Why I’m Heading Out
I wrote about my escape from the city to the country about 8 months ago called ‘Edges of the Map’. At the time, I thought I had finally figured out the kind of life I wanted, actually I was sure I had. Well, how things have changed! After becoming a hermit for just over a year, I am ready to get back into society. I need to get back into the world.
I know many love to live in rural areas. It’s peaceful, nothing much happens, and you are isolated. Well, it’s not for me. Although I do not regret the move, and I strongly believe it has been good for me, I need activity, I need people around me, and I need Kmart, dammit!
The past year has been good for me. I needed the break and the recharge. I needed to learn that rebelling against the system only increases it’s strength. I learned that I can live in the “system”, enjoy the good bits, and not get involved in the bad bits.
After a while, something else became clear. Stepping away from the world had helped me see it from a different perspective. When you are constantly moving, commuting, working, scrolling, buying, you don’t have much space to question why you are doing any of it. Life becomes a hamster wheel.
Out here, the wheel stopped.
For the first time in years, there was silence. Real silence. The kind where you can hear the wind move through the trees and notice your own thoughts without interruption.
At first, that silence felt like relief. But after a while, another truth appeared.
Peace that only exists in isolation is fragile peace.
It works beautifully until you have to deal with other humans again. Living quietly in the country helped me realise something surprising:
The goal isn’t to escape the system entirely. It’s to stop letting it run my inner world.
I used to think there were only two choices, either you chase the game, or you reject it completely. Work harder. Buy more. Impress people. Or walk away and pretend none of it matters.
But there’s a third option that took me a year of quietness to see.
I can step back into the world without handing it the steering wheel. I can enjoy the good parts, the convenience, the creativity, the people, yes, even Kmart, without tying my sense of worth to them.
I can participate without being completely consumed.
And that feels like a much healthier way for me to live. So after a year of the hermit life, I’m ready to re-enter society. But not as someone trying to win the game. Just as someone willing to play it my way.
I used to think rebellion meant freedom. But constant resistance can become its own kind of prison. When you spend all your energy fighting something, it still controls your direction.
And somewhere in that realisation, another thought started forming.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to really live, not just exist in routines, responsibilities, and things that look like stability. Somewhere in the back of my mind, a feeling has been growing that life is too short to wait, the world is too big to stay in one place, and my soul is too restless to stay confined by the rules of the ordinary.
So, I’m leaving. I’m leaving the rural life, this house, the possessions, the familiar patterns. For a while, my home will be a caravan, and my days will be measured by the rhythm of the road, the changing light, and the small, sacred moments that often go unnoticed.
Starting in Western Australia, I’m moving across the country, slowly and intentionally, toward Tasmania. But not just for the scenery, to see life differently, through my own eyes. To step fully into a life that feels alive, unchained, and true to me.
This is a conscious choice to step outside the expectations, to listen to my own guidance, and to honour the inner compass that has been quietly nudging me. To me, this is more than travel, it’s a spiritual practice, a letting go of what no longer serves, and a reclaiming of creative and emotional freedom.
I see the world differently, think differently, and want to live differently, beyond the familiar patterns, beyond what everyone says is “normal.” This isn’t impulsive or reckless. It’s calculated and full of both excitement and fear. I’ve realised that staying where I am, holding onto what feels safe (but boring), would be far more constraining than embracing the uncertainty ahead.
Maybe the point was never to escape the system entirely. Maybe the point was simply to step far enough away to see it clearly. The past year gave me that distance. It gave me quiet, space, and the chance to question the things I had been running on autopilot for years.
Now I’m stepping back into the world again. Not to chase it, or to fight it, but to move through it more consciously.
And if a caravan, an open road, and the occasional Kmart stop are part of that journey, then that sounds like a pretty good place to begin.