Heading over to Tassie with the Trip In A Van family raised many questions from our community! How do we know them? Do they always get free shit? What are they like? How do they get sponsorships? Did you pay for them? Was it all a promotional tour?

It was quite amusing to us to find that there was so much interest in our adventure including one of the most popular and well known travelling families on the road.  As many of you know, Caravanning with Kids is a platform that supports ALL families, caravanners and campers who love the lifestyle and creating memories that will last forever…we do this through our websites, our Aussie made Travel Journals, our shop, eNewsletters, FREE Digital Magazines , our Aussie Big Lappers Facebook Group and attending the caravan industry shows and events.

It was at one of these shows back in October 2016 that we met Justin from Trip In A Van.  They were just finishing their first lap and Jurgens Caravans had asked him to attend the Melbourne Leisurefest Caravan Show to chat with families about their caravan.  He popped around to our stand to say G’day and introduce himself.  After being on the road for a year, we had loads of questions for him and I was fascinated with his story.  The way he spoke about his young family, living on the road, the places they have seen, the caravanning lifestyle and the memories they had created sent chills down my spine.  Here was a guy that was PASSIONATE! Here was a guy that had seen Australia and given his young family an incredible adventure…an adventure that he did not want to stop.  I remember saying to Wayne, “this family will go places!!”.  We swapped details and stayed in touch – Caravanning with Kids was there if they needed anything and a friendship was formed.

For those of you that follow Trip In A Van…and there are now over 100,000 of you on Facebook and Instagram…you will know that they funded their first lap.  They saved and saved and saved and saved for years, they sold up and they headed off.  They took a leap of faith, a very planned leap, but still bloody scary.  They did what thousands of Aussie families are doing every year.  They planned their Lap of Oz…They budgeted…They DID IT!

They wanted to keep going…

Back in 2016, Justin was getting messages from brands wanting to work with him and his family.  This was all very new and exciting and they were all chuffed.  They had put so much work and effort into creating ripper videos and taking cool photos.  They loved sharing this with their growing followers and the fact that brands were noticing the quality of their content was both humbling and rewarding.  This was where their Lap of Oz Adventure turned into a job!

Gaining sponsorships & becoming Ambassadors and aligning with brands does not come easy, the work and commitment involved is intense.  Justin and Bec are smart cookies, they understood this and made plans to do their 2^nd lap and work along the way.  Living on the road full time and working on content  with brands is a juggle, especially with 3 little firecrackers in tow.  There is no office to go to and no water cooler to chat next to.  Their profile was building and by the start of 2017 they were well on their way to becoming full time Travel Bloggers.  With Brands contacting them every week, I asked Justin how they chose WHO to work with. “Easy mate – if we like it, use it or believe in it, we will consider it – if we think it’s shit, then we have to say no.  We won’t promote products or services to our loyal followers that are rubbish!”  Enter Mazda – a fantastic relationship and one of their first alignments was born.

Justin and Bec became online friends and colleagues – they love our products and joined our Affiliate program, we chatted online about caravanning, life, work, kids and everything inbetween.  These guys were authentic, natural and all round good people.  Over a few beers in Feb 2017 at the Melbourne Supershow, we chatted with Justin about our plans to Discover Tasmania and after a few more beers we said “You guys should come along!”.  After a few more beers, Justin was messaging Bec to let her know we were all heading to Tassie in Jan 2018.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQ4yFs6AWMd/?taken-by=caravanningwithkids

Fast forward and we both had the BEST time in Tassie (check out our FREE Tour of Tassie eMag here) – we had planned to go over on the Spirit together and then do our own thing – but ended up getting along so well that we spent the first 3 weeks on and off together.  A unique opportunity for us to see how bloody hard this young family works!

Filming in Tassie

We have spoken to a few families who have questioned how ‘real’ it all is? Can they really have that much fun? Can the places that stay at really be that good? Is everything really that “EPIC”?  We have always loved and laughed at their instagram stories when the kids cracked it or things didn’t go well.  Working with your kids around is hard work in itself, but they handle the juggle well, they remain positive and they find places they stay and see really are “EPIC”.  They ooze FUN and positiveness in real life as well as on your screens! So, YES – what you see is really how they are!

So, that brings us to the truth about Trip In A Van:

• They are full time Travel Bloggers who earn an income from creating awesome content and promoting brands that they love and believe in. They are Travel Writers, submitting articles to numerous publications across Australia.  This all happened after they enjoyed their first year on the road.
• They don’t get “Free Shit!” – we are often amused by the amount of messages they get about this – people thinking they get Free Shit and are on a FREE holiday! They WORK and they work bloody hard.  Yes, they have the best office in the world!
• They don’t have a photographer with them! They produce all their own content and spend hours editing and researching to make their articles and videos visually awesome and informative.
• “They are so lucky!” – To work with a spectacular back drop is amazing, but we are pretty sure there was not much ‘luck’ involved. More hard work than luck – like all of us that create our own success.

Thank you so much to all of you that sent us messages about our Tassie adventure with TIAV, and to all the families that stopped by to say G’day.  You all ROCK!

Please don’t hesitate to drop us a line, we are here to assist and help families who are our LIVING and enjoying our wonderful country ~ Cheers Adele & Wayne

TASSIE ITINERARY is here!

You might be interested in this one: The other side of Travel Blogging….

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