Getting to know Letty Elspeth - Adventure Family
I recently had the pleasure of getting to know Letty Elspeth, a fellow adventure loving mumma! She tells us all about how her family travel with their little one.
Can you tell us a bit about you, your family and where you come from?
Hi there, we are a little family of three who live on the beautiful Sunshine Coast. And despite living in one of the most beautiful corners of Queensland and even Australia, we are a family who live for adventure, love to travel, and thrive being outdoors.
Our family consists of myself (Letty), my Husband Josh, and our toddler Hugo. Josh and I bonded over a mutual adoration of travel, in particular New Zealand, when we were at University many moons ago. Our relationship has been filled with lots of travel, with a month long trip to Italy right off the bat at only three months in.
We got married and fell pregnant during the pandemic, and spent the time exploring parts of Australia. We found ourselves basically state bound and ventured further north and explored Far North Queensland, and we loved it so much that it became an annual spring migration.
After the arrival of our little one, we knew that we didn’t want to stop adventuring. At first the trips were short, close to home and involved the luxuries of resorts and accommodations with the bells and whistles to help us on our way. Though at only four months old, we hit the road for a 7 hour road trip to camp in Central Queenslands Yeppoon to visit friends. Camped by the beach, in a Zempire tent, our little one slept through the night for the first time ever, and for multiple nights! So obviously we needed to keep camping…
We have taken our little family to New Zealand for a month-long road trip, to Flinders Ranges in South Australia, Vanuatu, as well as overnight hikes, and road trips closer to home.
While camping with our Zempire tent has been amazing, the multi-room kingdom takes a bit of time to set up and pack up. Recently we purchased a roof top tent with the goal of moving a little bit quicker, and saving time for things that are a little bit more fun. In our researching phase, and googling to see if we were pushing it too far camping in a roof top tent with a toddler we stumbled across Vinceventuring, and Monique was so kind as to answer a flood of questions. Moniques advice and warnings didn’t put us off, and we stumbled across the perfect set up for us and haven’t looked back.
We have enjoyed many camping trips with our Darche Hi-View rooftop tent since. Exploring from bush to beach with overnight to week long adventures. It has swiftly become one of our favourite and easiest ways of travel when adventuring not far from home.
How do you afford to travel as a family?
So how do we afford to travel as a family? What are ways that we squirrel away money to make for amazing memories to last a lifetime?
For us, saving for holidays and adventures starts in our day to day life before we even hit the road or the air. It comes from not relying on cafes for our daily caffeine hit, freezing left overs for meals at a later date, and sometimes spending money with the goal to save money later on. It is these little cost saving measures that help us to make our hard earned wages travel (literally) further.
We love to travel, whether its domestically in a tent, or fancy hotels in an exotic international destination. Though being able to afford to travel is a luxury we do not take for granted, and also something that we budget for in our day to day lives.
There’s that wonderful saying - look after the pennies, the dollars look after themselves - and this is something that we look at in our day to days to be able to afford travel with our family. From small things like making coffees and lunches at home, instead of tapping away at the cafe are just one way that we put away those pennies in our day to day life.
Our advice to families looking to save money for travels, is to look at your daily expenditures and see where you can cut costs, without cutting things that you enjoy. If you enjoy visiting a cafe for your caffeine fix, then maybe cutting that completely from your schedule isn’t going to have a positive difference, but maybe reducing would.
A key way for us to look after our pennies, is also spending to save money. Buying a good coffee machine for home, so that we don’t go out all the time for coffee.
Spend to save tip:
This idea of spending to save also extends to our time away from home when we are travelling. As an example, one of our recent purchases for our camping set up is a fridge / freezer for our car! Whilst there is an initial out lay, we will save money in the long run because our food will not perish or be wasted. We are able to cook meals as if we were at home, so have more of a variety, and are less inclined to head to the shop in search of a tasty meal. We make sure that we pack some Tupperware and glad-wrap to make sure that we can save left over foods as well.
How do you handle your children's education while traveling?
As our family is still so young, we have found that teaching our little one about things on the road has been so beneficial. We often come back from a trip and Hugo has learnt something new. Each trip we have gone on with him we can pin point an area of growth be it the time he started crawling, or those first words like “turtle” can all be linked to a specific trip. This learning will just continue as he grows older, at the moment we are fostering a love of the outdoors, and the world around him through traveling experiences.
What types of accommodation do you typically choose, and why?
Accommodation can vary from trip to trip, sometimes its hotels or apartments, sometimes its camping, sometimes its a camper van. Each trip is unique in its own, with benefits of traveling a certain way to maximise the experience. If we are looking to stay in a hotel, we usually look for one where we can self cater, especially with a little one. We will also balance out the convenience of where we are staying and if we want to be able to walk from our accommodation, or drive and easily park. It is all a bit of a sliding scale.
What have been the biggest challenges your family has faced during your travels?
One of our biggest challenges traveling as a family was when our 11 month old son got very sick when we were overseas. We were in a remote area of New Zealand with a 1.5 hour drive to the closest medical assistance. We did a big drive to go and see a doctor at the hospital, a three hour round trip. We were very thankful, and that Australia and New Zealand look after each other in the health care department. It definitely defined how we travelled with a child moving forward, with researching and just knowing where the closes health care would be, so that if we needed it we had a rough plan.
On the flip side, what are the most rewarding aspects of traveling together?
The most rewarding part of travelling together is simply the time spent together. The joy of being together without anything competing for your attention. Sharing the excitement of being somewhere new and exploring for the first or fifth time is awesome.
How do you plan your family travels? Any favorite tools, resources or tips?
Spreadsheets. We love a good spreadsheet when we are planning a holiday, especially longer trips where there are more moving parts. We also love using flags on google maps to save places where we’d like to go someday, realistically or otherwise. I do struggle with the concept of being completely planned, and allowing for serendipitous (my fav word) travel, especially with a small child now - what if the only accommodation in town is taken up? This has happened when my husband and I travelled pre-children, but we had the flexibility to just move on or make something else happen, where as now we can’t (don’t want to) simply drive another 4-5 hours to the next town.
How do you stay connected with family and friends back home when you are travelling?
We aren’t overly creative here, we just spam Facebook messenger and Whatsapp. When I was a child I always sent my friends postcards when we travelled, and this is something I have actually held onto as an adult as well.
What are your family's future travel plans or goals?
We have a couple of trips planned for 2024 both domestic and international. We are about to head off on a two week road trip to Northern New South Wales, and then we are heading to Canada where we are going to do van-life for a month later this year.
Where can we find you?
Instagram @LettyElsepth
Youtube @LettyElsepth
Website www.adventurefamily.com.au
