Around Half Oz cost estimate help needed

Hi leeb1973, sounds like a great holiday, as far as your food budget is concerned $300 pp per week does sound a little high to me too, however there are a few areas to be factored in,

How old are the children?
Do you eat much take away?
How much do you cook yourself and how much processed food do you use?
When hubby and I go away it costs us half as much in the food department as it does when we are at home.

As far as the caravan park costs are concerned I would say that $50 per night would be ample. There is a website that I use for checking on prices etc and that is: "Caravanning - Go See Australia". Another suggestion would be to become members of a couple of the parks as you will get a discount (usually 10%) when you use those Parks, we are members of the "Big4" parks and "The Tourist Parks" about $20 each for a couple of years, can't go wrong if you are going to be away for a while, find out what parks are most predominate on your route and become members of those.

Hope this helps with some of your queries

Enjoy your holiday

Cheers

D

The wife and I + 1 did 1/2 a lap, 14 months ago.

Darwin to Cairns East coast to Adelaide up the centre to Darwin again.

6 weeks mostly camping we did 14000 km and spent about $14000.

We did as much as we could.

Cheers Steve

Hi Leanne,

I wouldn't rely on work within the mines. We see a lot of people coming to Mackay expecting to get a $120K job in the mines because they saw it on ACA but in reality only certain skills are in demand so they can't get a job and many are left desperate for anything but are faced with $500 a week rents and an accomodation shortage.

My suggestion would be small towns that are enjoying a building boom such as those that support the mines. In reality if you are hard working, motivated and don't mind doing anything, then you will not have any problems finding work. You are extremely lucky in that you can just move along to somewhere else if work is scarce or you don't enjoy the work.

As for a travel budget, we always work off $1000 a week for everything including fuel, food, some siteseeing and some accomodation (2 adults and 2 kids). We have a camper trailer so like to bush camp and avoid caravan parks where possible except to wash and reorganise. This is pretty close to what we always spend on our 2-6 week trips covering approximately 1000km per week.

I would like to take around 18 months off at some stage and travel Australia. I sat down and worked out an itinerary and budget so just need to get the time (its still a work in progress). I worked on the best place to be for the season (within reason), towing a camper, consumption at 20L/100km and $1.70/Litre, $200/week food (which is what we spend now), $300/week miscellaneous and free camping where possible. With all this in mind and trying to be budget conscious, We figured we could travel for around $750/week for everything.

We find that our eating habits change when camping where we eat a lot more snacky meals and less main meals. As a result we tend to have lots of leftovers so we always come back with extra meal ingredients (meat, veg etc). However what you spend per week now is pretty damn close to what you spend out bush (except for beer/wine which we tend to enjoy more of when camping). BTW this is what we found for ourselves so others may be different.

My kids are 7 and 10 so we would like to do it before high school or after but I have a great job which I am enjoying so it may be later rather than sooner.

I have uploaded the basic Excel spreadsheet to my website if interested (remember its a work in progress and not flash) -> Around Oz

Regards
David

Hi Leanne, below is a summery of our costs from our similar trip in May -Aug 2006 but start and finish in Perth. I've got a V6 but I presume your Diesel towing a van would give similar consumption rates. BTW in the Kimberley you get about a 20c/L fuel subsidy for diesel.

16,600KM & 10 wks

Groceries - $892
Meat - $181
Take always - this included the occasional restaurant meal, and any other food snack bought along the way that we didn't cook ourselves - $1059
Fuel - 2773 Litres - $4257
Tours - $1577

Total all up - $13,314 or $190.20 per day.

We tented but had powered sites in the van parks, so the same as a van. Stayed in Pk cabins for 12 nights over the period so costs for accommodation sky-rocketed. But with you having 2 extra the price would average out pretty comparable I'd imagine.

Suspect that prices in the Pilbara will have risen dramatically and getting a spot for your van may be an issue in places like Pt Hedland and Karratha so book ahead.Broome can also be an issue in June and July.Kununurra was booking out very fast in June and there is 11 parks there to pick on. A Big 4 membership card is well worth the expense if you don't already have one. Parks are usually a bit more expensive but the discount with being a member brings the cost down to level or just below the others. Big + is the level of amenities in these parks.

Van Pks in the NT in particular really look after their guests with many having nightly family entertainment either free or for a very nominal fee.

Enjoy yourselves it will be a trip you'll talk about for years.

Here's a break down of what we spent on our 98 night, 20,000k 1/2 lap.

Category Amount
Accomodation $3,052
Petrol $5,256
Car service $300
Clothes Washing $89
Correspondence $164
Equipment $392
Evening Meals $953
Groceries $2,543
Ice $40
Internet $41
Lunches $506
Miscellaneous $674
Park Entry $99
Presents $157
Snacks $315
Souvenirs $662
Tours $2,530
Total $17,772

Our accomodation was about 88 nights at van parks and the rest at Nat Parks or bushcamps (which drags the average down a little bit). Sounds like a fair amount but we calculated we would have spent around $12,500 if we're at home in the same time (kids creche and sport cost a lot!!) so we actually spent $5.5k for a 3mth holiday! Not to bad! :)