This chapter offers a reflection on the contribution qualitative longitudinal research makes to understanding how young Australians in rural areas make their lives. The analysis draws on the authors’ experience with the pioneering Australian Life Patterns project, a longitudinal research program, which has involved young people from Australian rural regions and has included three cohorts since 1991. It is set against the backdrop of a persistent normative view of young people’s transitions as placeless, implicitly privileging urban spaces that are seen to offer the high flow of educational, labour, and lifestyle opportunities that are associated with successful transitions. Our analysis uses a life story approach, drawing on interviews with two participants who graduated from rural secondary schools in 1991 and 2006 respectively, to reveal the way in which the young adults navigated the everyday work of belonging in a rural community. It aims to illustrate how the longitudinal qualitative nature of the research enabled the researchers to gain insights into the value young people placed on education and work at the same time as centring their sense of self on the people and places that matter to them. We argue that against the objectification of the present, longitudinal qualitative research gives visibility to the everyday practices and subjective meanings that show over time how young adults build their lives. These two key elements of qualitative longitudinal research underpin our analysis using the relational concepts of belonging and livelihood. We argue that the turn to concepts of belonging and livelihood, drawing on life stories in the words of participants, offers insights into the making of lives in times of increased and more widespread precarity and insecurity (traditionally associated with the rural) that, in turn, have relevance for understanding the lives of young people across the rural/urban divide.