There is a particular kind of madness that strikes in January, when it’s grey, it’s cold, and you’ve run out of Baileys. You find yourself on the internet at 11pm thinking: what if we just… drove across Australia in a caravan?
This happened to me. And instead of doing the sensible thing and closing the laptop, I actually booked it.
So here, for anyone currently mid-spiral and wondering whether this is a magnificent life choice or a spectacular error of judgement, is everything I wish I’d known before our first Australian caravanning trip. (Spoiler: it was mostly magnificent. Mostly.)
First, the vocabulary adjustment
In Australia, a caravan park is not a field with a sad little toilet block and passive-aggressive notes about the kettle. Australian caravan parks (often called “holiday parks”) can be genuinely lovely, with pools, camp kitchens, barbecues, laundries, and wifi. Some of them are nicer than the hotels I’ve stayed in. Manage your expectations upward, is what I’m saying.
Hire vs. buy: an important question
Unless you’re emigrating (in which case, good luck, please send photos), you’ll want to hire a caravan or motorhome rather than buy one. This is the correct choice for a first trip. You’ll discover very quickly whether you are the sort of person who enjoys living in a small box on wheels, or whether you are the sort of person who, after three days, is desperately googling “boutique hotels near me.”
Motorhomes (called “campervans” in Australia, confusingly) give you everything self-contained: kitchen, bathroom, bed, the works. Towed caravans require a vehicle with a tow bar, which most hire companies will sort for you. The key question is how much of a human you need to be in the mornings. If the answer is “I require a proper shower and a wall socket before I can function,” go motorhome.
Expect to pay somewhere between AUD $100 and $300 per night for a decent hire vehicle depending on size and season. It sounds steep until you factor in that accommodation, transport, and (most of) the kitchen are all rolled in.
Finding somewhere to stay: do this bit first
Here’s what no one tells you before you get on the plane: Australian caravan parks fill up. Fast. Particularly in school holiday periods (note: Australian school holidays do not align with British ones, so there will be a moment of confusion, just accept it), long weekends, and anywhere within three hours of a major city.
Do not, as I initially planned to do, “just wing it.” You will end up parked on the side of a road in the Northern Territory while someone’s cattle dog looks at you judgementally through the windscreen.
We used Campstar to search and book caravan parks ahead of time, and I cannot recommend it enough for people who like to have a rough plan without committing to a rigid itinerary. You can search by location, filter by the facilities that matter to you (pool? dog-friendly? powered site?), and read proper reviews from people who’ve actually stayed there. It takes about fifteen minutes of browsing to feel like you actually know what you’re doing, which is frankly a miracle.
The powered vs. unpowered site question
Powered sites have a mains electricity hookup. Unpowered sites do not. If you’re hiring a modern motorhome with solar panels and a decent battery setup, unpowered is fine for a night or two. If you’re caravanning with kids, a CPAP machine, or any strong feelings about hot coffee in the morning, you want power. Book powered. Non-negotiable.
The distances. Oh, the distances.
Australia is extremely large. I understood this before going. I did not understand it physically until I looked at a map and realised that driving from Sydney to Cairns, which sounds like a manageable coastal road trip, is roughly the distance from London to Tehran.
For a first trip, pick a region and stay in it. The East Coast is the obvious choice: you’ve got New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria all connected by decent roads, good scenery, and enough caravan parks to give you options. Other popular routes include the Great Ocean Road in Victoria (stunning, and doable in a week), the South Australian coastline, or Western Australia’s Coral Coast if you’re flying into Perth.
Don’t try to see everything. This is, I know, advice that applies to most holidays, but with Australia it applies about four times more than usual.
Things you will definitely forget to pack
Camp chairs. Everyone forgets camp chairs. You’ll arrive at a beautiful spot by a lake at golden hour and have nowhere to sit while you watch it, which is peak suffering.
Also: a torch (there’s a proper dark in rural Australia that British people are not prepared for), a power board for the van (hire companies never include enough USB ports), and something with long sleeves for the evenings, because even Queensland gets chilly once the sun goes down.
On the wildlife situation
Yes, there are spiders. Yes, they will occasionally be in the toilet block. The solution is to look before you sit, which is good advice wherever you are in the world, honestly. Australia’s reputation for terrifying wildlife is not entirely undeserved, but it is enormously overstated. In two weeks I saw exactly one spider of note, several kookaburras (delightful), and a kangaroo who was entirely unbothered by our presence in his field.
The kookaburras will wake you up at dawn. There is nothing to be done about this. It is, however, quite a lovely way to start the day once you get used to it.
A few final words, from someone who survived
Australian caravanning is genuinely one of the better things I’ve done. The roads are good, the parks are well looked after, the scenery is ridiculous in the best possible way, and there’s something very satisfying about knowing that your bedroom and your kitchen are coming with you wherever you go.
Book your sites ahead of time (Campstar is your friend here), pack the camp chairs, and make your peace with the kookaburras setting the alarm.
You’ll love it. Mostly.