10 Months Around Australia by Caravan, Lessons and Tips for Travellers

If you are planning a lap around Australia, seriously thinking about it, or perhaps you know someone who is, welcome — you are in the right place.

This book began as a travel diary, written night by night at campgrounds across the country. Over time, it became something more than that. It became the guide we wished someone had handed us before we left Perth in our 2000 Jayco Freedom caravan and set off on what would become ten of the most unforgettable months of our lives.

We are not professional travellers or influencers. We are a couple from Perth who enjoyed camping with our family, had a well-loved caravan, and finally made the decision to discover Australia ourselves. 

Inside these pages, you will find the practical, the personal, the planning advice we wish we had received, the packing list refined by hard experience, and the caravan tips that made daily life on the road smoother, especially for those of us travelling with some health issues and in older vans who sometimes wondered how we measured up against the gleaming rigs parked beside us. (As it turns out, you measure up just fine.) There are also tips on how we spent 24/7 time together….. and not only survived, but thrived.

You will also find the day-by-day diary of our travels through Western Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland, coastal New South Wales, coastal Victoria, Tasmania, central Victoria and New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria again, then through South Australia before returning home to Western Australia.

Australia is bigger than you think and more beautiful than you imagine. Travel changes you in ways that can feel difficult to put into words, but we have done our best to put them into words anyway.

Think of this guide as a time machine – your unfair advantage that saves you stress and money before hooking up the van.

We feel incredibly fortunate that we made the decision to do THE LAP OF OZ and hope our story inspires you to go.