For many people heading off on their "the big lap" or simply hooking up the caravan and getting away, those lifestyle plans are often complicated by their much-loved pets.
Most choose to take them along - and that's where the logistics become complicated.
National parks don't allow pets and neither do some caravan parks. But leaving your dog alone, cooped up in a small caravan far from home, is not the ideal option.
Like many entrepreneurial ideas, Vicki Cronan's solution was inspired through her own personal experience.
Recently retired from the Canberra public service and keen to tow her van around the country, playing golf courses along the way, she found it a problem in finding somewhere to temporarily leave her much-loved constant travel companion, four-year-old Jack Russell Lucy.
"Outside your own circle of friends, when you are out on the road, petsitters are hard to find and so many kennels and places like that were booked out or didn't want to mind a dog just for a few hours," she said.
With tens of thousands of Australians - many of them grey nomads - now on the road post-COVID in their caravans and campers and a large number taking their pets along for the journey, she realised her personal issue was a shared one.
So she started up Air Bark'n'Bark, an app which brings a fresh twist on the well-known multi-billion dollar home stay app but designed to connect Australian travellers and their dogs with people willing to be temporary minders for a modest fee, or in some cases, no fee at all.
"It was a seed of an idea which gathered momentum over time, as I talked to people in caravan parks I visited," she said.
"When I started travelling with Lucy and stopping in caravan parks, naturally you meet other people travelling with their dogs and this temporary pet-sitting need was something that came up all the time."
On returning home to the ACT, Air Bark'n'Bark became her retirement project. She completed a 10-week course with the Canberra Innovation Network and engaged web developers to design and build the app. Close friend and former Canberra Capitals star basketballer Abigail Wehrung, who now lives in Daylesford, Victoria, became her co-founder and social media expert.
"We wanted it to be sort of like a dating site for dogs," Ms Cronan said.
Launched in February, the app also has an explanatory website and a blog with tips on travelling with your canine friend. There is a low subscription fee based on how long a person is travelling for, topping out at $27.95 for those who are permanently on the road.
She never set out to make a financial windfall from the app, only to cover her costs. But at the rate it's growing - with about 1000 people now registered - she could be retiring more comfortably than expected.
"It [the app] really has taken off; we now have minders [pet minders] and finders [owners looking for pet-setting] all up and down the east coast of Australia and it's growing every day," she said.
"It's a real community now, we're getting very positive feedback and we have some beautiful pictures of our app users' dogs and their new friends posted on our social media pages."
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