The Great Australian Road Trip: An itinerary for travelling all the way around Australia

Driving around Australia in a campervan sounds like a romantic dream come true doesn’t it? Well it pretty much was which is why I’ve finally got round to sharing my experience.

I spent nearly 18 months in Australia with my then boyfriend. We worked for 8 of those months and travelled in a campervan for 10. We bought an old campervan from Gumtree and we were tense every time we drove the van, fully expecting it to give up and break down and leave us stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Thankfully, the old thing never did give up and it got us all the way around Australia in just under a year. However, for peace of mind, I highly recommend getting decent insurance. If you plan to rent a van rather than buy, take a look at a price comparison website first. Camper Champ compares campervan rental prices in Australia. 

After a very long time wracking my brains and studying the map I’ve managed to list the itinerary from our Australian road trip in a campervan. If you’re planning a similar trip, it’s important to plan your finances ahead. Here’s a helpful guide from Westpac on how to budget your holiday to make sure you’re covered throughout your travels.

We didn’t travel with a road trip itinerary, a time schedule or a budget. Which in hindsight wasn’t the best way to travel but it worked for us at the time! We stopped when we found a place we liked, we stayed for longer if we liked it a lot and we found jobs when we ran out of money. We caught fish for our dinner and camped on the beach. It was a really simple way to live but we loved it.

Here’s where we went:

• Sydney
• Melbourne
• The Great Ocean Road
• Adelaide
• Streaky Bay
• Crossed the Nullarbor
• Norseman
• Coral Bay
• Exmouth
• Mackerel Island (where we worked for 5 months)
• Cape Range National Park
• 80-Mile Beach
• Broome
• Kununurra
• Bungle Bungle Range
• Darwin
• Dally Waters
• Litchfield National Park
• Cairns
• Kurunda
• Daintree Rainforest / Cape Tribulation
• The Great Barrier Reef
• Magnetic Island
• The Whitsunday Islands
• Airlie Beach
• Agnes Water/ 1770
• Hervey Bay
• Rainbow Beach
• Fraser Island
• Noosa
• Brisbane
• Surfer’s Paradise
• Byron Bay
• Sydney

I’m sure a few of you are wondering why we missed out so much of the south and didn’t even go to the centre. It’s now something I really regret but I guess it’s just a good excuse to go back some day. We were offered jobs on the west coast which is which is why we cut across and missed out the south and although we wanted to go to Uluru, we were sure our campervan would break down and didn’t want to risk driving all that way.

If anyone else is planning a similar trip or has taken a massive road trip, let me know!

Read more:

Travelling around Australia in a campervan – My FAQs

Monica’s mini guide to buying a campervan in Australia

How to survive living in a campervan for a year…with a boy