It started on a highway. No grand business plan. No investors. No strategy deck. Just a family in a car, a caravan rattling along behind them, two little girls asleep in the back seat, and a wife with a spark in her eye and an idea she couldn't shake.
Eleven years later, Caravanning with Kids is one of Australia's most beloved family travel platforms - a thriving community of big lappers, weekend warriors, first-timers, and seasoned grey nomads who all share one thing: the belief that the open road, with the people you love most, is one of life's greatest gifts.
This is the story of how it all began.
The Idea That Changed Everything
January 2014. We were on our way to Porpunkah in regional Victoria, complete novices when it came to caravanning and camping. My husband Wayne and I had only recently caught the caravan bug, and we were very much learning as we went - googling things on the road, asking questions at caravan parks, figuring it out trip by trip.
I'd been searching for a kids' travel journal. Something Australian made, something that suited all kinds of travel - not just road trips, not just caravan parks - something a child could genuinely use whether they were camping in the bush, staying in a holiday park, or ticking off a bucket list item. I couldn't find one that fit the bill. The idea had been quietly growing in my mind: what if we just made one ourselves?
So there we were, driving through regional Victoria with the van on the back, when I turned to Wayne and pitched him. Not just the travel journal - but a whole platform. A website about caravanning and camping for families, filled with the tips we were learning the hard way, honest gear reviews, real family stories, and a shop where we could sell our Australian-made travel journals. A one-stop destination for families like ours.
I half-expected him to laugh. We were already juggling multiple businesses. We had two young daughters. Life was full. But Wayne didn't hesitate.
"Yes. Let's do it. Let's do it together."
That was all I needed.
For the next two hours, as the kilometres rolled by and the kids slept on, we nutted out every detail. The name came somewhere along that stretch of road - Caravanning with Kids. Surely someone had already taken it? We checked. The stars had aligned. Every social handle, every domain - all available. By the time we pulled into our destination, Caravanning with Kids existed. Not yet online. Not yet visible to the world. But alive, and very, very real to us.
The Secret Launch
One of my favourite memories of those early days? We went completely incognito.
I was already active on social media with my other businesses, so it would have been easy to make a big announcement. But we deliberately held back. We quietly rolled out our Facebook and Instagram pages without telling a single person - no announcement, no fanfare, no "hey guys, we've started something new!" We just... started creating content, sharing tips, building the platform in the background.
And then we waited.
Within weeks, we started hearing our camping friends talking about this new platform they'd discovered. "Have you seen Caravanning with Kids? It's got some really great tips on it." Wayne and I would sit there, faces completely straight, quietly dying of laughter. It was us. It had been us all along.
Those early months were some of the most exciting and terrifying of our lives. We were pouring everything into something we truly believed in, without any guarantee that anyone else would care.
From Journal to Log Book - A New Product Is Born
While the website was quietly growing, we were simultaneously preparing to bring our children's travel journal to life. We'd been developing it for months - designing the pages, thinking through what kids would actually want to document on a trip, making it fun but meaningful.
Then Wayne had an idea of his own: "Can we make a Caravan and Camper Log Book too? Like that exercise book I take away with us where I jot down the sites, the drives, what worked and what didn't?"
Of course we could.
By April 2015, our Australian-made books were printed and ready. And we had locked in something enormous - we were going to exhibit at the Explore Australia Expo at the Melbourne Showgrounds. On top of that, I'd been asked to speak on the main stage about travelling with toddlers.
I won't pretend I wasn't terrified. We had invested significant time, money, and a ridiculous amount of heart into this project. These weren't just products - they were ours. Made in Australia. Designed by us, for families like ours. And now we were about to find out if anyone else cared.
They did.
The expo was a triumph. Wayne and I had the time of our lives behind that stand - talking to fellow campers, swapping stories, sharing tips, hearing about other families' adventures. The energy was electric. People got it. They understood immediately why these books existed and why they mattered.
We sold books, made connections, and came home absolutely buzzing.
The Whirlwind Years
What followed was a full-throttle, joyful, exhausting, extraordinary ride.
We grew the website constantly - adding articles, reviews, destination guides, and real family stories. We immersed ourselves in the caravan world, joined the Caravan Industry, attended major shows around the country, and became a genuine voice in the space.
We filmed over 30 episodes with the legendary What's Up Downunder crew, raising money for charity while exploring this beautiful country of ours. We appeared in newspapers, magazines, and on television - Wayne and I still laugh about watching ourselves on the TV screen for the first time, pointing at the screen like absolute tourists.
The platform expanded in ways we hadn't originally imagined. We added Travelling with Kids for non-caravanning families. Caravanning with Pets for the four-legged members of the family. We took over Slide n' Dry Pegless Clotheslines - a genuinely brilliant piece of camping kit.
We built Aussie Big Lappers as a community hub for families doing the big lap. We created the Caravan Homemakers Hub. We partnered with the iconic Big Red Bash. We raised over $12,000 for Dolly's Dream, a cause close to our hearts.
Awards came. At the Victorian Caravan, Camping & Touring Supershow 2019, we won Best Stand Award for Camping Products. At the Perth Caravan & Camping Show, another win. Not just wins we were proud of - wins that reminded us why we started.
We've been featured in the Herald Sun and newspapers across regional Australia. Our books found their way into hundreds of stockists around the country. Our affiliate family program connected us to a growing army of passionate caravanners who wanted to share the love.
Through it all, our home base remained Numurkah - a small town in regional Victoria. Our shop Adventure Awaits is now the main site for over 4000 awesome gift ideas and only the very best caravanning gear...
Everything we've built, we've built from here.
What Caravanning with Kids Really Is
Numbers and milestones are one thing. But the real story of Caravanning with Kids is in the messages we receive.
The family who had never camped before, who bought a travel journal and a log book, and two months later sent us a photo of their kids grinning at the edge of the Nullarbor.
The couple who finally committed to doing the big lap after years of talking about it, who found our site and said it gave them the confidence to just go.
The mum who told us her daughter filled in every single page of her travel journal on their adventure - wouldn't do her homework, but took ownership of her journal and loved it.
That's what this is.
That's what it's always been.
We've built a platform that serves real families - not just the full-timers and the grey nomads, but the first-timers, the weekend warriors, the families squeezing a school holiday trip into a tight budget, the parents wondering how on earth you actually set up a caravan for the first time.
We've tried to be the resource we needed back in January 2014, when we were pulling out of our driveway with a van on the back and absolutely no idea what we were doing.
Eleven Years On
Look at that first image from 2015 - two little blonde girls lying on a picnic rug in front of our first caravan, squinting at the camera in the sunshine. Now look at the family standing together in 2026: those same girls, grown into young women, still part of this adventure we built around them.
That's the real milestone. Not the awards, not the magazine spreads, not the TV appearances (though we're very proud of all of it). It's the fact that what started as a conversation on a highway has woven itself into the fabric of our family's life - and into thousands of other Australian families too.
Eleven years.
We still pinch ourselves.
Some of the most incredible adventures of our lives have unfolded because we said yes that day on the road to Porpunkah. Adventures through red dirt country and national parks, along coastlines and through outback towns, filming on waterways and accepting awards on stages - all of it flowing from that one conversation.
We started because we wanted to create an Australian-made travel journal and make memories with our little girls. We had no idea we'd end up building a community, a movement, a business, and a life so full of joy it's hard to put into words.
Here's to the Next Adventure
To everyone who has been part of the Caravanning with Kids journey - whether you've been with us since the beginning or just discovered us today - thank you. Thank you for your stories, your support, your messages, your purchases, your passion. You are the reason we keep going.
Happy 11th birthday, Caravanning with Kids.
Here's to everything still to come.
Follow Caravanning with Kids on Facebook here...
Follow Caravanning with Kids on Instagram here...
SHOP our entire Caravanning & Camping range here...
Adele Dyson is the co-founder of Caravanning with Kids, Australia's leading family caravan and camping platform. Based in Numurkah, Victoria, she has spent over a decade inspiring Australian families to hit the road, make memories, and discover the incredible country on their doorstep. Visit caravanningwithkids.com.au to explore trip guides, gear reviews & family stories.
