How much it actually costs to travel Australia with kids; from families who have done it, with their real numbers.
It’s the biggest question we get asked, and it runs a close second only to schooling: how much money do we need to travel Australia with kids?
There is no single answer, and anyone who gives you one is guessing. It depends on how fast you travel, whether you free camp or stay in parks, how much of the paid tourist stuff you want to do, how many of you there are, and what you’re towing it all with. Fly over Uluru or walk around it — that one decision alone moves the number.
So rather than invent a figure, we did what we always do. We asked the families already out there.
Every number on this page came from a real family reporting what they actually spent, but they reported it at the time they were travelling — and fuel, groceries and site fees have all moved since. Treat these as a guide to the shape of a travelling budget, not as today’s prices. Build your own numbers from current costs before you commit to anything.
What’s on this page
The short answer: most families land around $1,000–$1,500 a week
When we put the question to our TAWKers, the answers clustered tightly. Here’s the range, in their words:
$1700 family of 5 is our average!
Family of 6 averaging $1800 per week
2A, 1C, food, fuel, accommodation, miscellaneous (tours, repairs, alcohol etc) just on road expenses, not including expenses from home like insurance etc. $1350 and we don’t do a lot of paid activities
We are a family of four. Budgeted for $1700 per week but only spending around $1500 per week. That’s mostly staying in caravan parks. Plan to do more free camping up the east coast so should bring it down more.
2 adults, 2 teens $2500 per week, caravan parks, 7+ tanks of fuel a week, food, activities, moving fast lap in 5 months.
Approx $1300 a week. 7 of us. (2 adults 5 kids). That includes fuel for car and bus, site costs (no Caravan Parks unless needed in specific towns), food, subscriptions, storage, phone, Starlink etc.
2 adults, 1 child (4yo) and a dog $1300 approx, this includes EVERYTHING from bills, food, fuel, accommodation, activities, alcohol, shopping, repairs, every single cent
And at the leaner end — because it can absolutely be done leaner:
We mostly free camp and use low cost camp grounds. We’re a family of 6, 2 adults 4 kids and 2 dogs. We average about $900 per week, more when we are going to special places ie zoos play parks etc. We stop for work when we feel we need a top up in the cash department then off we go again into the distance.
Some will say you need a huge amount of money blah blah blah but we live comfortably on $600 per week sometimes less that includes accommodation, fuel, bills, gas etc if we blow our budget like we did this week because we needed a new battery in our bus and last week we blew a tyre on our trailer, we just free camp for as long as we can until we build up funds again. It is doable and don’t let anyone tell you it’s not, if you want something bad enough you will just make it work.
Been traveling for 12 months. Started off spending $1500pw but now down to $750pw. That is a tight budget for the 4 of us. We only fill the car with fuel once a week and make it last. We free camp or cheap camp as much as possible. We don’t eat out and don’t eat expensive meats anymore. I’m limited to one carton of beer per week and wife is down to the cheap Champagne. But it’s all worth it to be still on the road seeing this great Country of ours.
1 adult and 2 kids, we survived on $500 pw but we didn’t always get to do all the extra things I would have liked to do, we did half a lap in 6 months.
Notice what separates the $600 families from the $2,500 families. It isn’t luck and it isn’t income. It’s speed, and it’s where they sleep.
Three real budgets, broken down
Averages are useful. Line items are better. Three families have shared their actual books with us.
Marie’s family — 14 weeks, 22,000km
Two adults and two kids aged 13 and 10, in an Isuzu MUX towing an outback Jayco Expanda.
Total for the 14 weeks: $16,276.19 for absolutely everything. That averaged $1,162.59 per week, broken down to:
- Fuel — $3,921.45, averaging $280.10 a week. Most expensive was $1.94 a litre at Kings Canyon; cheapest was $1.10. Average consumption 12.6L/100km.
- Vehicle — $2,385.55. Two services, four AT tyres on the car and two on the caravan (no flats, they just needed changing), one caravan battery plus charger, and other car bits.
- Site fees — $3,067.59, averaging $219.11 a week, across caravan parks and national park camp fees. They free camped when they could.
- Fun stuff — $4,094.30. Boat trips, national parks, meals out, takeaway, coffees.
- Groceries including alcohol — $3,151.27, averaging $225.09 a week.
Worth saying: they covered a lot more kilometres than most families do in that time. Drive less and the fuel line drops, which pulls the weekly average down with it.
The Great Escape Australia — one full year
They’ve been running our Finance Tracker and posting their figures as they go. Here’s where they landed after a year.
The essentials, $402 a week — or $57 a day:
- Accommodation $4,170 ($79/wk). 161 nights in caravan parks, 174 nights free (66 with family and friends, 44 in staff accommodation), 60 nights in national parks or low cost camps, and one night in a B&B for a special occasion.
- Fuel $4,868 ($93/wk). Around 28,000km, 3,862 litres, roughly 16L/100km in the Triton.
- Groceries $7,663 ($146/wk) — and as they put it, “We ain’t living off noodles.”
- Phones $1,949 ($37/wk), covering two mobile plans and a sat phone.
- Insurance, rego, ambulance and breakdown cover $2,457 ($47/wk).
And then everything else, which is where most budgets come unstuck:
- Maintenance and improvements $11,134 ($214/wk) — the big one. A new turbo, a new exhaust, two windscreens, two batteries, services, four tyres, plus the endless small additions and the trips to Bunnings.
- Health insurance and health expenses $6,579 ($124/wk) — the other big one, including two surgeries in the private system.
- Eating out $2,471 ($47/wk).
- Presents home $2,456 ($48/wk). As they point out: “People don’t stop having babies or birthdays or getting married just because you’re away. And Santa still has to find you.”
- Entertainment $1,271 ($24/wk), alcohol $1,220 ($23/wk), laundry $243 ($5/wk).
- ‘Other’ $4,213 ($80/wk) — two lots of return flights home, two new phones, clothes, sunglasses, and replacement underwear after it was stolen off the line.
All up, about $1,000 a week. Their own summary of why that worked: “Which is more than we’d hoped but because we work along the way it’s been manageable.”
Fearless and Free Range Camping — a monthly budget
They break theirs down by month, and they’re slow travellers, which shows in the fuel line.
- Accommodation $580 — roughly one night caravan park, five nights low cost camp, one night free camp
- Fuel $400
- Food $1,400
- Gas $30
- Health insurance $83
- Car and caravan rego, insurance and maintenance $189
- Phone and internet $200
- Splurge $400
- Plus optional extras: medication $75, alcohol $480, subscriptions $14.95, schooling $17.50
Total $4,135.45 a month, or $954 a week. They go into far more detail on their own site, including their saving ideas.
What actually drives the number
Read enough of these and the same four levers come up every time.
Fuel is the one you control by slowing down. It’s the single biggest variable, and it’s not really about the price at the pump — it’s about how many pumps you stop at. As one family put it: “Travel slowly! Spend a couple weeks at least at nice places… being on the move is a lot more expensive… it’s all about making the available funds last longer.” Another: “We travelled for 13 weeks — allowed $750 per week but ended up more like $1000. If we had longer then we could have stayed in one spot longer therefore not buying fuel every few days.”
Accommodation is the one you control by where you park. Free camping, low cost camps, national parks and showgrounds are the difference between $79 a week and $300. One family who’d invested in being self-sufficient told us: “We spent the money upfront to be self sufficient. This means we can free camp most of the time, we prob spend $300 a week at the most on accommodation.” If free camping is new to you, start with our guide to free camping in Australia and the free camping for families page.
Groceries are roughly what they are at home. This surprises people, but it comes up over and over: “Costs are pretty easy to predict. Once you’re set up, there’s fuel (calculated on consumption rate and distance), accommodation rates (if any) and your groceries etc tend to be on par with normal life.” Where it creeps is remote-area pricing and takeaway.
Look again at that $11,134 maintenance line. Turbos fail, windscreens crack, tyres wear out faster on corrugations than they ever did on the school run. Every experienced family we know keeps a separate emergency stash: “Travelling wise living expenses are a lot cheaper than in a traditional house but it’s a good idea to have a decent stash you can access for emergencies.”
How much do you need before you leave?
Here the answers split cleanly into two camps, and which camp you’re in depends entirely on whether you plan to work.
If you don’t want to work at all, families quoted us numbers like these:
We plan to be gone 12 months, should need approx $73,000. Not planning on working but if something comes up we will.
If we wanted to travel Oz for 12 months without having to work, I wouldn’t want to leave unless we had about 50k, roughly $1000/wk.
If you’re happy to work along the way, the entry price collapses:
We left home with $5000 in the bank! We find a place we like, pick up a bit of work, get to know the locals only spots and the community, replenish our bank account and hit the road till it runs low again. We hit up locals farmers to stay on there properties. Most are happy for us to use there water/electricity for cheap rent or work in return. We’ve made life long friends along the way and doing it this way means we can live very cheaply and have the gypsy life for longer.
Use Wikki camps and Camps 8. We are leaving with around $17,000. Last time we left with $1500 but then we had to work quickly! I’d recommend being as debt free as you can. We rent our house out but its still a pain. You can travel with some savings, it just means you travel a little slower and you may have to work every so often. If you really don’t want to work you’d better start saving!
One family of six planned six months and stayed eighteen: “Rented the house out – so mortgage & insurances were all covered. Sold a car, plus savings gave us $30k… Hubby just happened to land a great job that was fairly flexible, so we could still travel a little, based from there! Once we thought our bank was built up enough, we left Broome & travelled the rest of the way around!”
Working as you go
Plenty of families fund the trip from the road rather than from savings, and the advice on how is consistent.
Follow the seasons, and be honest about who you are. One family who left Brisbane told us: “When in town hit the local pub, shops etc about jobs… Hubby got a truck driving job in a week, we were honest on his application saying we are travellers but willing to stay 6 mths …suited both of them work & us.”
Station work is the standout for saving hard. “Look for station work as usually accommodation, food, power and water are included as well as a wage. It’s been the best way for us to save as there’s nothing to spend money on when you are there.”
Caravan parks will often trade. “Sometimes Caravan Park’s will trade accommodation for doing odd jobs around the park. Often they only need help in peak seasons so it can be a win – win.”
And it’s not usually hard to find. As one family travelling clockwise reported: “We are heading clockwise, and we have stopped twice for work so far and have had no troubles at all getting work (diesel mechanic and early childhood work).”
Others funded it without working at all — long service leave taken as pay, saved annual leave, or rent from the house covering the mortgage while they were away.
A word on Centrelink and family payments
This one comes up constantly, and we’re deliberately not going to answer it.
What you’re entitled to, what you have to report, and how travelling or home schooling affects any of it depends entirely on your own circumstances — and the rules change. We’ve seen families get this wrong in both directions, assuming they’d lose payments they kept, and assuming they’d keep payments they lost.
Ring Services Australia, tell them exactly what you’re planning, and get the answer for your family. Do that before you build it into a budget.
The tips that actually move the needle
We asked our TAWKers for their best budget tips. These are the ones that came up most:
Track every cent
Almost everyone said some version of this. “Definitely record all your expenses. You don’t spend as much when you see the numbers in front of you!!” After a couple of months you can see exactly where the money is going and what to change. Our own TAWK Finance Tracker was the thing that turned our one year into two — it has a planning sheet for working out what your trip might cost before you go, and charts so you can see at a glance how you’re tracking.
Ask for a better price
“Don’t be shy to ask a caravan park for a better price or if you can get a child for free. Many of the privately owned ones will do that for you. If you don’t ask, it’s already a ‘no’.”
Get the apps
Wikicamps for camps, water and dump points, and a fuel app so you can plan where to fill up cheapest. Fill the jerry can before you leave a main town.
Don’t always use cruise control when towing
On long drives you won’t notice the gradients rising, and all that gear changing pushes fuel consumption up.
Keep the tow vehicle maintained
It’s your lifeline, and it’s the line item that blows budgets. Regular servicing and tyre rotation is cheap compared to the alternative.
Eat out at lunchtime
Lunch specials are far better value than dinner. And on day trips, pack the snacks and drinks before you go.
Op shops and bulk ice creams
Weather changes dramatically between states, so travel light and restock from op shops as you go. And buy the ice creams at the supermarket on special, not at the roadhouse.
Get a little washing machine
Either a proper portable one or a screw-top bucket that agitates as you drive. Laundromats add up more than you’d think.
Ask the locals
Tourist centres are great for pamphlets and discount vouchers, but locals know the free spots and where to actually eat. Local councils often run free school holiday activities too — which our kids loved, because it meant other kids.
Use the membership discounts
One family put it plainly: “Buying some of the Membership Cards has helped us, as we sometimes need to stay in a caravan park.” Our own TAWK Membership gets the kids two nights free camping at parks around the country, which is exactly the cost that pushes families out of parks in the first place.
What we’d tell you
The best answer anyone gave us wasn’t a number at all:
You can do it on any budget. It just depends on what you want to see and do. Buy a tent, some simple camping gear and go for small trips. The overall experience is still the same whether you have a luxurious expensive van or a tent. The point is you just have to do it otherwise there will always be a reason not to.
And this, from a family who found their own way to make it work:
Save up, then travel in small stints. You don’t have to eat a cow all at once, neither do you need to travel all of Australia in one go!
Work out your own number rather than borrowing someone else’s. Break it into fuel, food, sites, insurances and a genuine allowance for things breaking. Budget separately for the big-ticket things you’d hate to miss — the flight over Kakadu, the boat trip — so they don’t blow up an ordinary week. Then start tracking from day one.
The families who run out of money aren’t usually the ones who left with the least. They’re the ones who never looked at where it was going.
Start with the TAWK Finance Tracker, and if you’re still at the dreaming stage, planning the big lap walks through the decisions that come before this one.
for Aussie families
