How 33-year-old travelled Australia for free

A traveller has revealed the smart hack she used to travel the country without spending money – and it’s something anyone can do.

Jacqueline Anj travelled Aus for 75 days and only paid for accommodation once.

This young traveller found a way to travel Australia for 75 days for free by exploiting the country’s nearly 3.2 million homes with a spare bedroom.

Jacqueline Anj, a 33-year old who lives in Singapore, travelled around Australia and only paid one night worth of accommodation before finding a smart hack that meant she didn’t have to.

She instead found accommodation through Abroadly, an emerging platform that allows travellers to “pay” hosts by doing simple tasks in exchange for a place to stay.

Throughout her time in Australia, Ms Anj completed domestic duties for families, like cleaning and cooking, to pay for her rooms.

She said this approach saved her $3,600 for about 75 days in Australia.

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Jacqueline enjoying the Jacarandas in Australia.

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She also stayed in a large rural property with other travellers and did farm work for the hosts.

“I would do around three or four hours a day and the rest I would spend being a tourist,” she said. “I felt really safe … Australians are really friendly.”

Her sole accommodation expense in Australia was one night in a hostel, which cost her $47.96.

Data from Tourism Research Australia shows that the average domestic traveller spends around $386 a night to stay in a capital city – a 6 per cent increase from the previous year.

Jacqueline at a beach in Perth.

Abroadly has a strict identification verification system to ensure all hosts are real people with valid documents and police checks.

There is a ‘female only feature’ which Ms Anj used to filter hosts that were women as an added element of security for female travellers.

Abroadly currently has nearly 2000 hosts on the platform. The majority are in Queensland, Western Australia, NSW and Victoria.

Co-founders Miguel Fuentes and Nikki de Weerd founded Abroadly during covid, reaching out to their friends and colleagues to help host backpackers and international students who were left stranded in the country.

They were inspired by their own experiences being world-travellers and expats in a different country.

It began as a Facebook group for WA residents called “adopt a backpacker”.

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Abroadly co-founders Nikki de Weerd and Miguel Fuentes inspired by their own love for travel.

“Suddenly it exploded and thousands of people were opening their doors to stranded travellers,” Mr Fuentes said.

“Then the community grew, we thought this is a good thing to do and Aussies are open to it.”

Abroadly now has grown into a website and app where you can sign up as a traveller or host.

Most hosts were empty nesters with bedrooms to spare in their homes, according to Mr Fuentes.

“Lots of local hosts love it because they invite in a young and vibrant traveller from different parts of the world,” he said.

“Some travellers are skilled labourers or plumbers, so they’ll fix things for their hosts. I heard of one host who had two guests that painted her house in their spare time.”

Both international and domestic tourists struggle with Australia’s high accommodation costs.

Other common tasks included dog-walking, gardening and sometimes house sitting the entire house.

“One crazy experience, a traveller met their host in the city, and they took them three hours out of Perth to look after their giant mansion in the country with a hot tub and a massive fireplace,” he said.

Travellers using the platform often used funds spared on accommodation to dine at local cafes and restaurants or use a tour operator, added Mr Fuentes.

“The rental crisis is just crazy, instead of adding to the problem like other short-term home accommodations, this is encouraging more hosts to use their spare bedrooms as an affordable weekly rental,” he said.

“Australia apparently has 13 million spare bedrooms if we are even using 1 per cent of that, that will help the rental crisis and it’s sustainable.”

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Originally published as How 33-year-old travelled Australia for free