A couple who claim they had “everything in life” but “no time to enjoy any of it” quit their jobs and sold everything they owned to travel the world full-time with their children.
Karla Bennett, 34, and her husband, Matt Bennett, 37, owned a construction business together that regularly saw them doing 80-hour weeks combined. The couple have four children: Paige, 11, Jaxon, 9, Harper, 6, and Indie, 4.
Ms. Bennett, a social media marketer from Queensland, Australia, says they came to the realization they had it all—a successful business, a beautiful five-bedroom house, and four kids—but no time to enjoy it and decided “there has to be more to life.” The couple decided to up sticks in March 2023, selling their business and home and pulling their children out of school to travel the world.
They’ve been on the road for the last seven months and have so far visited six countries.
The family headed to Vietnam first before spending two weeks in Malaysia and a month in Thailand. They then headed to Europe to spend three months in Portugal. After that, they decided to visit Morocco for a few weeks and then flew back to Thailand for a month before touching down in Japan—where they currently are.
Ms. Bennett said: “We were really tied down to our business, and we had no time to do anything.
“We got to a point where we had everything in life that we aimed for, but we had no time to enjoy any of it and thought there has to be more to life than this. Most of the countries we go to offer more freedom than we had. We don’t have to be anywhere by a certain time, and it takes all that stress away—so it’s a much more relaxed lifestyle.
“It was all very last minute, though. We sold our business and our house, all in three months, and had no plans, just booked tickets to Vietnam and made it all up as we went along.”
Mr. Bennett, who also works in social media marketing, said: “As we’ve gone along, we’ve realized how to live a lot cheaper. We weren’t watching where our money went initially, and now we’re living more locally. It took a while to adapt and to be able to get out of that holiday mode and know that this [is] our life now.
“We have learned so much along the way and we’ve become closer and been able to absorb other cultures and truly live like locals.”
The couple say they are flexible when it comes to home-schooling their four kids and adopt a mix of practical and cultural education.
“We set out work for them, and we’re pretty relaxed about it,” Ms. Bennett said. “They learn so much through traveling that they won’t learn in school. We do bookwork and hands-on stuff like museums, and they do a lot more learning than they would in school.
“They’ve come so far since we’ve lived this lifestyle—they can actually learn more from experiencing things.
“They’re still quite young and we try to do an hour-a-day of bookwork but we’re very flexible. That’s the beauty of sightseeing—we can do all our sightseeing during the week and home-schooling on the weekend.”
The family doesn’t plan their journeys and has frequently booked flights just days in advance. They budget around $2,000 a week, excluding flights, and say they are spending less a month than they did at home—apart from the cost of flights.
Mr. Bennett said: “We were booking countries three days before we would leave the country, we don’t even pack and know where we’re going. ... We don’t really have any plans. Paige liked Portugal a lot and did horse riding there. We visited the elephants, rode camels in Morocco, and rented buggy tours. We snorkeled and jumped off boats in Thailand—there’s too many favorites.”
The couple say they haven’t experienced many challenges so far and are aware it’s a “big change” for everyone.
“The thing with kids is to go easy on everyone and remember this is a big change for everyone—go with the flow,” Ms. Bennett said. “We try to take each kid out every now and then for some one-on-one time. The other thing is, don’t have fixed plans, things change.”
Mr. Bennett said: “Travel lighter, we have a suitcase each. I reckon we could fit all our stuff in two suitcases. It affects transport if you take too much.”
After they’ve finished soaking up the Japanese culture, the family of six will be heading back to Australia for a caravan road trip across the country.
“There’s no plans with how long we‘ll be in the caravan for, and we haven’t set a route,” Mr. Bennett said. "We’d really like to slow travel a bit now after hopping from country to country. We love being able to immerse ourselves in the country, so I think we'll pick a country and live there for three to six months.
“For the next destination, I think we will just point at a map.”
