Tips on relocation deals in Australia

Relocation deals can be a great way to traverse vast distances across Australia without your travels costing the earth.

Read on to find out more.

What is a relocation deal?

You may have heard the term “relocation deal” when researching for a driving holiday. Generally campervan rental providers use this term to offer incredible deals to help move their fleet from one location to another. They even offer campervans for as little as $1* a day. The deals sometimes seem too good to be true, however, it’s still more efficient for them to have someone else to drive the campervan between depots than it is to pay for the transportation themselves. Here are some things to consider if you do happen to find a relocation deal:

The daily rate may not include an excess reduction package.
Most times there is a date range that you must follow as they usually require the campervan to arrive at the return depot by a certain date to fill other rentals.
Remember to factor in the cost of petrol for your journey as this will not be included in the rate.
If you choose to add extras onto the booking — for example, camping equipment — this may also incur surcharges.
Most relocation deals will come with an allocated amount of kilometres that you can drive, but you’ll need pay for any kilometres you accumulate over this limit. Additional kilometres are usually charged per kilometre.

Currently, we do not have a specific relocation deals page, but we recommend you always search with your travel plans in mind as you may find yourself a good deal. Our top hint would be to also change your pickup and drop off locations — if you can — to see if other deals are on offer for locations close to the ones you’re searching for.

Do car rental providers offer relocation deals?

Yes. Our car rental partners do offer relocation deals to help move their fleet from one location to another. However, unlike campervan bookings, their bookings and fleet allocation can change within minutes based on supply and demand. Therefore, the deals may not be as readily available for a passenger car compared to a campervan. Our customers have still been able to grab one-way car rental deals by searching on our website.

Victor from Victor’s Travels shares his tips on relocation deals

As an avid budget traveller, I’m always looking for ways to travel cheaper. On my three-month trip through Australia, I had heard about relocating rental cars from a fellow traveller, who has just used this method of transport and was very excited to share his tips. It turned out to be the perfect way for me to travel through Australia; I would save money, see loads more of the country and spare the environment a bit compared to flying.

After car-sharing from Sydney to Melbourne and simply hiring a car to get from Melbourne to Adelaide, I decided to give car relocations a chance. I didn’t really know where I would go, either north or west, so I let fate decide. Fate, in this case, being the availability of a suitable relocation deal within the timeframe I wanted to depart. After a few days of repeatedly checking in on a few websites that were offering car relocation deals, I found my ride: a brand new white Toyota Camry with automatic gears and cruise control.

My backpacking 23-year-old self wasn’t expecting this! And the best part? It only cost me $1 per day, including $100 fuel! I looked carefully at the small print in the contract I was given, trying to find the catch.

There are definitely some things that are good to know:

$1000 will be frozen on your credit card as a deposit. If the car has no damage, you will receive the full amount back
Basic car insurance is included in the deal
You will have to save your fuel receipts in order to receive the $100 back (you don’t always get fuel costs back, by the way)

But: no catch. I signed and got the keys. I was off to Perth!

The road trip was tough. I was the only driver, and it was a 2,500km journey through a very open desert landscape of the Nullarbor plane and the “90 miles straight”, Australia’s longest straight road. The combination of the summer heat and the ease-of-driving setup with cruise control and automatic gears called for a lot of stops. It was a real challenge to time my fuel stops too; sometimes there would not be a next fuel pump for 300km! The fuel stops were a fun part of the journey by themselves, as I would stop in many middle-of-nowhere-type villages such as Cocklebiddy, always meeting some very interesting characters.

I have used car relocation many times in Australia and have driven more than 11,000 km (this was even more than I thought before adding it all up!) using vehicles ranging from a hippie van to a sedan and from a 4-person RV to a tiny 3-doors. I definitely recommend travelling through Australia this way, especially when you are backpacking on a budget. It really slows down your travels and gives you time to see and experience things you wouldn’t normally find in the big cities.

A Few Tips:

Watch out for animals on the road (especially kangaroos). You won’t see many of them during the day, but I had a few close encounters during dusk and dawn.
Stop often, let’s say every 2 hours. My stop of choice was at a McDonalds, where I would get an Americano and some free Wifi.
You might want to buy a line-in cable or bring some Bluetooth speakers: you will definitely need some entertainment on the long stretches of driving.
Don’t book your hotels/hostels too far in advance. It’s easy to underestimate how tough a long drive can be!
Even though I did all my car relocations solo, I would recommend travelling with someone else that is capable of driving. It’s much safer as you can keep an eye on each other’s driving.