Joss Taylor and Megan Alcorn of seaustravl on quitting their jobs to travel Australia and getting paid for it

Lots of people dream of quitting their jobs and going travelling, but few are bold enough to pull it off. Katanning-raised Joss Taylor is one half of the travelling duo behind seaustravl, a content creation brand with tens of thousands of people following the couple’s camping adventures across Australia. With an Instagram page boasting 64,000 followers and YouTube with 33,000, the couple is a runaway success story for the travel influencer dream. Born and raised in the small Great Southern town of Katanning, about three hours south-east of Perth, Taylor studied a Bachelor of Outdoor Recreation at the University of Notre Dame before going on to complete a Master’s in Marketing at Curtin University. Taylor’s marketing career kept him in Perth where he met teacher Megan Alcorn in 2019. Like Taylor, Alcorn grew up in the country and the pair bonded over their love of the outdoors. When COVID hit in 2020, they started travelling with a joint Instagram account and the seaaustravl brand was born. Their following soon grew “bigger and bigger” as they documented their travels around WA, from swimming with the whale sharks in Ningaloo to wakeboarding at Lake Brockman. Brands started reaching out to them and they realised that they could afford to travel without burning through their savings. In June 2022, they took the leap and quit their jobs. “Once we got to a certain point, we thought we might be able to make some money from it and that was the point where we were like, ‘Let’s quit our jobs in Perth and hit the road’,” Taylor said. Looking back on the experience, Taylor described the sudden loss of security as a “very weird feeling” that was “quite daunting and exciting at the same time”. “It was a big jump to quit your day job and purely focus on one thing,” Taylor said. The holiday soon became their job with the pressure to create content every day balanced against their desire to be present and enjoy the extraordinary places they visited. “You’ve got to find that balance between really enjoying something and having your phone in front of you,” Taylor said. “. . . The main reason we did it was to experience it, but we still had other goals as well so that was probably the biggest challenge.” The pair put a lot of effort into perfecting their camping setup before they left — with a jet boil hiking stove, a comfy mattress, a Webber, and a hammock among their favourite items — but living out of a tent isn’t always easy. “It was comfortable but when it’s miserable, and it’s windy, when it’s rainy, you’ve only got a few places to hide so that was something that had days where you’re a bit over it,” Taylor said. It was worth it, however, for the chance to see some of Australia’s incredible landscapes, Taylor said, with the “ruggedness” of the Kimberley region of WA and the “diverse landscape” of Tasmania “a huge highlight”. “The East Kimberley, in particular, doing the Gibb River Road and around Kununurra was really cool,” he said. “. . . and then Tassie . . . they’ve got everything there from rainforest to . . . we were camping in the snow one night.” They met people all along the way, some of who are now lifelong friends, and tried to spend their money in small towns. “Being from the country, I can understand the struggles that small towns have and the struggles that the local pub has and the shops, so we definitely tried to spend our money at all the small towns along the way as much as we could,” he said. “Just to talk to the locals, sit in the pub, and have a beer with someone from there.” Closer to home, Taylor loves returning to Katanning and camping on friends’ farms, which he describes as “therapeutic”. The pair are also big fans of the Stirling Range, with its plethora of hiking and camping options, and regularly head down to Albany and Denmark in the warmer months. The couple have recently returned to Perth but hope that by sharing their journey they will inspire more people to “go out there and explore”. “We picked up a lot of rubbish and that kind of stuff, so I think the more people get out there, the more appreciation they will have for the Australian landscape,” he said. With most of Australia under their belt, the couple are using the winter months to reassess their next steps with an eye to upgrading their camping setup to a caravan. They are also planning some overseas travel so Alcorn — who has visited about 65 countries — can show Taylor her favourite places. “Ideally down the track, we’d happily do Australia again and I guess the fact that we’ve now done it quite thoroughly, we know where we’d love to go back to and spend maybe a longer period of time,” Taylor said. For anyone else thinking of quitting their job and following their dream, Taylor said “you’ve got to bite the bullet”. “I know that’s a cliche, but it’s pretty much the best advice you can give someone when they’re contemplating it because no one ever regrets it,” he said.