I road-tripped up the East Coast of Australia in a free campervan (and you can too)

My partner and I spent 6 months in Australia this past year.

Everyone will tell you that the best way to see the country is by campervan — it’s a huge continent, and some of the coolest scenery is only accessible by car. 

However, we didn’t have the money for a campervan rental. 

We wanted to go to Cairns because there was no way I was leaving Australia without seeing the Great Barrier Reef. We had big plans — scuba diving, snorkeling, boat tours, train rides through the rainforest. 

But first, we had to get there. 

Unfortunately, Queensland’s regional train systems are vastly underdeveloped. This left us with two options: driving or flying. Flying seemed boring, but driving seemed out of the question because of the cost. What to do? 

Enter the solution: Transfercar!

Transfercar is a company that gives you a totally free campervan to drive between major cities in Australia during a limited time period. It comes fully stocked with everything you need for camping, and you only need to pay for gas. 

We applied for a car on a whim. A few weeks later we were on the road.

And now that we’ve left Australia, I can confirm that our road trip adventures remain some of my fondest memories. 

In this article, I’ll explain how Transfercar works along with the pros and cons of using it. I’ll also give you all the details of our perfect East Coast road trip itinerary, including our trip highlights… and the mishaps. 

So yes, we eventually made it to Cairns. How did we get there? It’s a pretty good story. 

How Transfercar Works 

Transfercar was one of those things that seemed too good to be true. Free campervans? No way. But the more I looked into it, the more it made sense. 

Because Australia is so big, most people who rent cars only do one-way trips. However, rental car companies need their cars to be returned to their original location. 

That’s where Transfercar comes in. It finds people to drive the car back to its original location for free. 

It’s super simple to get a campervan through Transfercar. You put in a request for a vehicle, usually 2-3 weeks in advance of when you want to use the car. You’ll be notified within a few days if your request has been accepted. 

You then have limited time to transfer the car, but you can pay extra for a few additional days. 

For example, our car came with 6 free days, but we had the option to buy an extra day for $75. It’s usually priced at what the real rental cost per day is. 

The van comes with everything you need to live independently. There’s bedding, pillows, a toilet, a fridge, a stove, cutlery, etc. We didn’t need to buy anything to prepare. 

And yes, the rental is completely free. There are no caveats. You only need to pay for gas, rental insurance if you want it, and the cost of campgrounds or RV parks.

There’s also tons of free camping in Australia, so you don’t even necessarily need to pay for a campground. 

We applied for a campervan that would give us 6 days to drive from Brisbane to Cairns. Sure, it’s a 20-hour drive, so we would need to drive 3-4 hours per day. 

But were we up for it? Absolutely. 

Day 1: Brisbane to the sun-soaked beaches of Noosa Heads

Our journey began in Brisbane, where we picked up our new campervan. After a few frightening moments as we adjusted to driving on the left side of the road, we were off. 

We only had a short drive that day — just two hours north to a dreamy-sounding place called the Sunshine Coast. 

And oh, how dreamy it was. We went to Noosa National Park, a subtropical coastal haven for surfers and families. We spent the afternoon sunbathing, swimming, and watching surfers catch endlessly undulating waves. I could have easily stayed a few days there. 

That night, we camped in Australia’s only Everglades system. We pulled into our campsite around sunset, and wallabies (a smaller kind of kangaroo) immediately bounced around us. 

The campground had a bar with craft beer on tap, so we indulged in some well-earned pints and celebrated our first day on the road. 

Day 2: Agnes Water… and a flat tire 

The next day we drove from Noosa to Agnes Water, a tiny beach town about 4 hours north. The drive was uneventful, and so was Agnes Water. We spent a few hours at the beach, then stopped by a sleepy little grocery store to pick up some hamburger meat for dinner. 

Agnes Water looked vaguely run-down and rural during the day, but at sunset, it became the pinnacle of bucolic bliss. The campground we stayed in was up on a hill, and I could see the cockatoos beginning to fly through the trees below me while the sun turned orange, then pink. 

I remember kicking back in my camp chair while burgers sizzled on the stove, thinking about how lucky I was to be there. That feeling of luck lasted roughly 12 more hours.

In the morning, we were pulling out of our campsite when a man came running over to us. In broken English, he pointed out what we should have already known: we had a flat.

Several hours later it was all fixed, thanks to the help of our new friends — a kind Belgian man and his three daughters. Although vaguely frustrating, it was honestly fun. It was my first time learning to change a tire, and we got to do it in such great company. 

Day 3: Cape Hillsborough and sunrise with wallabies 

New tire on, tire pressure checked, more gas in the car, and we were off! We had a six-hour drive that day, and, because of the tire fiasco, we got a much later start than we wanted. 

The drive, however, was beginning to get interesting. The landscape was changing and becoming more tropical. There were more hills, lots of banana and mango trees, and fields of sugarcane as far as the eye could see. 

We didn’t get to Cape Hillsborough until after dark, but that was okay. The real reason we picked this campsite was because it’s next to a beach where wallabies usually hang out at sunrise. Wallabies at sunrise on the beach? I was sold. 

The next morning, we dutifully awoke at 5 am and stumbled out to the beach. We waited, and waited, and waited, and… no wallabies. The park ranger said it was the first time he hadn’t seen them there in years. 

Disappointed, we returned to our van. But when we got there, I stopped in my tracks. 

Directly behind our van were two little wallabies! They were just hanging out, munching on grass. Usually, wallabies hop away when near humans, but these ones were so close I could almost touch them. 

We ate breakfast as the sun came up, just us and the wallabies, with literally no one else around. It was one of my favorite mornings in my life. 

Day 4: Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands 

We had a super short drive the next day — just two hours north of Airlie Beach — but it was for a good reason. We were headed to this all-day boat tour in the Whitsunday Islands, an island chain in the southern section of the Great Barrier Reef. 

Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island was named the most beautiful beach in the world a few years ago. Funnily enough, I hadn’t even heard of it until I got to Australia. 

Let me tell you, it lives up to the hype. 

It took us about 2 hours in a speedboat to get there, and when we did… I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Whitehaven Beach had the clearest, most turquoise water I’ve ever seen, mixed with swirls of eggshell white sand. Words cannot do it justice. It’s one of my favorite places we visited in Australia.

We had two hours to hike around the island, swim in the water, and hang out on the beach. 

Even though there were other tourist boats there, the beach was so huge it wasn’t crowded at all. I was honestly shocked at how few people there were. 

After leaving Whitehaven Beach, we went out to a nearby reef where we could snorkel at a few different spots. Finally, getting out onto a section of the Great Barrier Reef was the cherry on top of a perfect day. 

Day 5: Townsville and a missed opportunity 

On our second-to-last day in our van, we drove from Airlie Beach to Townsville. 

Townsville was… interesting. I’m going to be honest — there wasn’t much to do. The water on the coast was a bit murky, not at all like the turquoise waters of the Whitsundays. 

We had heard about an island off the coast of Townsville called Magnetic Island. It came highly recommended by fellow backpackers, who described it as a laid-back spot with nice hiking trails, tons of wildlife (hello, koalas), and clear blue water. It’s one of Queensland’s hidden gems, apparently. 

Our plan was to take the ferry to Magnetic Island and hike around, koala-spotting and lounging on the beach before catching the last ferry of the day back. 

However, we severely messed up the timing. When we arrived at the ferry terminal, we found out that the ferry only left once every hour, and we had just missed it. Even worse, the last ferry of the day was in 2 hours. We wouldn’t have time. 

Magnetic Island a bust, we returned to our campground with our tail between our legs. 

We decided to just hang out at our RV park and have a chill afternoon. It was hot and humid, and while the beaches in Townsville weren’t up to par, the RV park did have a pool. And tennis courts. And cold beer. We were fine. 

Day 6: Arrival in Cairns, minus a car part 

By the morning of our last day, I was already sad for our road trip to be over. We had about a 4-hour drive to get to Cairns, so we savored every last bit of it. 

But then, disaster struck. 

About 15 minutes from Cairns, we noticed that people driving next to us had begun to stare at our car. Like, a lot. I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Did we have a flat tire again? 

We pulled over to investigate, and we immediately noticed the problem. Our tailpipe had fallen loose and was dragging on the ground, emitting sparks and threatening to detach from the car at any minute. I didn’t even know that could happen. 

Neither of us had any idea what to do. Do we… duct tape it? Tie a rope to it? Some other kind of emergency engineering operation? 

Eventually, we decided to do what many brilliant minds do when encountering an unsolvable problem: ignore it and hope it works out. 

We drove ridiculously slow for the next 15 minutes, cringing at the sound we could hear coming from the back of our car. When we finally pulled into the parking lot where we were supposed to return the car, the tailpipe was in even worse shape. But it was still there, and so were we. 

After 6 days of incredible adventures, scenery, mishaps, and luck, we had finally arrived in Cairns. 

📚 Related Reading: 10-day Tasmania itinerary

Trip Highlights 

My favorite things from our road trip: 

Seeing Australia’s Big Things

Australia has over 30 iconic Big Things, which are just large structures depicting a certain area’s claim to fame.

Usually, they’re on the side of the road somewhere, and they’re a classic road trip pit stop. Tropical Queensland grows a lot of mangos and pineapples, so we stopped by the Big Mango and the Big Pineapple! 

Whitsunday Islands

Whitehaven Beach was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. It’s pretty remote, so the only way to reach it is by driving to Airlie Beach and taking a boat. I’m so happy we road-tripped up here and got to see it! 

Camping with wallabies

Waking up to the wallabies outside of our van was the most quintessentially Aussie thing I could think of. 

The variety of landscapes

From the Sunshine Coast to Townsville, the coast of Queensland was chock full of stunning beaches. 

But we also drove through large swaths of pine trees, vast fields of sugarcane, and tropical environments that felt more like Hawai’i than Australia. 

It was pretty incredible and made our journey through places in the middle of nowhere much more interesting.

Everything That Went Wrong 

But we had a few mishaps along the way: 

Learning to drive on the left

We kept accidentally switching on the windshield wipers instead of the turn signal. That one is pretty funny in hindsight, but incredibly stressful when trying to merge onto the highway. 

A flat tire

It’s a good thing we had a spare tire and some new friends to help us out. 

Lost the gas cap

Apparently, gas caps aren’t attached to the cars in Australia like they are in America, and we left the gas cap at a random gas station. No idea where it went.

Luckily, this seems to be a common problem, because the clerks at the next station we went to had an entire shoebox of gas caps for us to choose from. 

Our tailpipe nearly fell off

Could’ve been worse, I guess? 

Pros and Cons of Using Transfercar 

Cons: 

• The car was kind of a piece of junk. Like, the tailpipe literally fell off. However, it was a free piece of junk. And it got us where we needed to go. 
• The gas mileage isn’t the best. We had to fill up gas every 3-4 hours or so. All in all, we paid about $400 USD total, or $200 per person, for the 1,000-mile trip. 
• We had a strict schedule. Because we only had 6 days for the drive, we had to plan out all of our stops in advance and stick to a strict timeline. It didn’t allow for as much spontaneity as I would have liked. 

Pros:

• We saved so much money. Paying to actually rent the campervan would have cost us around $75 per day – about $450 for 6 days. And if we weren’t on Transfercar’s strict timeline, we probably would have wanted more time for our trip. So it would have added at least $500 to our total cost. 
• The van was super well equipped. It came with comfortable bedding, kitchen essentials, a fridge, a portable toilet, and a table and chairs. We didn’t need to buy anything except for our groceries. 
• Driving was way more fun than flying. We got to see so many things that we would have missed if we flew from Brisbane to Cairns. 
• We got to stay at some incredible campsites. Our campsites were the highlight of my trip, and I loved waking up in our van out in the wilderness. 

*** 

I loved our coastal Queensland road trip, and getting a campervan through Transfercar made it a lot more affordable. I would definitely use the website again. 

If you’re considering road-tripping in Australia, I’d highly recommend some of the places on our itinerary. But they also have Transfercar in New Zealand and the United States! 

Maybe learn how to change a tire before you go, so that a kind Belgian man and his children don’t have to help you. But then again, making friends over a flat tire was actually really fun. 

So skip the car lessons. Relying on the kindness of strangers is back in style. 

Have any questions about our trip or how to use Transfercar? Leave a comment below!

This trip to Australia was one stint of my year-long international adventure. You can read more about my trip around the world and how I prepared here!