Mia and Chad Dickson were looking for a tree change after COVID lockdowns and a cost of living crisis left them feeling like they wanted more.
The parents-of-four considered doing a big family caravan trip around Australia but a holiday to Bali ended up derailing their plans and led them to move to the Indonesian Island permanently.
Chad had taken the family over to celebrate his 40th birthday, however while there, he started to notice the endless possibilities available.
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He says they used the month-long trip to “do some prep work, do a bit of digging and site searching” and they’d “spend the day in different spots” to see if and where they might want to settle.
“We’ve been over to Bali a bunch of times, so we’re not new to the city, but the living part was the unknown”, says Chad.
Mia says the trip ended up being a “dry test run” for whether or not they could live there more permanently.
And after returning home to Townsville, they got to work, to start making the change.
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Chad says they sold their car, their home and then bought cheap flights for Christmas day in 2023 and flew over with 18-year-old Jed, 13-year-old Raf, nine-year-old Fox and seven-year-old Lola.
And since making the move six months ago, they’ve never looked back.
“We have a completely different lifestyle than what we had in Australia.”
“Life is very simple here, we don’t have a lot of things to worry about or be concerned about and life tends to flow.”
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He says they now have “a nice little daily routine” and the kids are all loving the freedom.
Of the 1.2 million Australians who visit Bali each year, 10,000 Australians stay and live there.
Both agree there are so many benefits to living in Bali.
“Things are cheaper”, says Mia, “so for the cost of living compared to Australia we can really make our dollar stretch”.
The other benefit is homeschooling which is what they’re using to keep the kids educated, rather than sending them to an international school.
“There’s a great homeschooling community on the island that I’ve managed to find and integrate in” says Mia.
“The kids tend to get their homeschooling done within two to three days and then the rest of the week is ours to play with.”
The same goes with their work, which Mia acknowledges puts them in a “really lucky” position.
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“I’m working in the social media side and Chad’s working in the app and website development side, so we get our work week done and school week done the first half of the week, so then we can enjoy and relax the last half of the week as a family and just get out and see and do things, which is lovely.”
They’re using Australia’s largest homeschool provider, Euka Future Learning, which provides them with curriculum, lessons and reading materials and will ensure if they do return to Australia, none of their kids will have fallen behind.
“Following that curriculum, the kids can slot back into normal state school when we come home because it’s still in the Queensland curriculum which is super helpful.”
But Chad says it’s the daily life lessons that they’re seeing the biggest changes in their kids’ learning, just by living there, from learning the language, working out the currency and playing with local kids.
“The life learning that they’re getting access to and the different cultural lessons, you can’t put a price on that or an expertise level on that.”
“We were out for dinner the other night and our son, Fox, who’s nine, whispered over to me, how do I say ‘It’s delicious and thank you very much’ and I told him. The lady came to collect the plates and he just piped up this beautiful confidence and said ‘It was delicious thank you very much’ in Indonesian and the lady nearly fell off the chair. The locals love it.”
Chad says while they’re still “not locals”, they feel “really close to it” and aren’t ready to leave yet while “there’s still so much to see and do on the list”.
The Dicksons plan on staying at least another year and a half in Bali but admit the longer they stay, the less they ever want to leave.
“The access to services and facilities is unbelievable – it just keeps getting better and better the longer we spend here.”
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