Australia on your own
A whole continent at the end of the steering wheel: red dunes to the horizon, reefs where you swim with whale sharks, koalas above the road — Australia is the world capital of the campervan.
When to go
The seasons are reversed and the country stacks several at once: the South (Great Ocean Road, Tasmania) is best from November to March; the Red Centre and tropical North from May to September, when the heat eases and the dry season opens the tracks; Ningaloo peaks from March to July with the whale sharks. From November to May, box jellyfish rule out free swimming north of Gladstone: the stinger suit is not a gimmick.
What it costs
Campervan €70-130/day (more for an equipped 4x4 — budget €130-200), fuel around €1.15-1.35/L in towns and up to €1.80 in the outback, campsites €15-35 a pitch — plus countless free or few-dollar rest areas. Parks: Uluru pass AUD 38 for 3 days, WA parks pass around AUD 120/month. For two over 3 weeks in a van, aim for €4,500-6,500 excluding flights; cooking in the van and free overnight stops change everything.
Driving & transport
Driving on the LEFT — regaining focus after every break is the real trap of the first days. Never drive at dusk or after dark outside towns: kangaroos cross without warning and a collision writes off a van (locals drive with bull bars, you don't). Road trains (up to 53 m) are overtaken over several hundred metres of clear road or not at all. Check your rental contract: most forbid unsealed roads, and outback recovery is billed in thousands of dollars. Fill up at every roadhouse once you leave the coast.
Australia built a way of life around the road trip: here the van is not a means of transport but an institution, with free rest areas mapped by apps (WikiCamps is the local bible), public barbecues in every park and fruit-quarantine checkpoints between states. The menu is outsized: the cliffs of the Great Ocean Road, the Uluru monolith at the continent's red heart, Ningaloo Reef where you wade in from the beach, the gorges of Karijini, the primeval forests of Tasmania.
The country imposes its own scale: 4,000 km separate Sydney from Perth, and "just next door" often means three hours of driving. You don't do Australia — you choose a piece of it, a coast, the Centre, the West, and give it two to three weeks. The golden rule is learned fast: drive by day, camp before dusk, because kangaroos, wombats and emus take possession of the tarmac the moment the light fades.
The destinations that matter
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No. 012 to 3 nightsGreat Ocean Road243 km of curves between eucalypts and the Southern Ocean, limestone needles battered by the swell and koalas asleep above the tarmac: the most famous coastal road in the southern hemisphere.No. 022 to 3 nightsByron Bay and the east coastThe continent's easternmost point, dolphins beneath the lighthouse, surf at every hour and a counter-culture turned way of life: Byron is the stop where vans always linger longer than planned.No. 034 to 5 nightsTropical QueenslandThe world's oldest rainforest plunging into the planet's largest coral reef: between Cairns and Cape Tribulation, two World Heritage wonders touch — crocodiles included.No. 043 to 4 nightsRed Centre: Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Kings CanyonA 348-metre monolith that changes colour with every hour of the day, set at the exact centre of the void: Uluru is earned over 450 km of dead-straight road — and repays them with a single sunrise.No. 055 to 7 nightsNingaloo and KarijiniA reef you enter from the beach to meet turtles and whale sharks, then gorges of red iron 2.5 billion years old: the wild West is the country's best-kept secret.No. 067 to 10 nightsTasmaniaAn island at the end of the world where half the land is wilderness, wombats graze beside the trails and deserted beaches rival the Seychelles — cooler and emptier.
Our flagship guide — €29
Guide available“Australia on Your Own”, the complete edition, is out
10 chapters: day-by-day itineraries, driving and transport, a costed budget and checklists — the same method as our Namibia guide.
The guide is currently written in French — an English edition is in the works.
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