How Much Does a 1 Month East Coast Australia Road Trip Cost?

Planning an epic Aussie adventure? Find out how much an East Coast Australia road trip can cost, based on our one month Sydney to Cairns itinerary in our own campervan!

Before setting out to explore Australia, I spent a lot of time googling how to budget for a road trip in Australia. The simple answer was: it varies, a lot. I found average gas prices, free camping advice, and super budget options from Aussies. What I didn’t find much of were actual examples of what people like me spent on a ‘trip of a lifetime’ adventure, with a relatively backpacker budget still in mind.

We’re mid-range travellers: while we love a cheap deal and saving on basics, we’re also happy to treat ourselves to a bucket list experience, nice meal or night out.

I’ve shared a breakdown of what we spent, alongside recommendations and tips on how you can do this trip on both lower and higher budgets! This budget covers petrol, campsite fees, accommodation, food, drink and attractions.

Budget breakdown

(The costs are excluding the campervan purchase as we had it across the whole year in Australia – more on that below!)

Petrol: $687
Campsite Fees: $932
Accommodation: $712
Grocery Shopping: $680
Meals Out: $896
Alcohol & Soft Drinks: $600
Attractions & Tours: $2464

Total spend: $6971
Total spend per person: $3485.50pp (approximately £1728)

Transportation

If you’re taking a road trip, having a vehicle to do it in is pretty essential. This section will cover the costs of buying or renting a vehicle.

(If you have your own wheels already, skip ahead to the next section!)

Option 1: Buying a vehicle

When we first arrived in Australia, we knew we wanted to buy a campervan. Being in the country for a whole year, it made more sense financially for us to buy than to rent, and having a home on wheels has been the most budget-friendly way for us to spend our year exploring the country and working here.

Our adorable little Toyota Hiace cost AU $13,500; and we spent an additional $500 or so on some additional things for the van including a new fridge, which cost around $200, and an awning at around $100. We also had to spend around $3000 across the year as maintenance. At the end of our trip, we sold her on, although admittedly at a little less than we paid as it needed to be a quick sale.

(Geek out time: In total, if I work out the rough total we spent on her ÷ 12, the total for one month’s van ownership works out at around $541 – significantly cheaper than a month’s van hire!)

Of course, you don’t have to buy a campervan to road trip Australia! Second-hand cars are generally cheaper to buy than campervans, and you can pick up a swag (small tent) from 4WD Supacentre from $130. Or, if you’re happy to spend a bit more on accommodation, hostels and hotels are easy to come by on the Sydney to Cairns route.

(If you’re travelling solo, hostel dorms may even work out to be more cost-effective than some campsites!)

Renting a vehicle

If you’re only in Australia for a short time, I’d recommend renting a vehicle instead of buying.

If you’re on a budget, Travellers Autobarn are a go-to choice – we saw LOADS parked up at campsites on our travels. Their vans are pretty basic, but have everything you need for a budget-friendly road trip.

Looking at prices for a similar time of year to our road trip, the smallest vans start at $2000 for a month’s hire. For a slightly bigger, high top van, prices start from $2600. There’s also a HI5 camper that fits up to five people, which is perfect for groups travelling together.

If you have a bit more budget to play with, Maui motorhomes provide more space and comfort, with built in kitchen and bathroom facilities. Their cheapest model, the two-berth Ultima, starts at around $6100 for a month’s hire in low season.

Petrol

We spent a total of $687 on petrol for our Sydney to Cairns road trip. This covers the full route plus plenty of side quests – although this doesn’t include our drive back!

Tips for saving money on petrol

• If you’re purchasing or hiring a van, consider fuel efficiency. Our van was great for this – her small size and fuel economy made this cost much easier to stomach than we thought.
• Use PetrolSpy to find the cheapest prices on your journey, and the 7-Eleven app to lock in fuel prices at 7-Eleven fuel spots.
• If you really want to run as long as possible when you find really cheap petrol, you could also consider filling a jerry can!

Accommodation & Campsites

We spent a total of $1644 on our accommodation for a month-long trip, staying mostly in campsites. We also had six nights in accommodation, and four nights free camping with family and friends.

Campsites: 21 nights – $932
Accommodation: 6 nights – $712
Free camping: 4 nights – $0

About half of the accommodation budget comes from our stay at Daintree Crocodylus – which was ABSOLUTELY worth it!

How to find cheap and free camping

Our van didn’t have solar or a second battery, so we were pretty happy staying at campsites and paying for electricity and amenities. We grabbed a Big4 Campsites membership when it was on a sale offer for $30, getting us 10% off all Big4 bookings. We saved a total of $101 with the membership, so it was definitely worth the spend!

Unpowered and free camping: If your van has its own power source, there are more budget options for you, ranging from cheaper non-powered sites to free camping spots where you can just rock up. Bear in mind that popular destinations on the East Coast often have camping bans in car parks and on the street, so you’ll need to find somewhere that specifically allows camping.

CamperMate and WikiCamps are super useful for finding camping options, particularly free camp spots and facilities on your journey. You can also check out CMCA’s RV Friendly Town map for towns that allow free camping.

Food & Drink

As we have our own cooking equipment in our campervan, we cooked the majority of our meals ourselves.

Groceries – $680

This one’s quite hard to work out, but I’d say we averaged around $170 per week on groceries, covering most dinners, breakfast, lunches, and some treats. We cook mostly vegetarian meals, with lots of vegetables and pulses – plus the occasional pack of bacon for my meat-eating partner!

Meals out – $896

On our Sydney to Cairns road trip, we ate at least 2-3 meals out a week, plus a couple of takeaway baked goods on our way. The average prices we paid for meals out were:

Takeaway pie/bakery snack: $6pp
Cafe breakfast/lunch: $20pp
Pub meal: $30pp
Mid-range restaurant meal: $50-60pp

Based on the fact we had around two bakery breakfasts and two cafe breakfasts a week, plus a weekly pub meal and two mid-range restaurant meals on the trip, I’d calculate our meals out spend at approximately $448pp for the whole trip.

If you’re on a budget, you can easily make it stretch by cutting down on the meals out and finding deals when you do!

Alcohol & Soft Drinks – $600

We also spent around $150 a week between us on some beers/wines from a liquor store, soft drinks on the go and trips to the pub! (Neither of us drink coffee, so that doesn’t factor into the spend…)

Saving money on eating and drinking

If you want to eat and drink without it costing your entire budget, check out these apps and tips to help you save big dollars on dining out and going to the pub!

• Look out for happy hours for food and drink in pubs – use the Happiest Hour app to find them.
• Other super helpful apps to have on your phone are Pub+ and The Pass, for loyalty rewards and offers at their member pubs.
• EatClub and First Table offer discounted dining – up to 50%!
• Join the Woolworths (Everyday Rewards) and Coles (Flybuys) loyalty programmes to build up points for money off shops. Everyday Rewards is my favourite – when you boost the offers in-app, the points accumulate surprisingly fast!
• Avoid dining out at restaurants at weekends or on public holidays, as many will have a 10% surcharge on these days to cover extra staff wages.

Attractions & Tours

We spent a total of $2464 ($1232 per person) on attractions and tours – the most expensive section of our budget!

If you’re on a really tight budget, you don’t have to do lots of paid activities. There are plenty of free activities on the route, like hiking in nature and enjoying beach life! We tried to balance our spending, doing lots of free walking, but we were also happy to spend on bucket-list experiences and fun attractions we found along the way.

Here’s everything we did, and how much it cost (per person):

Trial Bay Gaol: $11
Slim Dusty Museum: $24
Australia Zoo: $75
Dreamworld: $109
K’gari Day Tour: $228
Bundaberg Rum Distillery Tour: $30
Whitsundays Snorkelling Tour: $230
Solar Whisper Crocodile Cruise: $35
Daintree Night Tour: $45
Great Barrier Reef Diving: $360
Kuranda Scenic Railway: $85

Okay, yes, that’s a total spend of more than everything else put together. But honestly, everything we did was wonderful and I wouldn’t have changed a cent.

Other costs to consider

• Travel Insurance: We were covered by our backpacker policies on this trip, but if you don’t have travel insurance I’d recommend purchasing it ahead of your trip!
• Roadside Assistance: If you’re self-driving, roadside assistance will give you peace of mind in case something goes wrong.
• Toll fees: Some major roads around Sydney and Brisbane will have tolls. We set up a Linkt tag to auto-pay for tolls, but you can also change the settings on Google Maps/Waze to avoid toll roads.