Annoyance at carting around a wet and sandy towel after a beach day birthed an innovative idea behind a Coast family’s successful business.
Phoebe and Chris Burnham launched Will and Wind in late 2018 to bring sand-free, absorbent, compact, quick drying towels to lovers of the outdoors.
Mrs Burnham said it started as a hobby business.
“We used to travel with these big bulky towels, and you’d stuff them into your bag all wet and sandy. So we made some light weight, sand-free towels for ourselves and thought ‘these are awesome, everyone needs them!” she said.
“We ran with that as a hobby .. but we were travelling and needed an income, so we thought we would make it our full-time business and it has gone crazy!”
“It’s been amazing, we can now sustain ourselves to travel full-time and work from our laptops”.
Mr Burnham, a keen photographer, designs the towels using photos he has taken around Australia.
Mr and Mrs Burnham and their children Haines, 3, and Vallis, 10 months, have been full-time travellers since 2018
“We had our son in 2017 and Chris was working really long hours in the mines on shift work and he didn’t get to see our son much,” Phoebe said.
“It was a massive hit to our family, and we had the realisation that time is more important than money, so we sold everything and hit the road”
Mrs Burnham said they wanted to do something fun to celebrate Australia after a tough year with COVID-19 and organised a Nationwide scavenger hunt.
Will and Wind hid free products all over Australia and shared clues to their whereabouts on social media over the eight days leading up to Australia Day.
“We wanted to do something cool for Australia Day and find a way to get people involved and do something with us, rather than a typical social media giveaway,” Mrs Burnham said.
“We had a select crew of people hiding towels in each state, they filmed clues and posted them on social media. There were people running around everywhere trying to find towels. We’ve had really great feedback from the event”
“The world had a pretty crazy year last year, so it was a really cool way to get people out and about exploring their home states".
Mrs Burnham said they wanted to do something fun to celebrate Australia after a tough year with COVID-19 and organised a Nationwide scavenger hunt.
Will and Wind hid free products all over Australia and shared clues to their whereabouts on social media over the eight days leading up to Australia Day.
“We wanted to do something cool for Australia Day and find a way to get people involved and do something with us, rather than a typical social media giveaway,” Mrs Burnham said.
“We had a select crew of people hiding towels in each state, they filmed clues and posted them on social media. There were people running around everywhere trying to find towels. We’ve had really great feedback from the event”
“The world had a pretty crazy year last year, so it was a really cool way to get people out and about exploring their home states".
Will and Wind hid products in each Australian state and territory.
Clues were posted via social media.
Queensland took out the games as the fastest state with the scavenger hunt being solved in just 4 minutes.
You can catch the scavenger hunt here on Will and Wind's Instagram highlights
Chris and Phoebe Burnham continue to hide products and run scavenger hunts sporadically as they pass through towns on their Australian travels.
www.willandwind.com
@willandwind_
1 comment
Hi Phoebe, I am interested to know if you have towels suitable for seniors? Large bath towels, bath mats and beach towels have become too cumbersome with arthritic hands.
We live here in Nhulunbuy. Thanks Beth.