Where are the young Australian nomad?

I’m not sure how to put this down, but I don’t think here in Australia we have a similar community enthusiasm or are nowhere near the enjoyment level and comrade that it seems to proliferate in other countries, with people living on the road such as the US for example.

To give you a better idea of what I’m on about, lets say for example that you try a search on the web for “Motorhome conversions”.  What ever search engine you use, you quickly realise that possibly 80% or more of the results are either in the US or the UK and very few are actually based in Australia. Same story does apply to RV groups… We have plenty of clubs and “non profit organisations” but once you start to dig in a bit, I can see a huge difference between a “non profit organisation” in the US and the ones here in Australia..

So lets say that once I’m on the road, I would like to make new friends that do share some of my ideas and way of living. The site that keeps poking at me is the Australian CMCA Club. But just by looking at the front page I don’t get the feeling of being in a friendly place. I know nothing about this club as I’m not a member, but right there is asking me for $44 plus another $16.50 just to get in..

So I click on the About Us and the first thing I’m told is that CMCA is a RV tourism club, they have over 70,000 members, and that they provide ongoing support for their members. Now I’m not sure about whom “they” are but I’m guessing they are not referring to the members..

Now I’m not very quick at this kind of things by going by the title that does include the word “Limited” as in PTY LTD and a quick calculation of 70,000 by $44 gives me a total of  $3,080,000 million dollars annual income, without counting the other 70,000 by $16.50 that gives you another 1,155,000 million dollars on top.. This to me just looks like another very profitable Internet business idea, not a club of enthusiastic people. I’m sure they have lots of expenses, but 3 millions + every year? Come on now, lets stay real..

So I keep looking for that RV club or association of people that are really there for the adventure, and wanted to share some of the road experience.. Let’s try to search for “Nomad sites” and once again nothing from Australia. To see the Australian site, as we do have few, you need to add the word “grey” to the search.. 😁

While the Grey Nomad site seems to go more towards the people I was looking for, it also seems to have a huge contingent of people that are already on the pension. While that is not a problem per se, I was thinking more about young nomads that live in an RV but not because they are retired, but because they made of choice of living on the road, regardless of their age or financial situation.. One good thing about the Grey Nomad site is that at least is not just about money, but there are plenty of interesting articles and some great reading written by some people that are obviously having fun out there..

Another site that did popped up was the Auswide Motorhome Club Inc. Again very similar to the Grey Nomad side, and beside a cheaper membership fee than CMCA, I couldn’t really see any young blood in there either.. All these clubs, organisations seems to cater only for older people and that’s not frankly what I had in mind.. Don’t get me wrong, I truly do  love to see old people (read pensioners) on the move instead of being busy dying in a retirement village. I wouldn’t have it any other way, but I wanted to know why the youngest are seems to struggling so much here is AUS compare to their counterpart in the US..

Why it seems so easy to find group of younger people living on the road sharing conversion, passions and stories of their adventures in the US, but I can’t seem to find the equivalent here in Australia? Why is that?

There are so many similarities between here and the US, as far as size of the land, the climate, the desert, choice of vehicles to convert, and yet the younger generation is apparently virtually non existent on the road in Australia. I was even able to find stories about young Australian doing a motorhome conversion in the US. So obviously we have a serious problem here, perhaps more than one, if our kids find it easier to build a motorhome conversion and travel the country in the US instead of here in their own country!

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but for my personal experience I can at least guess few of the reasons.

1. If you live in a motorhome permanently, here you are classified as homeless, unless you are a pensioner in which case you are retired and “living the dream”?!?. Our government doesn’t like the idea of you not being inside the wheel of controlled society.
2. We (big Australian business) don’t run business to make a living. We run business to take every cent available from our citizens. Not sure where this stupid mentality come from, by if I buy something for a dollar, I have to sell it for 10. That at least does explain why China and the US did find it so easy to take over our production and economy.
3. There are so many red tapes in this country, as far as building something, that most normal people, tend to give up way before the end, so to retain their sanity.
4. Fees.. Too many, too expensive, and too stupid!
5. Taxes.. Again, too many too often and too stupid!
6. Too much greed..

Then there is the problem of lack of identity. We don’t teach our kids to be proud of their country. We don’t even teach our kids about our country..

We are not really helping our young generation here to even contemplate the possibility of working while travelling, let alone building something to be proud of and not being stuck with a 25 years mortgage. The fact that they go overseas to fulfil their dream, it clearly tells you how bad the situation has become.

I just wish it was a little different..

I was able to find a nice piece of  interview from ABC Radio Perth by Jessica Strutt..

The bumper sticker says it all: Adventure before Dementia!