East Coast of Australia in a Campervan

East Coast of Australia in a Campervan

One of my absolute favourite highlights of travelling so far was without doubt travelling along the East Coast of Australia in a Campervan. Strap in for a bit of a lengthier post and I hope you gain some inspiration for a camper trip of your own!

The sense of freedom and pure excitement of everything you know you’ll get to see over the next coming weeks is brilliant and something definitely worthwhile experiencing when you’re in a foreign country (or even your own!). Here I’d like to share my experience of a camper trip and provide some useful tips as to how to make the most of it and avoid some of the not-so-positive moments I had.

Having thought about doing a campervan trip before I even stepped into Australia, I knew this was something I had to do before I left, and nothing was going to stop me. Once that had been established in my mind, the next step was to ask and answer that ever-tricky question: How?

How To Rent A Campervan In Australia

How would I be able to afford it, how would I be able to get to and from the pickup/drop-off locations and how could I drive and rent one if I was under 21. At this point I wasn’t even sure if I would rent or try and buy my own camper (this seemed a fairly popular option within Australia at the time).

If you are one of the lucky few who finds a solid job early on or start off with a wealthy bank account, then definitely buy your own camper. Australia is bloody massive and to really make the most of it, you’ll want to see it all. The best way to do this is without doubt to buy your own camper, keep for as long as you wish and then sell it on at the end.

This will give you the flexibility to go where you want, when you want and stay for as long as you want – something I wish I could have had on my trip! Not to forget the fact that you can sell it on afterwards, usually for at least ¾ of what you paid for it, given that you don’t crash it.

If, however, you’re like my girlfriend and I and you don’t manage to save anywhere near as much as you had originally hoped (You can find out more on how we did, and worked and made cash in Australia here), there are some other fantastic options that will allow you to explore OZ by camper. One option is to find someone who already owns a camper and ask to tag along and although this may sound a bit weird or daunting, it’s very common with travellers in Australia to meet up with others.

There are tons of Facebook groups that allow you to instantly connect with other travellers all over Australia, and more often than not people will actually advertise for someone to join them on their trip so that they can split the costs with someone else. It will take a bit of the freedom away as you’ll have to split decisions with another party, however it’s a very accessible, cheap and risk-free way to travel OZ in a campervan.

Another option is to simply rent a camper yourself. This basically offers you the reverse of the option above: you have all the freedom you want, but it will cost you a fair amount more. Always consider your budget when evaluating your options, I can promise you that one of the worst things when travelling is the fear of and risk of losing your budget. But as I said before, this option will give you a lot of freedom, so if you have the money available then definitely opt for this option.

WARNING! If you are planning on renting a camper, be wary of where you do it and the conditions that they are selling you on. We were unfortunate enough to try and book through our hostel and ended up nearly losing a lot of money, so make sure you are ready to book and know exactly what you are getting yourself in to before you give any card details away!

So having saved the best until last (in my opinion), I come to the final option when getting a camper: Relocation deals. In short, camper companies need certain vehicles in certain locations at certain times, so rather than pay for transporting them, they give you the camper (often for FREE!!) so that you can drive it to the new location for them. This means that you effectively get a free camper trip, only leaving insurance and fuel to pay for.

It does slightly limit your freedom due to needing to drop-off at a specific location, however there are a lot of options and a lot of the most popular routes are covered. With a simple Google search for “Camper relocations Australia”, you’ll be able to find all the deals and destinations you want. This in my opinion is the best compromise between freedom and price.

Choosing Your Route

Now that you’ve decided on how you’re gonna get your camper for your trip, deciding where to go comes next. I’ll admit, I may be a bit biased here in that I only did one trip in Australia, but it was absolutely amazing and so I know you can’t go wrong with it. Cairns -> Sydney or Sydney -> Cairns is probably the most popular of all the OZ road trips, but I think this is justified. I mean the amount of amazing, unique things you get to see all on one trip just blew my mind and I have no doubt it will do the same to yours.

(For those interested in other locations too, I’ll try and find some articles to link to here or send out in a newsletter so that you can get some good recommendations on those trips as well.)

We started in Cairns and worked our way down to Sydney, but it would work exactly the same the other way around. Starting off, we hit the Great Barrier Reef. If you’re in Australia, you can’t not go…it’s the world’s largest reef and is home to some absolutely amazing wildlife. And, even though I hate to say it, the world’s coral reefs are dying so anybody who does have the chance to, go and see it because nobody knows how long it’s going to remain.

There’s so much you can see that you can’t see on land, it really is just stunning to see a whole new world of life. And with so many different species of fish, over 1500 to be precise, it makes for an incredible adventure full of variety…and sometimes fear when you spot an absolute monster of a fish! Also found in Cairns is the Daintree Rainforest, and although I didn’t go myself, I have heard from others that it’s a great place to explore and definitely worth a visit if you the time.

Our next main stop was Townsville, where Magnetic Island is located. Townsville is a nice, laid-back beach town and actually provided our best free sleeping spot on our whole trip (Here you can find out more about what we did when sleeping in our camper), but the main attraction here was of course Magnetic Island.

Here you can catch a ferry either with or without your camper, use the bus around the island and can also hire awesome mini 4×4 cars to explore the island, so there are plenty of options to suit every budget! With loads of cool beaches, views and forest areas, Magnetic Island is fantastic to spend a day or two just exploring…and if you’re lucky you’ll spot one or two of their large wild Koala population and having seen a few myself, I have now decided that I want one at home.

Even though I didn’t get to see the whole island, I definitely recommend giving at least a day trip as it has some amazing spots that are worth seeing. It is also probably the cheapest Australian Island to visit as all you really have to pay is for the ferry there and back, making it even more worth its while!  

Continuing down the coast, we then stopped over in Airlie Beach. This has to have been one of my favourite places on the East Coast because of its small beach town vibes and its proximity to my favourite Australian Island(s); The Whitsunday Islands. Along with all this, Airlie Beach has some great beaches (hence the name ha ha), as well as a fantastic “lagoon” area which is basically just a massive outdoor public pool near the beach. Awesome!

I would be lying though if I didn’t say that by far the main reason I suggest you go here is to take a Whitsundays tour. This was without a doubt my favourite (and I think everyone else’s favourite) part of the entire road trip. We went as a group on a boat tour with Camira Sailing and it was brilliant! The day was all well planned, the boat had loads of space to sit, lie down, the food was nice, the staff were nice…everything was great, and I can’t recommend enough to do this trip if you can!

The first stop involved snorkelling over a shallow coral reef which was awesome – so much life that you so rarely come across anywhere else! Even if you can’t make all of the tours I suggest, go snorkelling somewhere at some point on the East Coast – I promise you won’t regret it! For the second part of the trip we disembarked from the boat and ventured onto Whitsunday Island, the home to Whitehaven Beach.

Honestly when I say I can’t really think of words I could use to describe this place, I’m not exaggerating. Miles of beach. Perfect blue ocean water. The world’s purest sand. Rockfaces to climb and explore. Beautifully warm sea temperatures. What more could you want from a place?!

It truly is one of the most breath-taking places I have ever seen in my life; everything there is so perfect and untouched that you really feel like you are in paradise, so if there is ONE place in Australia that I would recommend to you, it has to be the Whitsunday Islands.

Having wished I never had to leave, we carried on South and headed for Hervey Bay and Fraser Island. Luckily the rest of the trip provided a lot to look forward to, which greatly helped leaving the Whitsundays behind. Fraser Island was one of those things – Its expensive, and would take a day to go see it, but its very unique and everyone says you have to go…so I had to go. It was the most expensive part of the trip that we did by a fair amount, so bare that in mind if you’re considering what and what not to do.

It was a great day out on the 4×4 bus, zooming from one unique site to the next. Fraser Island is the largest island in the world made from sand and contains most of the world’s naturally forming sand lakes. We also got to see a cool shipwreck, walk up a stream with the clearest water I may have ever seen, walk through rainforests and even drive on a motorway on the beach…that’s right, their beach is an actual legal motorway!

However, even though we saw a lot of unique things there were some downsides to the trip: we got unlucky with the weather and the grey skies put a slight mood downer on the day, our group of 4 got split up and put on two separate tours for the day, and the cost to awesomeness ratio didn’t come close to that of the Whitsundays in my opinion. If I were to give a final judgement on whether to go there or not I’d say look at your budget.

If its within budget and you can try to plan for a good day of weather, then it’s definitely worthwhile as you’ll see a lot of cool stuff that you can’t really see anywhere else in the world. Having said that, if you are a little tight on budget, or are travelling in winter then I would save it and make the most out the Whitsundays, the Great Barrier Reef and Magnetic Island.
 

East coast of Australia in a campervan

I was totally glad I had done the tour in the end, but I won’t lie, the slight disappointment and the excitement for the next few places left me feeling not too sad when it came time to move on. Brisbane, Gold Coast and Byron Bay were next before finally reaching Sydney. I don’t have much to say about Brisbane as we only stopped for an hour or two on the way just to catch some sights, but from what I did see I really liked. It looks like a fairly cool and modern city and I have heard from others who have been properly that it’s definitely worth a visit.

Then came Gold Coast time…potentially my joint number one mainland location in Australia and it perfectly broke up the drive between Brisbane and Byron Bay. Gold Coast is fantastic. Although almost impossible to find a reasonable sleeping spot! We headed to the end of the “Spit” thinking nobody would see us, instantly ran into police who were patrolling the area and then proceeded to get the go-ahead from the cops themselves! (it is illegal in Australia to sleep on the side of the road or in car parks).

If you would like to know a bit more in detail about why you absolutely have to go there and what else I got up to there during the summer months, then click here where I have already written specifically about my time there.

 That just left our second-to-last stop: Byron Bay. This place was just amazing. It fit the exact picture I had in my head: beautiful beaches, casual laid-back backpacker vibes and surfer dudes everywhere. I may have said “my favourite place” or “one of my absolute favourites” a few too many times, but I’m gonna have to say it again here! (can you really blame me with a route like this though?!)

The whole day was spent just chilling at the beach, grabbing a few bites to eat in local cafes and exploring the lighthouse at sunset. It was one of those chill days that you don’t often get when racing down the coast to pack in as many things as you can, so it was a nice and needed change. The evening was topped off by sipping goon on the streets, as a group gathered to enjoy a local street performer.

This, in my opinion was the perfect end to a Byron Bay day! One thing I will say is that parking isn’t particularly easy to find and will not be free (if anyone knows anything different then put it in the comments), so be prepared for that. Once you do have a spot though you can fairly easily walk everywhere which is great.

Having driven a bit further out to find somewhere to sleep overnight, we drove back to spend the morning in Byron at the beach and were lucky enough to have brilliant weather both days which made it perfect to stretch out in the sand.

If you’re going to swim, watch out for the waves at certain times, as they can get fairly intense; I got flattened and submerged by a monster wave as I was walking back to the beach, causing me to lose my beloved sunglasses that I had had for years! I like to think a piece of me will always be in Byron Bay now…not that they’re physically part of me but you know what I mean.

After losing my only sunblockers, we headed for a shady area with a public BBQ (you can find these all along the coast in Queensland!) for lunch. One tip for saving on food for your trip is to buy hotdogs in large packs and stick them on a free BBQ and you can use the rolls for lunch too. Rice and sauces will also make great budget meals if you have a stove, which is useful when you don’t want to spend money eating out several times a day. Oh, and don’t let one of your group dictate what is in the fridge, it makes it a lot harder and won’t end well…

Next it was time to complete the final stretch to Sydney where we had to return our camper although none of us wanted to. On the way, in Port Macquarie, there’s a small Koala hospital where you can visit Koala’s who are rehabilitating.

This is great not only because they’re so cute but you can learn more about them and how to prevent disturbing them and how to watch out for them if you do come across them. Speaking of Australian animals, you’ll have to be extra cautious of kangaroos running across rural roads, especially at night. If you can, avoid driving at night on unlit, rural roads so as to be as safe as you can. Luckily when I was driving I only came across kangaroos once and it was during the day so I was able to stop in good time.

Once we did safely reach Sydney though the first place we visited were the Blue Mountains, just a half an hour or so drive from the city. The mountains were stunning and from the various view-points you can visit there, you get to see for miles and miles into the distance with a great variety of mountain shapes and rock formations!

If you end up in Sydney at any point on your travels, go for a tour there or if you do have a camper/car then make the drive as it is more than worth it. It makes a beautiful change of environment if you’ve been in Australia for a while. One thing I will say is that you should watch out for the night time temperatures; we decided to sleep there in our camper but because of the altitude compared to everywhere else we had slept on our journey, it was much, much colder. Even with all our clothes on, blankets and covers, we still shivered all night and hardly slept at all…so in hindsight, maybe just go for the day and sleep somewhere closer to the city!

In the city we bought train tickets to get around more easily which let us see a few different things on our last day. First we headed to the Opera House (surprise, surprise) to have a look and get a good view of Harbour Bridge too. Then we did it the other way round so as to have seen both perspectives which was cool.

After walking around in the city for a while, looking in shops and at different buildings we headed to Mrs Macquarie’s Point, which was a great place to watch the sunset and take some pictures of the famous Opera House and Harbour Bridge. A relaxing and calming end to what had been a fairly intense, but amazing trip.

Why You’ve Got To Do It

I think I have fallen in love with campervans. Yes, they’re a bit impractical sometimes and yes, you can’t always do everything you want to like shower and kick back on the sofa. But really, you don’t need that. What you need is some outdoor adventure time, some time to just see and do as much as you possibly can without giving a crap about “oh I need to shower every day in the morning” or “oh which outfit should I wear”. Having experienced it whilst travelling I can definitely say that it’s eye-opening to realise how we lead our day-to-day lives.

The camper trip has inspired me to be more willing to sacrifice certain things that aren’t necessities in order to experience something amazing and new. So forgive me for the longer read, but I do hope it has inspired some of you to maybe go and do something you may not have considered before, or to give up those not really needed basics in life to go and snatch some fantastic, life-changing experiences.

Below are my other posts on different parts to my Australian Adventure so be sure to check them out too for more inspiration and tips! Let me know in the comments or via the contact page if there is anything else you would like to know about the camper trip, or travel in general!

Check out this short highlights clip of what you’ll see on the “East Coast of Australia in a campervan” tour, to get an idea of how awesome it is!
Watch It On Youtube Here