Whats the best travel book to plan a 12 month lap of Oz?

Howdy Hado

Can't help you with a book or website but I would recommend JUST GO and make your decisions along the way ! The more plans you have, the more chance you have of things going wrong and being left dissapointed !
Best thing you can take with you is - a happy go lucky nothing is a problem attitude and you will have a great time !

Enjoy


Gazz

Word of Mouth.
A simple method and normally the best advice is contained in this method. Use the forum. Check previous posts.
Kick back and just enjoy what your doing. Big plans normally come unstuck.
Normally the "must see" places fade away when you discover your own great places.
cheers

On our 12 month trip around Aus we only had a couple of set dates. One was Port Essington the other was Tassie Ferry.

We sat down before hand with a map and places we wanted to go and things we wanted see. We went clock wise around and met people coming the other way that gave us better info on what was ahead and the 'must see' things.

But 34,000k later we still had to go back and fill in a lot of gaps.

Enjoy your travels with an open mind on what you see an do.

Hi Hado,

After doing the lap, I agree with the above posts. The only book is a camp snaps 6 and a great open minded free attitude. If you make plans they will change so do not even make them beyond a general outline. Just go.

I would go anti clockwise as this is better from the prevailing wind, hence fuel costs. Be mindful of the wet season up north. Talk to other travellers going in the opposite direction and get hints from them. Everyone has a camps book so write notes in your camps book that you get from them.

You cannot see everything.

Hi Hado

As they’ve all said.

The best plan is no plan.

Get a map book, and both of you (or all if children are included) put circles around your ‘wanted to go to all your life absolutely must see places’. Put smaller circles in a different colour on places you want like to see if in the state or region. Link as many of the big circles as you can, and think about the small circles that can easily be incorporated. Then head in the favoured direction. Be prepared to be flexible and responsive because as said, word of mouth once out there finds the best places that all the brochures and internet sites will never tell you about. I use the internet for research, including asking questions about specific places on forums.

Don’t worry about trying to see every state – just take it day by day and relax. If you really like a place, stay the extra day because you can. Better to spend more time in one place, than race on and later regret you didn’t take the time to see this and that.

When you get near the six month mark, plan your return journey by a different route. It doesn’t matter how far you’ve got – it is more important that you have really enjoyed the experience.

Here is how it has worked for us: Our travel time frames We do move along reasonably quickly as there is so much we want to see.

We have had down time (waiting for parts after unexpected problems) and if on a tight schedule this would be a stress. All these unforeseen possibilities need to be factored in. You also need to be responsive to weather extremes that can strike these days.

Motherhen

makintraks,

Camps 6, never leave home without it. With that & a spirit of adventure you cannot go too far wrong.

Enjoy, Colin.

Hi Hado,

Lots of good advice on here already and strongly endorse the recommendation to have very few fixed dates. Keep as flexible as you can, because its much more relaxing and because at times you may have to alter your plans anyway because of weather and road conditions and lots of other reasons.

You definitely wont see it all so try to work out in advance what the main areas are that you want to see eg Central Aust around Alice Springs, Pilbara, Kimberley etc. Then you can start doing a bit of research in advance. Start with a big map of Aust then switch to more detailed maps until you have a fair idea of where you want to go. Then you can get info about particular places.

Assuming you will have internet access here and there as you travel you will be able to use this website as its one of the most comprehensive collections of info around. As others have said, the tourist brochures will not tell you about the little tucked away places that are often as good as or better than the "big name" places. To find out about those places talk to other travellers and you will learn heaps. Nothing beats the thrill of making your own discoveries, so to allow space for that to happen try not to overplan.

We use OziExplorer to plan out a route that will take us to the places that we want to see, but we dont put anything more than a rough timeframe around it, having learned from experience that plans can and do change.

When we feel that its time to come home then that is what we do, even if it involves a week driving across the continent. I understand that Motherhen likes to turn around at the halfway point, timewise, but if we did that we would be home in about half our allocated time!

Cheers,

Val.