Buying vs Renting a Campervan in Australia!

Before we set off on our travelling adventure at the beginning of 2018, the question of whether we should buy or rent a campervan to travel up the East coast was discussed a lot.

If you’re planning on staying in Australia for 6 months or so, no question about it – BUY

Or if you’re spending just 2 weeks travelling with time restraints then there’s no doubt – RENT

But we were unsure exactly how long we were going to spend in Australia and it could have been anything from 3 weeks to 3 months…

The deciding factor for us came when we touched down in Sydney having made no campervan arrangements and began to visit various rental and campervan sales companies. It very quickly became apparent that there was little to no rental vehicles available and little to no sales vehicles either. We began looking on Facebook for options and a few camper vans for sale popped up, with no rental options to compare, we viewed 2 camper vans and then decided to buy the 3rd on impulse.

We ended up spending 8 weeks in Australia travelling up the East Coast from Sydney to Cairns, here’s our take on how renting and buying compare!

There are certainly pro’s and con’s to both but I think if you have no time restraints and want to plan your journey as you go along, buying is the way to go. Yes there are a few risks involved, hoping that you can sell it at the end of the trip and hoping you won’t break down or run into any car trouble, but the majority of travellers we met along the way had no problems with either and it gives you a real laid back make-it-up-as-you-go-along travelling feel. We however did have problems… but thats for another blog post! Regardless of the problems we had though, we still think buying is the way to go for any trip longer than 3 weeks.

Are you planning an Australian road trip? Do you need help and advice on buying vs renting a campervan? Comment below and we’ll be happy to give you our advice!