going to say at times it does get lonely, but I’m not alone," she says.

"If I pull up to do a free camp somewhere I might see another couple and have a chat – they've probably got a dog and I’ve got the dog and we just get talking, have a drink and ask what's your story."

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According to Yates, increased financial independence, improved healthcare – including telehealth options, and shifting perceptions of aging – have opened doors for women to explore more unconventional lifestyles, with the COVID-19 pandemic especially prompting many to reassess their priorities.

Challenges of life on the road alone

Of course, though, where there are pros, there are often cons, and there are some real challenges to living the solo road trip life.

While the women in the UTS study said they generally felt very safe, difficulties such as; vehicle breakdowns, patchy phone reception, and being isolated in remote areas did crop up from time to time – but most found the obstacles empowering rather than discouraging.

"I think you’ve got to do your homework to start with. I have the RAA's premium membership, which means if anything goes wrong with the car and the van – and things have gone wrong – I can ring them throughout Australia and they will send out someone to come and help me out," says Kerry.

"I take a lot of safety options on the way around. I very rarely put air in the tyres on my car or my caravan myself. I’ll always call into a tyre-replacement place in a little town where I’m travelling at least once a week and just get them to check it out for me.

"When I stay in free camps, I've also got a rule for myself. If I'm there on my own, I won’t actually set up until somebody else has arrived, and if they haven’t arrived by 4 pm, then I’ll take off for a caravan park."

With a father for a mechanic, Terry says she knows how to carry out many basic repairs.

"The batteries have died in the caravan, I've had a flat battery but I know how to jumpstart that, I know how to change an oil filter and an air filter in the car. I'm pretty resourceful," she says,

"For things that are not too difficult, I would say someone could just go and do a basic mechanical course. One thing I did was a towing course.

"I don’t put myself in places where it’s going to be dangerous, I will look around and see who’s there and who’s not there."

"I think the challenge that we all face is that we don’t have someone we can ask to hold a jack while you do something else or ask what’s wrong with the van. You don't have that second voice next to you, you’re actually on your own and you need to figure it out," adds Michelle.

"You have to know your car or your vehicle and your set-up before you go. If you’re going to head off to the red centre and not know anything about your vehicle or how to manage it or how to get help if you do need it, then I would say just wait, get a bit more experience and then do it. That’s probably one of the only drawbacks I can think of. 

"There’s breakdowns and things, but once you get through one, you kind of trust yourself and you back yourself a bit more.

"It's also a common misconception that you need heaps of money to do it and you don’t. Lots of women travel on a budget.

"Trust yourself. Don’t overthink it. There’ll never be a perfect time. The most important thing I reckon I’ve probably learned from all my solo travels is that I’m far more capable than I ever gave myself credit for. 

"You can be at home and think about all the what ifs, 'what if I get lost, what if I break down?' I’ve had flat tyres and made wrong turns. I’ve had moments where I’ve doubted myself, but each time I’ve figured it out, and with every challenge I’ve overcome, my confidence has grown. 

"Travel teaches you to trust yourself to embrace the unknown and find joy in the simple things like waking up to the sounds of the ocean or seeing an amazing sunset."

"Probably the thing that would be common with everyone travelling solo is the process of setting up everything by yourself. I love that I’m independent and capable of doing all myself. But then also, sometimes it’d be nice just to have somebody else help you and also to do life with" says Kathy. 

"Going travelling I've pushed myself out of my comfort zone and discovered who I am again."

The post Swapping routines for road trips: Meet the women travelling across Australia solo appeared first on Drive.