Gavin & Tracey Murray
What’s the only thing cooler than living in a converted Bedford bus motorhome full-time? Living in a converted Bedford bus motorhome with a yellow Mini Moke tucked inside, of course!
Gavin and Tracey Murray say the car only takes up about a meter of the length of the motorhome, with the majority of it being hidden underneath the queen sized bed. They love the convenience of having a small vehicle to explore the area once they’ve settled in a campground. Check out the video below to see how it works:
The Murrays are heading into year 8 on the road, so they have plenty of amazing stories to share, some of which you can read below. Their backgrounds: Tracey is an operating theatre nurse and Gavin is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer who worked in the IT industry for 16 years, and prior to that was an electrician and electronics tech. They both hail from New Zealand, but have been in Australia since 2002.
In this interview you’ll read:
- how Gavin and Tracey make money online while traveling full-time
- what they do for phone and mobile internet throughout Australia
- their advice to would-be nomads
and a lot more, too. If you’re inspired by the Murray’s lifestyle and want to keep up with their adventures on the road, you can follow them at hobohome.com.
1. What was the initial inspiration for adopting a nomadic lifestyle?
Traveling Europe by campervan, 1992. Photo: Gavin Murray.
We had spent quite a lot of time exploring Europe in a small campervan and really enjoyed the freedom. When the opportunity to move to Australia came along (company move from NZ), we both decided that it would be great to work for a few years then explore the remote parts of the country in a motorhome. Due to some changes in circumstance and a small dose of impatience, the work for a few years part became a lot shorter. We had also been reading a blog (now gone) written by a couple living and travelling Australia in an old Bedford bus. This was a fascinating account of life on the road written in a uniquely Australian tone. Years later we met the writers, Mark and Belle, at a costal camp spot on the west coast, and were able to tell them of the influence that they had had on our choice of lifestyle.
2. I understand you fund your travels mainly through your web development business. How did you get that off the ground, and can you say a bit about the logistics of running a business from the road?
We have actually tried quite a few get rich slowly schemes – our aim was always to find something that we could do from almost anywhere and something that would provide a bit of mental stimulation. My background in IT motivated me to build our website when we first took to life on the road – this project took on a life of its own over time. It became quite a popular site and before long we were getting requests to build sites “just like Hobohome.com”. We now specialise in building low costs sites for small businesses and travellers with a focus on value for money and return on investment.
One of the major hurdles has been convincing people that a couple that live in a motorhome can provide a good quality service. It is hard to give the impression of stability and credibility when you have no fixed address. Connectivity is also an issue, we like to spend our time in remote parts of Australia, and most of these places have no phone coverage. Our satellite based Internet system and satellite phone has effectively resolved this issue.
3. Browsing Hobohome.com, my attention was caught by your mention of working as SCUBA instructors in Egypt and living in a castle in England! I believe that was before you had become full-time travelers, but just out of curiosity I’d love to know how you landed those jobs and what they entailed. Sounds like you’ve had some exciting times along the way!
The job at the castle of St Michaels Mount came along just after we arrived back in London (with about 200 pounds and a ticket home to our name). It was advertised in a small free newspaper and specifically requested a New Zealand or Australian couple to work as cook and houseman in the castle. Without any idea what being a houseman entailed, we applied and were selected for an interview with Lord and Lady St Levin. By the end of the interview, I still had very little idea about what was expected of the castle houseman … but got the job anyway. The Lord and Lady turned out to be wonderful, generous people and we continued to work for them for a year and a half. (btw – in case you are wondering, a houseman does everything from greeting visitors at the door to security and stoking the castle boilers).
Working in Egypt 1995. Photo: Gavin Murray
After our time at St Michaels Mount in Cornwall, we decided to look for something in a warmer climate. We are both SCUBA instructors (in fact that is how we met) and so wrote to nearly one hundred dive resorts in the Mediterranean and Red Seas. We were lucky in gaining a job as managers on a live-aboard dive boat based in Hurghada, Egypt. Interestingly, we later found out that we were hired not for our dive instructor qualifications (dive instructors are everywhere), but because I was an electrician and Tracey was a nurse. Running any sort of business in Egypt is a challenge and we both had some hard lessons to learn. I think the things that we learned in Egypt have prepared us very well for travelling in remote parts of Australia. Egypt is a wonderful place to visit and a great place to dive, but two years of working there was enough!
4. Back to your present day lifestyle…so far, what’s been the biggest challenge of traveling full-time and how have you overcome it?
photo: Gavin Murray
When we first left our fulltime jobs in Sydney, I really missed the corporate life and all the excitement and challenges that running a large IT department brought (not to mention the money).
Once we got used to the lifestyle and focused on relaxing and also developing our web design and hosting business, the memories of corporate lunches and Los Vegas business trips faded a little. I would not be being totally truthful if I said that I don’t miss the life at all – but the freedom and pleasure we get out of travelling wherever we want whenever we want is hard to beat.
5. What sorts of interesting people or communities have you come across in your travels?
We meet interesting (and strange) people quite often. I do remember meeting one family on the West Coast who were hard to forget. They travelled in a small van towing a boat. The tent they erected each night slept 7 of the 9 children – the two oldest boys had swags and Mum and Dad had their own small tent. The oldest child was 19 years and the youngest was born just 8 days before we met them in a rest stop just a few kilometres down the road. Now this may sound like a horror story, but every one of the children were well dressed, well-spoken and seemed to be very well educated. The cascade system care system the parents had put in place meant that the older children looked after the younger ones and Mum and Dad had very little to do other than supervise. It all seemed to work amazingly well.
When looking for a camp site, we met a wonderful Aboriginal man in a remote part of the Northern Territory. Toby insisted that we come and camp with the family on his land. They lived on a large block of land that had its own freshwater spring. The house that the government had built for the extended family (of about 12) was used to “store some stuff” and everybody just lived and slept outside. We ate with and were treated like, part of the family. They enjoyed hearing about the places we had been and we really enjoyed getting to know more about their way of life. We stayed with the family for 4 days and were made to promise a return visit one day.
6. What technology do you use on a regular basis? What provider do you use for internet access, and is it ever a problem staying connected?
From day one, economical communications was a challenge. 7 years ago when we moved into the bus, mobile internet cost a fortune. Thankfully we now have reliable broadband internet at a reasonable price. We use Telstra for both phone and mobile internet (when we are in area covered by their network) and Australian Nomad Technologies portable satellite system everywhere else. The combination of these two works very well. No network is larger than Telstras – but it still only covers about 10% of the land mass of Australia, and it is within the other 90% that the ANT system shines.
photo: Gavin Murray
7. Your bus is, well, impressive! I love that you have a car tucked away inside – that must give you a lot of flexibility. What kinds of improvements have you made to it since buying it in 2003? Any more tweaks planned in the near future?
Hobohome (the bus) was only the 3rd motorhome that we looked at before buying. It has been a really fantastic vehicle and has served us very well. We have spent the last 7 years doing small (and some large) improvements to it, and I am not sure we will ever stop making those small changes that make it that little bit more comfortable or robust.
8. Speaking of the future, what are your short and long-term plans? Do you see this nomadic lifestyle continuing indefinitely?
photo: Gavin Murray
Even after 7 years of traveling Australia in the bus, we still feel that there is a huge amount of Australia yet to explore. We try very hard not to plan, as we like to take things day by day. Recent changes to the bus have made it even more robust and given us the confidence to explore parts of the country that are even more remote. We would really like to seek out the hidden gems that lay well off the bitumen.
We would like to build a shed on some land that we own in Queensland, it would be so nice to have a proper workshop. Doing work on the vehicle in roadside stops is not always easy.
We plan to continue to build the web design and hosting business along with our own travel website.
While I would not go so far as to describe our lifestyle as perfect, I can tell you that we are both very happy living the way that we do … we think that once you have formula that works, it is just a case of sticking with it.
Finally, to those who might be considering a nomadic lifestyle similar to ours let me say, that far too many people leave it far too long. Don’t wait until you are too old to really enjoy it … get out there, it will be the best thing you have ever done. The hardest part of the entire process is simply making the decision to do it. I have never seen a headstone bearing the inscription “I wish I had spent more time at work”.
(end of interview)
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I want to help you find your calm center and experience travel with courage, curiosity and compassion.
Thankyou for sharing your story as we are now in the process of doing our own travel in a bedford bus similiar to your own rig.The kids are excited and it will be their first time to travel outside the northern territory. I never thought traveling outside our boundaries would have a big effect on the family and we can’t wait for this big moment to happen. Any idea on the fuel consumption and what places would you consider to see. Thankyou Gavin & Tracey for the amazing story.
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