Campervan & motorhome hire Australia for UK travellers

Yes. A full UK driving licence plus your passport is enough to hire and drive a campervan in Australia for visits up to 12 months. No International Driving Permit required. Some depot-fleet operators ask for one because their underwriters require it; Camplify's protection accepts UK licences directly.

Yes, but it's straightforward. UK passport holders apply for an Electronic Travel Authority (ETA) online for around A$20. The application takes about 15 minutes through the official ETA app or immi.homeaffairs.gov.au; approval lands within hours in most cases. Valid 12 months from issue, multiple entries, up to three months per visit. You can hold a van booking while waiting.

Depot-fleet operators run pickups in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Cairns and Perth at roughly A$150 to A$300 per day for a similar two- or four-berth build, plus airport-shuttle time, plus excess-tier upsell at the counter, plus depot return on a fixed clock. Camplify owners list directly. Same Toyota HiAce or Mercedes Sprinter base, kitted out with character: a real kitchen, the owner's route notes, a phone number on the road. No depot. No queue. Many owners deliver to the airport terminal or your hotel.

Different cover for different things. Your UK travel policy (Aviva, Direct Line, Post Office, Saga) covers your personal trip: medical, lost luggage, missed flights, repatriation, cancellation. Camplify's protection covers the van: damage, third-party liability, 24/7 roadside. They don't overlap; both are worth having. Check your travel policy allows campervan or motorhome use under its driving terms (most do for vehicles under 3.5t). Note: most Caravan & Motorhome Club and Caravan and Camping Club annual policies do not cover Australia; you'll want a stand-alone long-haul policy.

Australia has a reciprocal healthcare agreement with the UK. British passport holders can register with Medicare on arrival and get essentially free emergency hospital treatment, doctor visits at subsidised rates, and prescriptions at the lower PBS price. It's not a full replacement for travel cover (no air-ambulance, no repatriation, no non-urgent treatment), but it covers the worst-case bills. Bring your NHS number; you sign up at any Medicare office. Camplify's protection is vehicle-only and runs separately.

Australian rules differ slightly from the UK and are strictly enforced. Babies under six months must be in a rear-facing capsule; ages six months to four years in an approved rear-facing or forward-facing restraint; ages four to seven in an approved forward-facing booster. UK-bought seats are NOT certified for Australian regulations. Most Camplify owners can supply AS/NZS-1754-approved seats on request when you book; one of the practical things owner-listed hire handles that depot fleets often charge extra for.

Every Camplify hire includes 24/7 roadside assistance covered by the booking fee. The owner is also reachable through Camplify messaging, and most arrange a like-for-like replacement van or a hotel night if the issue can't be fixed roadside. Mobile coverage is good along the East Coast and main highways (Telstra is the strongest network); a satellite messenger is worth carrying for the Red Centre.

Australia has 1,500 plus paid holiday parks at A$25 to A$60 per night with full hookups (the equivalent of a Caravan & Motorhome Club site), thousands of free or low-cost national-park sites, and legal-overnight rest areas on the highways. Apps like WikiCamps and CamperMate are essential and work offline.

Every booking requires Camplify's Accident Excess Reduction (AER), which covers damage to the RV and third-party property up to the excess you choose. Eligibility is licence-class and age (typically 25 plus, some owners 21 plus), not nationality, so a full UK licence works the same as an Australian one. Two tiers at booking: Risk Taker (default, A$0 to A$5,500 excess depending on the RV) and Happy Camper (A$0 to A$500 excess, daily fee on top). AER doesn't replace personal travel cover; it covers the vehicle and third-party property, not your belongings or personal-injury liability. Your UK travel cover handles those. 24/7 nationwide roadside assistance is included via the booking fee on every hire.

Yes. This is one of the bigger differences between Camplify and UK fleet hire. Australian owners regularly deliver to caravan parks, national-park campgrounds, beaches, hiking trail heads, and private properties. Owners typically charge A$1 to A$2 per kilometre delivery. Pickup at the end works the same way; they collect from wherever you are.

Summer somewhere every month. The southern half (Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Tasmania, the Great Ocean Road, the wine regions) is best November through March, which lines up neatly with the British Christmas-and-New-Year window. The tropical north (Cairns, the Reef, Darwin, the WA Coral Coast) is best May through September; January through March is wet season up there. April and October (UK Easter and October half-term) work almost anywhere. Pick your weeks first, then pick the latitude that matches them.

Three weeks is the sweet spot for an East Coast loop or a Sydney-to-Adelaide run, which is the standard British two-week annual leave plus a week tagged on. Two weeks alone gives you a brilliant Tasmania loop or Sydney-to-Brisbane. Less than a week works for a focused trip out of one city, like Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road. Australia's bigger than most Brits expect; pace your distances. Five to six weeks (the gap year school-leaver pattern) gets you a full coast-to-coast crossing.

Yes to both. The near-airport filter (special_place=airport) shows vans within 15 minutes of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Cairns; many of those owners deliver direct to the terminal. For one-way (fly into Sydney, road trip to Cairns, fly home from Cairns), most owners agree a kilometre-based one-way fee; a few don't. Ask before booking. The simpler alternative is a domestic flight to your finish city and a local owner's van there.

Petrol runs roughly A$1.80 to A$2.20 per litre, around 95p to £1.15 depending on the exchange rate, broadly similar to UK forecourt prices and occasionally cheaper. Diesel campervans are common and 20 to 30 percent cheaper to run on long trips. Tolls exist on parts of the Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane motorways (the M2, M5, EastLink, Lane Cove Tunnel and similar) and are billed automatically through a small electronic tag in the van. Rural Australia has very few tolls; you can drive 1,000 km up the East Coast without one.