 It's been two years now since I had a car to call my own and life since then has certainly changed. I've spent this time adapting my lifestyle to suit a carless one. I've started a new job, built friendships along the way, gotten to know the community around me, started some new hobbies like freediving and beach volleyball, been on dates, changed up my grocery shopping routine and learned my limits on how far I can really travel on a bicycle before it becomes too difficult. I've managed to ride or catch public transport or carpool if necessary, anywhere I've needed to go. But this new lifestyle hasn't been without its challenges or struggles. So here are a few updates from my experience of life without a car over the past couple of years and what I'm looking to do moving forward. It's been two years and it's interesting to look back and see how different my life really is. I wanted to try car-free living when I moved to the coast as it had been a long-standing dream of mine to ride on my bike that of course had to have a basket on the front, along the path that ran alongside the beach every day, just like I'd seen others doing on all our family holidays to the coast. I've shared a lot about my bicycle adventures in the early days already and how I found adjusting to the whole car-free life during the early months, so I won't talk about it again. But what I learnt during this time was how it was possible to live a simple life by the sea without needing a vehicle of my own for the most part. I understand circumstances are different and it really is a privilege that this car-free lifestyle has been accessible for me. As I live within a five to ten kilometre radius of all the places I mostly visit, I find biking to be convenient. However, if I'm going on longer road trips that aren't accessible by public transport, I'll usually carpool. Car-free living is definitely a lot easier if you live in a city. The first eight months of living car-free were really difficult to adjust to, as biking took a lot out of me energy-wise. My fitness level was really low to start out with. I stayed home a lot of the time as biking felt too much of an effort and the idea of going to the beach seemed less appealing when you had to ride half an hour to get there. I became a bit of a hermit and learnliness was something I really struggled with the first year and a half. Two years on, I've managed to create a routine with biking that I love. I ride to work each night, four days a week. I ride to church, ride to my local cafe each morning to grab a coffee and read a book, ride to the beach to walk along the sand or go free-diving, ride to meeting spots with friends, ride to my favorite plastic free store, Wyoming, ride to the bulk food store, ride to the organic farmers market, ride to volleyball, almost any activity that I want to do, I'll ride my bike to, except hiking. Riding has become second nature to me, a real enjoyment. But don't get me wrong, it's had its challenges and there have been many times when I've wished I had a car. Mainly when friends or family come to visit and I have no means of driving everyone around or when I've really wanted to go for a hike in the mountains. But most of the time I'm pretty content getting around by bike or bus. That being said, I have recently decided to save for a car of my own. A huge reason for this is accessibility. I'm not able to participate in certain volunteer opportunities in a marine environment field as I cannot get to them. Places like Morton Bay and Stradbroke Island are very challenging to get to without a car and they host a wide range of volunteer programs there. Plus, I miss hiking. I am such a nature girl and being away from the blue mountains in Sydney has been one of the hardest things for me. The mountains are where I go to think, escape the busyness of life in the city and reconnect with myself. It fills my soul when I sit out in the forest listening to the sounds of the birds and the triple of water running along the creeks. But I'm limited in being able to visit the mountains near me here in the coast as it's about an hour's drive from where I live. So I usually need to arrange to go with somebody which is wonderful and I love it. But sometimes I'd love to just go to the mountains on my own and simply be in my own company as I explore the trails there. So hiking usually only happens once or twice a month at most for me and I crave it. The third reason which I touched on briefly before is I would love to have a way of transporting my friends and family around when they come to visit. At the moment we bus everywhere or use the e-scooter and e-bike sharing service line but it is still quite inconvenient especially when you have three or four of us. I also came across a problem that I hadn't encountered before during my two years of biking which was flat tires. I live about an hour and a half to walk away from my local bike repair shop so I asked a friend if she could take me and my bike in her boyfriend's van to the bike shop only 10 minutes drive away as my bike won't fit in a normal car because it's humongous. I tried taking it on the bus once and I swore never again. It got stuck in the aisle way and it took so much maneuvering to get the thing back off the bus so I usually ride it to the bike shop when I need to get it serviced. However as it had a flat tire I couldn't this time. This was fine as my friend took me and we got it fixed but the following week the other tire popped and she wasn't free to pick me up so I had to walk the hour and a half there and the route ran right alongside the highway so every two seconds I'd have cars speeding past just inches away from me. So I thought having a car would prove helpful in situations like that a van would be even better. I am super grateful for my bike as she's sturdy, easy to ride, gets me almost anywhere I need to go and only needs to be serviced once a year. Plus she's cheap to run as my legs don't need petrol to work. Riding everywhere has also really built up my fitness level over these past two years. I really enjoy it now as opposed to when I first started and I find it to be really therapeutic when I can hop on my bike and just ride. I sit with my thoughts or listen to an audiobook or my favorite music and just taking scenery around them. I have had some wonderful suggestions sent in too by those who watched my previous videos on living car free. I had shared that grocery shopping was a huge challenge for me on a bike as I couldn't hold all my grocery bags and ride at the same time so I had to catch the bus which is fine but sometimes the bus never shows up and that's a little frustrating. Many of you have suggested buying an electric bike with bigger, sturdier tyres as it would make long commutes much more achievable or buying a trailer to hook onto the back of my bike to use for grocery shopping. These suggestions were fantastic and I did contemplate doing these things for a while and I may even buy an e-bike in future but for now I've settled on the decision to buy a car first to have for long trips, volunteering and when family and friends come to visit. I'll save for an e-bike next to have for longer trips around the Gold Coast area and even day trips to the mountains to hike. I would still predominantly use my bike as my main mode of transport as it's more eco-friendly and cheap to run and reserve the car for longer trips which would allow me to go to places I have never been before simply because my range of travel would increase by leaps and bounds. When running errands I'd take my bicycle and buy a trailer for grocery shopping when I just need to get out of the house after a long day of work I'd go for a ride the car would simply be there as an option for when I need to go someplace that is outside my possible range of biking but to be clear you don't have to live car-free to make some changes for your life and your environmental impact. When I share about being car-free I get a lot of comments of that just isn't possible for my family and I get it it is definitely true for many public transportation isn't perfect or even available to some people tight schedules can mean a car is the only option and if you live in a rural area biking everywhere is definitely not feasible but what about just trying to use the car a little bit less try and do as many errands as you need to in the one trip have a no drive day walk more back to your local cafe it really is a great way to slow down and soak up the moment when you get out on the bike and go for a ride for the time being it's still just me and my bike saving has been a little bit slower than anticipated and I'm only halfway there I started saving at the beginning of the year so I probably won't be able to buy a car until the start of next year which doesn't faze me I love to ride and even once I have a car I'll continue to ride as much as possible I've come to love riding over these past two years so much so that I can't imagine my life without it now it's one of my favorite things to do to just hop on my bike and see where my legs take me again I'm very privileged to have been able to live car-free for this long and I am so thankful for the lessons biking has taught me and the perspective it has given me I no longer take driving for granted that's for sure it feels like a luxury now when I carpool with friends to arrive at your destination in half the time while there are times when I wish I had a car those moments are few and far between most of the time I'm not only happy without a vehicle of my own but it's been so long now since I last had a car that it's no longer something I really think about running errands and living a normal life with a bicycle as my sole means of transportation has been such an adventure and I am so grateful for the experience thank you so much for watching this video let me know if you live a car-free life too I'd love to hear what your experience has been like I hope you have a wonderful day and I'll see you soon again