From CEO to Seasoned Family Traveller with Michael Peachy

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 00:08‍

Hello, I'm Dr. Kim O'Brien, a child psychologist, entrepreneur, and mum with a passion for problem solving and family adventures. Join me each week for practical tips and on air consultations with the smartest, kindest parents and their incredible kids. Find answers faster, do things differently, and take your family further. This is impressive.
This episode is sponsored by britechild.com. Now let's get started.

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 00:34‍

Hello and welcome too Impressive. This is episode two. My guest this week is Michael Peachy, from CEO to seasoned family Traveler. I was so happy to speak to Michael and to find out how he makes it happen and how he transitioned from a fairly high paced, high pressure position in Adelaide to now traveling kind of indefinitely with his family at a very leisurely pace, just to spend more time with his kids and with his wife Natalie. His children are aged between one and seven years, and so far they have found that spending family time together has been the highlight of their trip.  Michael is really generous in that he shares lots of tips on how to transition from the workforce into a fairly carefree lifestyle of travel, as well as giving us some tips on how to maintain employment while you're on the road. So without further ado, he also shares some resources, which I'll share in the show notes, like the Four Hour Work Week and a Facebook group called Jobs for Families. So listen up and I hope you enjoy this episode. I know I did.

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 01:43

Now, the angle I was interested in for our interview today was you used to be a CEO based in Adelaide, and then something happened. You  decided you wanted to spend more time with the kids and be a better parent, you said. Can you tell me more about that decision and what it was like to step away from maybe a corporate life into more of a full-time parenting mode?

Michael Peachy: 02:03

Yeah, well, like you said, I used to be the CEO of a national organisation. It was in healthcare. So because we had a national footprint and my role was largely customer facing, I was spending a lot of time on planes. But on top of that as well, I was also an officer in the Army Reserves. And on top of that, I had a lot of other extracurriculars  that are quite typical of a type A personality. And as my family was starting to grow, I was just realising I was missing out on some of the things that   may seem small to a non-parent, but are really big  missing that first step or hearing those first words. And when I was looking at my future, I could only see it getting more busy. And so I thought, well, what's actually more important to me and my family is it to do with having a high paying career, but lots of hours or spending time with my family. So yeah, I made the decision to scale back and then the travel was a second part of that, that was bit of an afterthought.

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 03:21‍

So you were kind of thinking of just settling back into  a quieter life in Adelaide, and then the idea came up to actually pack up and start moving.  

Michael Peachy: 03:31‍

So I always was under the perception or had the perception that the grey nomads were the ones who sold up their house and traveled indefinitely in a caravan around Australia. And then one day my brother told me about some people that I knew through him who were in their late thirties, had three kids, a good professional career, and that they had rented out their house for a year, taking a year off work, and were traveling around Australia in a caravan. And to me that was such a foreign concept and it just blew my mind. And then one day my wife, Natalie came into me and said, look, here's another family that's doing that and they were on YouTube and they were called Trip in a van, and she was like, maybe we could do this. And I got onto the YouTube, went down the rabbit hole, and started looking and realised that there was a lot of other families who were just like us who were doing the same thing. They had realised what was more important in life. They realised that if they didn't have a whole house to look after,  their expenses would actually go down and that have way more freedom and flexibility and do this travel thing. So see some amazing sites across Australia, but more importantly, have some great time with their family.

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 04:50‍

I love it. I love it. I wanna hear more details about when you first took off and that adjustment I'm guessing you,  how long was it from finishing up as a CEO to then starting out first day on the road?

‍Michael Peachy: 05:03‍

Well, the going from CEO to making that decision, that would've been the space of a few months. And so I scaled back a little bit anyway, but the moment we watched that YouTube video to hitting the Road, we're talking maybe three months. So, it was  actually quiet sudden. Yes. And it was actually quite amazing. And so when we're talking adjustment, there was a lot of excitement. So it wasn't a thing of a lifelong dream, it wasn't something we'd been planning on for several years. It was a case of   we'd already been on this minimalist journey anyway of trying to declutter our lives of our things, of our commitments. And so it was a case of, okay, well let's rent our house out. From a financial point of view, it worked out pretty much cost neutral, so there wasn't really gonna be any harm doing that.

Michael Peachy: 05:54‍
And it was a case of, well, we can use this as a great opportunity to get rid of that kitchen table that we bought when we first moved into our first unit together and start fresh when we come back and when we do come back, fill our lives with just the minimal things, the things that we need and things that we've intentionally planned and love. Anyway, so it was three months in that time, it was pretty exciting. We literally sold nearly everything. We've got a few things in storage, don't ask me what they are, I can't even remember. That's how important they are to us and so because of that excitement, that initial excitement was still there when we hit the road, which made it easier to adjust. So it was like a holiday because it was like we planned a trip traveling around Asia or something.    

Michael Peachy: 06:44‍
We packed up, we had what possessions we had left, we filled our caravan, which we had to buy for this trip, and we had this massive road trip plan. And then we got in the car and literally drove about five kilometres to the nearest caravan park. So that adjustment, we actually stayed locally, and that allowed us and our children to     continue with those relationships and say farewells and not feel like we'd gone from nothing to zero or sorry, a hundred to zero straight away in terms of the people that we know, the things that we're involved in and everything as well. So that little transition period definitely helped, and that was probably, I guess one of the keys to success and us still loving that whole trip to this day.

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 07:32‍

And before you get onto the fun part of the trip and then working and traveling and spending so much time with the family, I wondered if you could just circle back onto  the change in your role and your identity from long hours and lots of responsibility to giving that up. Was there any kind of anxiety about, I don't know, falling behind in terms of your career path or making the wrong decision or yeah, tell me from a professional point of view, what were the challenges?

Michael Peachy: 08:00‍

There was a lot of anxiety around that. And when I thought, I've  reached this position here and I was on a upwards career trajectory, the organisation I was involved with, they were continuing to grow and looking at other acquisitions, and it was part of a bigger private equity backed firm as well and so there was a huge element of fear of am I doing the right thing? And then I thought about it and thought, I'm 39, and what's the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen is I come back in two or three years time and I go back to my initial profession where I used to be a physiotherapist. Well, I guess I still am one.  And then I thought, if that's the  worst case scenario, that's not that bad. That's using that whole fear busting approach has been the key to all of this.

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 09:03‍
So throughout this whole process of not just letting go of the career, but letting go of our stuff, of our house, we're currently up in Darwin, it's always been a case of what's the worst that can happen. So trying to adopt that mindset and our whole family doing that was key. So I thought, well, the worst that can happen is I've quit my job where in the middle of nowhere the caravan catches on fire, someone steals our car, we've forgotten to renew the insurance. And our house back in Adelaide has burnt down as well. And it's like, well, we could use a credit card, fly back home, stay at the in-laws, get a part-time job, get back up on our feet and have an amazing story to tell. So, yeah,  from a professional point of view, I look at it from the perspective of if I have a gap on my resume of  a year or maybe more and I go to apply for a pretty commensurate job, and a potential employer says, oh, tell me about this gap for a year on your resume here, what happened? And I tell them that we took a year off and had a gap year at the  age of 40 and spent a year traveling around Australia with the family. I couldn't actually see that impacting my career too negatively.

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 10:22‍

Ya, it's so positive,  

Michael Peachy: 10:24‍

And  if it did well, that employer wouldn't be the right fit for me anyway.

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 10:27‍

Yes, yes, I totally agree. I  mean, if I was thinking of interviewing someone who'd just taken a year off, I always just think great how  it's character building. There's so many stories to tell and I feel like that's definitely a positive on anyone's resume. So yeah, I totally take that point. I love that you're just busting fears and moving forward  

Michael Peachy: 10:48‍

Or maybe having a bit of  positivity, blindness or something like that, whatever you wanna call it. But I figured, yeah, what's  the worst that can happen?

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 10:56‍

Awesome. So now maybe do you wanna just take me through your top three highlights since you've been on the road and you've been spending more time with the kids? Now, that might be hard.

Michael Peachy: 11:05‍

No, it's actually quite easy and it's a question we get asked quite commonly. And I'd actually have to say that the biggest highlight, the number one benefit out of this whole trip is the time with the family. Now, people expecting you to say Uluru or Paronella Park or somewhere random. But the thing that really stuck out and very early on was, I can't believe it's a Tuesday afternoon and I can just go guilt free go play, or I can go for a walk with the kids along the beach for two hours and build sandcastles and not be worrying about having to get home and mow the lawns, or I don't have a report to write, or we don't have a large house with a massive footprint to mow the lawns. So having a caravan and living a mobile lifestyle, there's less of that daily administration and looking after your life, it's actually more about living your life.  The number one thing is seeing nearly every single milestone of our one year old have seeing him take his progress from sitting, rolling, crawling, taking first steps and seeing that whole thing is amazing. Seeing my little boy who's four make the relationship between numbers and dates and learning about days of the week and being actively involved in that, that's amazing. Helping homeschool our little girl and being actively involved in her developing  her maths and English skills, that that's the number one highlight I would say so far.

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 12:40‍

That sounds really, really good. I'm thinking  with so much awesome stress-free parenting time and just being there with the kids, how do you manage to balance  earning an income while you're traveling if you need to, and then what time of the day do you do it and how does that work out with the kids?  

Michael Peachy: 13:00‍

And this is probably one of the hardest things that we actually find. I'll be honest in that, especially for the first probably three months, it was like, this is an amazing holiday, but we had to realise that this isn't a holiday, this is actually our lifestyle now. So things like work, exercise, getting to the supermarket to do groceries, we still had to prioritise those over playing with duplo sometimes and so, to make it easy and I try to compartmentalise it as much as possible. And that'll be my biggest tip is that I do, I work pretty much a whole day every Monday, and then I do other bits and pieces around the week as well, but I try to make those as separate from the family as possible. So when I've tried to do things like, okay, I've got a work related email that I have to send.

Michael Peachy: 13:55‍
If I'm sitting there and the kids are around and they're wanting to have a chat to me about random questions, do people eat bees or what's the hardest metal? Or just the little questions that kids wanna answer, I'm sidetracked, I'm distracted, I'm not giving the kids as much attention and time as they deserve, so I just have to move away. Moving away from the family and saying, look, I've got to go make a five minute phone call. I'll see you in five, is way better than trying to make that phone call, which then takes 10 minutes and I'm holding a baby in one hand who's crying, and then I've got someone else who wants some milk or something along those lines. So making that time and separating myself has been really important. So on a Monday, I pretty much lock myself in the car, or it might be at a cafe or Natalie, my wife might take the kids out somewhere for the day and I'm in the caravan, the laptop open and the headset on. But other times as well, it's a case of not even trying to do anything work related during the day, but I might get up early and I might  stay up late. So in one way, it's actually harder to find time for yourself because when you've got three kids that there's always one of them who wants some attention and that's a good thing. Yes. It's just trying to balance that of, yeah, they all want attention, but in order to   pay the bills, you do have to move away sometimes and get work done.

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 15:23‍

Does Natalie do the same? Does she have a Natalie only day, a little bit of some alone time?

‍Michael Peachy: 15:27‍

She doesn't have a Natalie only day similar to myself for the rest of the week where she'll move away and say, yeah, I need some time to myself, and it's not like we schedule it in on Outlook or anything. It's more of a later on today at some point I need two hours to myself. It's like, yep, that's completely cool

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 15:44‍

Yeah, sounds like standard parenting style.

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 15:50‍

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‍Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 16:23

How about  making the money to continue your travels? Now you produce this podcast and you also write content, have you got any tips for other parents that are considering making that transition? and then how to generate the income? Is it independently, Is that how you do it or yeah, what would you suggest?

Michael Peachy: 16:41‍

So one of the first things, and I'm gonna give some credit to Tim Ferris here

‍Michael Peachy: 16:51‍

The four hour work week. And that was, I would have to say that was a life changing book I read, and I agree. I read this book probably six or seven years ago. And the concepts, although the execution may have changed in terms of the technology available, one of the fundamental concepts that I got from this book was focus on those things.  Applying the 80 20 rule, focus on those things that provide the largest amount of results, but also try to make yourself as valuable to your employer as possible by doing the best job and the most productive job as possible and that will set you up to be in a position where you can work remotely. Having the realisation once we were in the trip that, wow, I'm actually living this four hour work week. I'd been applying these principles and when I actually resigned from my position as CEO, because I had made such an effort to contribute to this company as much as possible for an extended period of time, I'm still in a position where I can add value to the organisation so that one day a week I work remotely for the same company.

Michael Peachy: 18:01‍
So my one piece of advice would be make yourself as valuable as you can now while you're still working the nine to five, and identify those things that you can add value and try to set up so you can work remotely if possible. That being said, we've come across so many other families on the road who haven't taken as in a measured approach, and they've literally just said, You know what? We're doing this. We're gonna find work on the road. And they've made it work. Because believe it or not, this lifestyle is actually way cheaper than maintaining a house, electricity bills, gas, extracurricular activities for the kids, the mortgage, the rent, whatever. It actually works out quite cheaper in a lot of cases, even though you're seeing all of these amazing sites and so forth. So some people have adopted more of a sink swim approach that's the primary source of income.

‍Michael Peachy: 18:54

But on top of that, there's some other skills that you can develop to work remotely that don't require to be in a physical location, and some of these skills don't require you to go back and get a separate university degree. Some of these skills like freelance writing, there's things like web design, podcasting. You can learn all of these skills remotely. There's a lot of free work, sorry, a lot of free content on the internet, on YouTube, on places like Emmy that will teach you these valuable skills that people are willing to pay for and you can really add value to someone. So we're doing freelance writing as well, and not just travel writing either and related to other topics that we  know about as well.

‍Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 19:41‍

Great. And maybe just,  I'm wondering about the other families that you meet. What sort of jobs do they do and then what's the average spend for you, just so that the listeners can get  their heads around if they're not doing  writing content or working for a previous employee. What other options are there? You mentioned graphic design, any other jobs that seem to keep coming up and then the average daily spend?

Michael Peachy: 20:04‍

Yeah. Okay. So when we  sitting there at a caravan park in a place called Bermagui on the New South Wales coast one day, and we were talking about something to do with setting up our 12 volt system in our car for a second fridge and all of this sort of stuff and at that point in time we thought, I don't wanna read all this stuff because I'm not much of a reader. I wish there was a podcast about getting ready for family travel. And that's what led us to start the Family Travel podcast. So this was intentionally not just about learning how to set up your caravan and everything as well, but we've made an intentional effort to interview other families who are very travel focused and particularly families who know about a particular topic. So we're in a unique position where we interview families all the time about those exact questions.

Michael Peachy:  20:57‍
And one that sticks out in particular is a family who run a Facebook group. And if anyone's interested in traveling around Australia and how to make it work, there's a Facebook group called Jobs for Families Traveling Australia. And this family, this husband and wife who they're known as the wandering jocks, they had this attitude of, I'm not a hundred percent qualified, I'm not a hundred percent sure how to do it, but I'm just gonna give this job a good go and I'm gonna put in effort and I'm gonna work as hard as I can. So there are a lot of families out there who work on cattle stations. They might be doing reception work at a caravan park, some of them take cleaning jobs, others find locum work as, nurses, they might be labourers, they might be doing something that's a hundred percent related to their current profession.

Michael Peachy: 21:49‍
So they might be doing locum physio work around Australia, or they might be  an electrician and there's a lot of work out there that's just not advertised. And there's other families who, they'll get to places like Darwin like we are now, and they'll find work at the local golf course as a greenskeeper or doing bar work and so forth and they'll just get online and get their RSA and next thing they've got work which funds their travels. So many job options for people to make it work. A lot of people do different things as well, they might be doing it through self-funding. Some people sell their house. That's not the path we wanted to take, we to have that as a bit of a safety net to come back to but there are literally hundreds of different ways people are doing this in terms of the average spend.

Michael Peachy: 22:44‍
We interviewed one family who have been traveling around Australia full time. They've gone all in for $500 a week but I've heard of other families who are spending upwards of $1300. It depends on how many exciting attractions you want to go too. Do you want to stay in a hundred percent best caravan parks every time or do you want to go exploring and go stay in national parks and free camping and enjoy the wilderness as well?. So our expenses have ranged from some weeks literally spending $50 or $100 on groceries and that's it to when we drove from Darwin to Uluru in the space of a week and then went back. That was very expensive, I mean, we  spent probably a couple thousand dollars just mostly in decent accommodation because that place was way more expensive. So a family could easily do it on $500 a week if you are willing to make sacrifices or that average seems to be $700, $800, $1000 a week.  

Dr Kimberley O'Brien:  23:47‍

Thanks so much for sharing those facts and figures. I think it just helps other families, other listeners consider whether that could be possible, if that's something they'd like to do, just by knowing the details that helps to bring that decision forward, is it for us or isn't it?. Another question I had for you Michael, was around settling down when you arrive at a beautiful place and then a job opportunity or something comes up that interests maybe mum or dad, do you ever consider staying and  putting the kids or your eldest one in school and settling down? Is there ever that temptation?

Michael Peachy: 24:21‍

Absolutely. Absolutely. One of the biggest things that is making us want to come back to Adelaide is not our house it's the fact that we have family there. We'll end up settling back down in Adelaide, but  especially around the Sunshine Coast in Queensland or even here in Darwin, there is that temptation because you look at it and you say, wow, Adelaide is very cold in winter, it's not pleasant. If we went back to our old lifestyle, it would be leaving when it's still dark. The sun is just coming up getting home when it's dark again. And  that's not a pleasant lifestyle, that's not really living life, that's not spending time with your family. So you come here somewhere, it's warm and sunny every day and you get to spend all this time with your family. But we just have to remember as well though that we're seeing it from almost from a tourist's perspective, we're seeing the highlights. We're here for  a few weeks, we're seeing the water parks and where socialising, we go to a cafe for breakfast or whatever and we think, wow, this place must be amazing but we haven't really got a sense of what employment opportunities there are or what's the cost of living,   what's it gonna be like? and the wet season. So we are always looking at nearly every location we go to of, wow, this looks pretty liveable, or nah, this is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't wanna live here. So yeah, that temptation is there every stop  

Dr Kimberley O'Brien:  25:54‍

And can you paint the picture for the future? do you go back to Adelaide? I'm thinking it sounds like you will do to see your family and friends. How would you like it to be if it was just the optimal kind of lifestyle when you go to settle back in?

Michael Peachy: 26:11‍

And look we've met families who have been traveling indefinitely and literally five or six years on the road with small children and hats off to them. That is an amazing lifestyle, but I don't think that's for us.  But at the same time, travel is in our DNA. So for us it's actually about, we're looking at designing our life when we do hit Adelaide before we get there. So we're going to have specific goals in terms of how we set up our life  and our work environment as well. So what our ideal is going to be is having a small house that is very low maintenance and work in short chunks and holiday and short chunks as well. So in an ideal world, it would be we go to a house where we don't have to look after it much. So we're either working or we're with the family and that time that we're working is to save up money to that way we can go,  let's go backpacking through Asia for three months, or we're saving up for our next mini which is 12 weeks in Europe. And not just doing that once a year or once every two years, but almost having three months on, three months off. So that's what we're aiming to work back towards because we couldn't go back to working nine to five and just seeing the kids for now at night and on weekends.

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 27:37‍

Yeah, I hear that's the kind of lifestyle we are trying to also create. We got our three months in Asia, but then there were about oh two years between the next big trip, which is only three months in Brazil and I don't want to sound greedy, three weeks is great, but once you've had a long travel and my longest travel was two years, it's hard to come away from. So yeah, finding that balance I think is a challenge, and having both people, mum and dad, both on board with similar goals, I think also for us is a challenge too because we tend to get really passionate about our work and then new opportunities come up, new team members come on board and  sometimes you can kind of lose focus. So that's a great thing to consider.  

Michael Peachy: 28:22‍

And I think having  your whole team on board is probably one of the most important elements because quite often on some of these Facebook groups we're in, we'll see questions like, oh, I want to go traveling, but how do I convince my husband? or how do I convince my wife? and my view on it, and I could be completely wrong here, is if you have to convince them, if you have to try to sell it to them, it may not work for us. It was a case of, Natalie mentioned it and I'm like, yes, so within an hour we're both on  board and  the whole time we've been looking at how we're going to set up our life long term and we're just on the same page. And I think that's really important because if you're trying to convince each other, it's not going to be sustainable. You might get six weeks down the track and  want to get back to my career cause it's super important to me, or something along those lines.  

‍Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 29:15‍

Yes, I think timing is key. Finding that time when both are ready to jump and do something exciting, and also trying to time it with kids, school commitments and starting high school or HSC, I think everything needs to align to make it work. But if that's the number one goal, then I'm sure it will definitely happen.  

Michael Peachy: 29:34‍

And that is a factor as well. We do want to have that sense of stability and less disruption in those more formative years in secondary education. So while our children are still young, that's when we feel like it's the best time for us to do it.

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 29:48‍

Can I just quickly ask you before we wrap up about your children, what have you noticed? What are the changes that you've seen? Maybe positives and some challenges that you didn't expect along the way?

‍Michael Peachy: 29:58‍

Yeah. Well I guess the biggest one and most notable one for us is our little girl, Chloe.  When we were back where we were living in Adelaide, she had a really close, tight-knit group of friends and four core ones and a couple of other on the periphery there. But she wasn't that outgoing in terms of meeting and engaging with even other people in her own class. She was actually so outgoing with a group of friends, but introverted when it came to the rest of them. Since we've been on the road, we've noticed a massive change in her willingness to go introduce herself to other children, male and female, roughly around the same age, maybe a year or two, either side as well, and instantly strike up a conversation and everything as well, and it's the same with adults as well. She's more willing to openly chat and engage with adults, so even our own family, whereas before she used to be quite shy. So when one of the main, I guess apprehensions that we, well, I'm very apprehensive about how she would go with the homeschooling from a social skills point of view. We thought she might be more socially isolated and she might actually go backwards, but it was actually quite the opposite.

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 31:18‍

What about your four year old Michael? How's he been traveling?

Michael Peachy: 31:21‍

He makes best friends wherever he goes. So we were at Mataranka a couple of weeks ago and we got there late one night. We pulled in the caravan park at 5:30 in the afternoon set up, had dinner, went to bed. First thing in the morning he got up and had breakfast, he's like, okay, I want to go see my friends now and we're like, we only got here last night you haven't even met anyone yet. He's just so outgoing and he just assumes that he has friends everywhere. So for him he's been thriving in terms of the social side of things and even with the academic side of things as well. So using things like reading eggs or getting him actively involved in understanding the days of the week and numbers and playing games with number recognition on the clock in the car, He's coming ahead in leaps and bounds from that perspective because in the past he's just been interested in toy trucks. So from a learning point of view, it's been really good for him as well and Eddie, our one year old, well he's just been progressing through his milestones and ticking them off almost textbook, so not too much to report there.

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 32:29‍

How do you go parenting   when they're sort of saying, I'm off and walking out into the unknown in a caravan park that you might not be familiar with?  Do you kind of hang around or hover or how do you parent when there's not such clear boundaries?

Michael Peachy: 32:43‍

The thing is that we create those clear boundaries. So okay, there's a standard set of rules that our children have  and that they know inside and out we can reinforce in day one. So no kids are allowed inside our caravan, they're not allowed inside anyone else's caravan and have to be in line of sight. We go meet the families, we know which kids they're going hanging out with so yeah, you'd like to think a game plan. Yeah, you'd like to think that the world is full of good, but accidents happen. There aren't always the nicest people around as well. So we do set boundaries, so when it's like, I'm going to play with my friends now, it's like, okay, which friends are they caravan next door? Awesome. We can see them there

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 33:26‍

Great. Yeah, good to know. Yeah, these are things you don't really consider, but how would you manage that? So yeah, thanks for going through those house rules when it comes to a new caravan park. It's awesome. Is there anything else you wanted to add, Michael? I feel like I've gone through lots of questions, I'm looking forward to adding that Facebook page you mentioned jobs for families to our show notes and also link to the family travel podcast. Anything else you think is important that you wanna share with our listeners and any other things for the show notes?  

Michael Peachy: 33:54‍

No, I think I've covered it, but I'll just reiterate that point where ask yourself the question, what's the worst that can happen? I mean, I may have stalled my career slightly. Natalie may have as well totally worth it if all it means is that we are going delay our corporate progression by a year or two is that the end of the world. If we have to go back and start again with a new house is that the end of the world. We are very lucky here in Australia, and I think us taking several backwards steps, we're still ahead of a lot of other people who are less fortunate than us. So I think we've all got this amazing opportunity to spend time with our family that it is a choice and there are a lot of people out there who are doing this same thing, spending a lot of time with their families, having an amazing adventure, and they didn't have many resources to start with, but they've been able to make it happen and if anything are financially better off doing this as well.

‍Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 34:54

Great. And those years go so fast, don't they, when you're with the little kids? And then I'm thinking from ages zero to twelve, ideal for family travel, less frequent, I guess, when they're teenagers. I know I did see an episode you did with a mum and a teenager that were traveling, but by the sounds of things, it's less common for families with teenagers to do the loop.

Michael Peachy: 35:16

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there are a few of them and you could almost list them by name.  Doing distance education and everything with a high schooler is  a bit harder and that's why for us it was okay it was either now or in 20 years time.

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 25:31‍

Michael, thanks so much for joining us today. I've learn so much and I've just  really appreciated the topic that you came up with today talking about  moving out of your CEO lifestyle and into traveling and spending more time with your kids. So thanks again for joining us on Impressive. Have a great travel. When do you plan to go back to Adelaide?

Michael Peachy: 35:49‍

Early to mid next year. Depends on how weather goes with us being up in Darwin and the North coast at the moment.

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 35:55‍

Okay. So we can listen to your updates on your podcast. Thanks again for joining us.

Dr Kimberley O'Brien: 36:03‍

If you'd like to find out more about the show notes and download some of those suggestions that Michael generously gave us today, please go to britechild.com. That's britechild.com/impressive. And you'll find a whole bunch of helpful tips there. And you can also join our Facebook group so that we can get to know each other. I'm looking forward to generating a really friendly, smart, and kind community of parents who want to do things differently, finances faster, and take their families further. Thanks for joining us. This was Impressive.