Hey Reader,

Last week we shared a mistake we made in Sri Lanka, but this week we want to talk about luck.

We’ve talked about “travel magic” before: how to create serendipitous travel moments for yourself. But we think serendipity is just a combination of preparation and luck.

When we were doing our half lap of Australia from Melbourne to Darwin and back, we wanted a more budget-friendly way to do the trip.

We had aggressively saved while working in remote Western Australia in case we needed to rent a car… but we REALLY didn’t want to spend that money.

Enter: Imoova — a camper van relocation service.

So many people rent camper vans and drive them from one end of Australia to the other, but then those vans need to be returned to their allocated city at the end of the season.

If no one has booked the opposite route, Imoova posts it for booking at a VERY low rate (like $2–5 per day) and sometimes they even include a fuel voucher too.

But there’s a catch. The routes and timings are super specific, so you have to be in the right place at the right time, or be flexible with your start and end destinations.

We set an email alert for routes from Darwin to Adelaide or Melbourne (or even half way down to Alice Springs), then just waited.

We decided that if we didn’t get an alert for that route by one week out from our planned departure, we’d just take the hit ($$$$) and rent a car.

As luck would have it, we got an email alert 10 days out: a truck with a rooftop tent going from Darwin all the way to Melbourne AND a $250 fuel voucher. Exactly what we wanted.

We spent 12 amazing days wild swimming in the Northern Territory, driving through the outback, camping at Uluru, and exploring the Great Ocean Road on the south coast.

Our trip total only came to about $500 USD between the two of us thanks to our basically free ride.

But our success wasn’t just pure luck.

We’d set email alerts for every reasonable start and end point we could affordably navigate to, checked the website daily so we knew roughly how far in advance the longer trips were posted, and had an Imoova account already set up so we could book immediately if we saw a route that worked for us.

Luck + informed planning = travel magic.

Of course, you aren’t always able (or willing) to plan this extensively for your travels… and the camper relocation was a pretty unique experience too.

But here are some other ways to make space for serendipitous travel experiences:

1. Save places on Google Maps in advance, even if you don’t make a plan for when to visit them. We love having a wander, then seeing if we've saved any cool coffee shops or restaurants in the area.
2. Check opening times and dates for experiences you REALLY want to do. You don’t want to miss out on a cool museum because you didn’t know it’s closed on a Tuesday.
3. Always carry a scarf in places with religious sites. You never know when you’ll pass somewhere you want to check out.
4. If you’re a just show up and see what happens type of traveler, make sure you’re not showing up in low season to a place where everything closes (like many parts of Southern Italy and Greece).

Hope these tips are helpful for future trip planning.

And let us know if there’s anything you do to allow for spontaneity when you travel. We always want to learn more and hear from you!

Jess & Julia