'Our six-week family holiday cost $160 and transformed how we parent.'

Sitting with my family on the edge of our own private beach, drinking hot chocolates at sunrise, it felt like a million-dollar experience — if I could ignore my three kids squabbling over half a packet of biscuits.

As my husband emerged from the ocean carrying his speargun, my five-year-old spilt hot chocolate on the rug, while my seven- and nine-year-olds started wrestling. I felt the familiar words rise to the tip of my tongue — the phrase every holiday mum has said at least once: 'I didn't pay all this money for this'.

Then I remembered the spreadsheet.

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A meticulous breakdown of our family holiday: six weeks travelling along the edge of Australia's most idyllic coastline. Total cost: $160.

While many of our friends are buying $50,000 caravans, we did the opposite. We sold our camper trailer and rebelled against the Pinterest-ification of camping.

Our accommodation? Three swags. One for my husband and me, and two for the kids. (Two share, one lucky child gets their own — rotated according to a carefully negotiated roster).

Our locations? A string of national park campsites, starting two hours south of Sydney and finishing near the Victorian border.

Most campsites were free, apart from a $6 booking fee. The facilities? A drop toilet — and that's it. No showers. No screens. Definitely no Wi-Fi. With three kids under ten, this might sound like a logistical nightmare. But the magic of our $160 holiday was everything that was missing.

My husband — the definition of "outdoorsy" — told me to pack light. For a six-week trip, that meant two changes of clothes per person, a canvas bag of craft supplies, a robust medical kit, plus skateboards and surfboards for all five of us.

Image: Supplied.

Entertainment was simple: our oldest iPad, which holds exactly one family-friendly movie, plus a handful of audiobooks and podcasts.

For the first week, my mum-anxiety screamed 'what if?' I ran a constant internal narrative of 'not enough': Not enough food. Not enough entertainment. Not enough control.

Then, around week two, something shifted. It felt like our family's nervous system exhaled. Without meaning to, we had tapped into two rising cultural trends: rewilding kids and a return to analogue life.

Image: Supplied.

The research backs it up. Children need time in nature to regulate their nervous systems, build resilience and develop confidence. It's why bushcraft, fort-building and fire-lighting camps are booming.

At the same time, adults — particularly Millennials — are actively rejecting digital overload. Film cameras are back. Phone-free events are selling out. We're craving tangible, offline experiences in a hyper-digital world.

When you put kids in nature and strip back screens, sugar and constant stimulation, they thrive. And it turns out adults do too.

With only a small solar panel to charge our devices, I broke the habit of taking my phone everywhere — and constantly having an AirPod in.

We bought our eldest an instant camera, so our journey was documented in grainy snapshots — far kinder than HD selfies.

Of course, an off-grid holiday comes with challenges.

For the first two weeks, I was still officially working, which proved almost impossible with zero reception. But it also forced clarity. At our favourite campsite in Murramarang National Park, I discovered a "reception tree": a ten-minute hike uphill where I could send texts and emails.

It became my morning ritual. I checked in with my dad there after he received bad news. I stood under that tree when I heard about the Bondi shooting, feeling shaken and deeply grateful for our forest sanctuary.

Along the way, my kids learnt new skills: lighting fires, gutting fish and tolerating boredom — something that would once have caused meltdowns in our well-stocked home.

Image: Supplied.

Of course, this lifestyle comes with privilege. For us, living off-grid was a choice, not a necessity. While we slept in swags, Airbnb guests enjoyed our house for a generous fee. Every hardship was temporary and novel.

Still, the holiday offered a powerful reset — a reminder of what matters, and of my own capability as a mother.

It turns out I don't need a cupboard full of snack options or three streaming platforms to manage my kids, even on tough days. Our mental health "hacks" became simple: collecting firewood, walking barefoot in the forest, chatting to strangers.

This kind of trip isn't for everyone. Like many people with past trauma, I gravitate towards endurance feats. I met my husband on a seven-day hike across Tasmania's Tarkine rainforest. These days, my biggest challenge is getting three kids to school on time.

This holiday scratched the itch to push myself — all for less than the cost of a meal at a nice restaurant.

When I asked my kids for their highlights, the list included: seeing emus on the beach, my youngest getting a tick, and "mummy burning her period pants in the fire." (In my defence: we went weeks without washing clothes.)

For me, it was falling asleep under the stars — and ignoring every alert from the school app.

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When I was a child, my dad took me to both expensive restaurants and dodgy truck stops because he wanted me to feel comfortable everywhere.

This is my version of that for my children.

First-class flights to London are still on my bucket list. But we'll also be booking our drop-toilet campsite again next year.

Feature image: Supplied.