The Block’s Karstan Smith, 37, and Maxine Stokes, 35, made a rare on-the-beaten track appearance in Sydney CBD last Sunday, as the full-time nomads teased the beginning of their next ‘epic adventure.’
The couple have two children Zuri, 5, and Zena, one, an Australian-made expedition truck, and ‘no end in sight when it comes to travel.’
After four years of travelling their own backyard in a rusty old Kombie van, Karstan and Max are taking their nomadic lifestyle overseas. First stop: Japan.
The newlyweds won just $40,000 for their five months of labour on The Block in 2014. ‘For us life is too short to look at the same view every day,’ Max wrote in a recent post.
‘So we choose to have our home on wheels so we can experience all that this world has to offer…’Yes you heard it! This truck will be going overseas.’
The Block’s Karstan Smith, 37, and Maxine Stokes, 35, are taking heir nomadic lifestyle overseas and departed Australia on Sunday
The Aussie parents have been travel vlogging their treks across Australia with one (then two) young kids for the past four years, and now they’re headed overseas with a boat
The couple have two children Zuri, 5, and Zena, one, an Australian-made expedition truck, and ‘no end in sight when it comes to travel.’
In videos posted to Instagram Stories on Monday, the couple announced the ‘epic new chapter’ of life on the road for their growing family.
At the start of 2025, Max and Karstan finally got their hands on their custom-made expedition truck, which they put a deposit on back in 2022 ‘on a 47 degree day in the outback, when we were in the Kombi with a toddler.’
‘A big day of travelling ahead of us,’ Max captioned a photo of her youngest sleeping in a pram in Sydney’s International departures terminal.
‘It’s open, thank God,’ Karstan said as he led his four-year-old daughter Zuri into the George Street McDonald’s on Sunday morning.
The pair of high school sweethearts from Newcastle, who tied the knot on The Block in 2014, are shipping their boat and their expedition truck overseas.
Both their kids slept through long-haul connecting flights from Australia to Japan over the weekend. ‘Don’t know how we pulled this off,’ Karstan captioned videos
On Sunday, the family hit the ski slopes in Furano, a city in Hokkaido, after picking up a rental van.
The couple cut short a recent expedition to Fraser Island to go and pick up the boat, a Desert Ops 445 Makocraft model, which they say will better suit their travelling needs as they expand their horizons.
‘We always knew that to do the type of travel we enjoy, we would have to change things up! Getting a boat opens up a world of possibilities that excite us so much!’ they wrote last week.
‘So where are we at now?? Well at the moment we are getting a custom trailer built by Triple M Sheet Metal to fit the huge 39” mud terrain tyres we’ve selected,’ the post continued.
Karstan and one-year-old daughter Zena pose in the new addition to the family’s home on wheels
The couple cut short a recent expedition to Fraser Island to go and pick up the boat, a Desert Ops 445 Makocraft model
Karstan and Max have daughters Zuri, five, and Zena, one, who have been living on the road with them since birth
Zuri (pictured) has been travelling Australia with her intrepid parents since she was only 6 weeks old
Karstan and Max have spent the past four years travelling Australia and living out of a Kombie van, sharing their wild adventures on YouTube, and welcoming two kids.
‘As we grew older we both had many different types of jobs, we worked hard, bought a house, did the things that adults do, but we always new there was more out there for us,’ Max explains in a pinned ‘reintroduction’ post on their page.
The couple travelled 40,000kms around Australia in their rusty old van, called Bombi, in 2009, after reminiscing on how they backpacked Europe together as teenagers.
On Sunday March 2, the Block couple and their children set off on their next adventure overseas
On Sunday, the family hit the ski slopes in Furano, a city in Hokkaido, after picking up a rental van. Four-year-old Zu pictured seeing snow for the first time
‘As we grew older we both had many different types of jobs, we worked hard,’ she continued.
‘We bought a house, did the things that adults do but we always knew there was more out there for us.’
‘Fast forward and we had our one-of-a-kind wild child Zuri (ZuZu), and we started travelling in the Kombi with her from 6 weeks old. Seeing how she thrived outdoors gave us the kick up the backsides to make some big changes.
‘So we sold our house, threw in our jobs, bought an investment and hit the road full time. It was the scariest and best decision ever!’
In 2023, the couple spent 10 months meticulously renovating The Palms, a two-bedroom, three-bathroom home in their native Mereweather, Newcastle.
The Airbnb was intended to be a lock-and-leave investment to ‘continue the nomadic lifestyle’, and was sold in 2024.
‘We’ve rolled into this New Year in a really good and calm head space… which is so different to the chaos we were in last year (with a newborn, finishing a house reno and waiting for the delivery of our empty truck),’ Max said.
‘We are now in a very exciting season, one which we have worked hard for, and dreamt about for a long time.
;In 2024 we did over 23,000kms – it was a massive shake down which prepared us for what’s to come. Let’s go.’
