What is WeXploreTravel all About?

 

Back in 1995 my then-girlfriend, now wife, and I travelled overseas to Thailand, Nepal and India. This trip sowed the seeds of discovery as it opened my eyes to a completely alternate world to the one I grew up in and had left. It challenged me to accept difference and that people live happy lives in different ways, environments, customs and social settings.

However, it was the children, especially of India, who had an endless line of questions full of fascination and intrigue about my country, one of which I quickly realised I had seen very little of. The fuse of discovery had been lit.

Arriving back home in Australia after this trip it was quickly realised that a 9-5 lifestyle was going to be tough.

It wasn’t long before the next adventure was underway, a trip around Australia largely inspired by those Indian children. One year turned into five which turned into a lifestyle.

Broome in the North West of Australia eventually became home and trips were always being undertaken into the wild and remote places of Australia’s North West.

Eventually kids of our own came along however the desire to explore and wander did not leave us. Instead of stopping and saying it was too hard we modified and travelling continued kids in tow.

The kids, they don’t know any different. It’s a life they were born into, one which they think is normal, and would be crazy to think of without. Travel has shaped them.

Roaming Australia’s North West, large parts of Western Australia and Australia while the kids were really young not only taught us a lot about ourselves and what could be achieved it made us question and challenge the boundaries.

Five years in the making and planning 2019 saw us undertake our biggest and most ambitious trip to date. A one-year, 12-month RV road trip to the United States.

By trip’s end we had visited 42 states, driven 100,000 kilometres, met thousands of people and had the absolute time of our lives. Our kids, nine and seven at the time, learnt so much gaining perspectives on life that they just would never have got otherwise.

Fast forward to 2022 and we are spending a year on a tropical island in the Indian Ocean, still an Australian territory however much closer to Indonesia, we are on Christmas Island. By the time our year is up, we would have immersed ourselves thoroughly in all aspects of the island’s life.

When we travel we are seeking experience, an alternative to what we perceive as normal, to challenge our way of thinking and to become aware that the world and its people are more than the bubble of everyday life.

Nature and wild places remind me to look at the bigger picture. When we visit them we feel we are getting back to nature rather than getting away from it all.

It’s my hope that all the travel we do, especially with the kids, opens their eyes, breaks down prejudices and empowers them to question and challenge what they see on TV as not always correct because they have experienced otherwise.

As they grow hopefully we have instilled a sense of curiosity in them to explore and become storytellers themselves of their own adventure