Free Camping

There are many camp sites operated usually by shire councils that offer low cost short stays. Some of these are in showgrounds or in disused railway station grounds. Some have toilet facilities others have no facilities and require that you are self contained.
Locating these sites can be achieved by using such websites as Camps Australia and similar publications, either online or printed books.
We use these sites frequently not so much to avoid costs but for the informal benefit they offer.
Try Googling “free camps Australia” for more information.

Yes but these days to get a spot in some places people are arriving very early making it harder for those who want to get some km under their belt and pull up before or around dusk for eg. My answer may be wrong I was thinking about when travelling.

We free camp anywhere their is a track off the road, so long as it mostly doesn't go to a property. That's all we mostly do, other than farm stay's which are usually pretty cheap. We have dog's so they dictate where we have to stay, and yes you can pretty much do it everywhere.

If you are travelling thru Canberra there's a good free camp with beautiful green grass just opposite this white building !

Not all free camps marked on certain apps are legal camps. We had several removed from Wikicamps because they were on private land only to have someone put them back up.

Hi JA1,

We mostly camp Off Grid, and have not had any real problems finding somewhere to pull off the road for the night. We generally start looking for a suitable spot from around 3:30 to 4:00 pm. Gravel pits, and communication towers which are normally set off the road are good places to camp, they generally have flat areas around them.

As I stated in another reply, Truck Rest Stops are not really placed there for caravaners and campers. They are provided for “truckies” so that they have somewhere for them to stop and take take their legally required rest breaks. We never use a truck parking stop.

As others have mentioned, a lot of country pubs offer free or cheap camping spots, often just for the price of having a meal at the pub. A good reference book as well as those already mentioned is the HEMA Road & 4WD Atlas, not cheap, but well worth the money. I use it along with Exploroz Traveller and Google Maps to help plan our trips.

Macca.

National Parks are run by grubs, most of our old camping sites have been closed down.

Nowadays we just disappear down any tracks into the scrub we can find.

There were plenty of good free camps around many parts in Far North NSW we use to visit for days at a time but with the advent influenzers and their "look at me" social media postings, these places have either been closed by the local councils because of the mess campers leave behind or have become so crowded it's not with staying.
Speaking to several people pretty familiar within the "Recreational Industry", they mentioned figures of about 60,000 people on the road on a daily basis in their mobile setup.
This figure over the last couple of years has increased due to affordable housing issues and on first hand basis I have come across people who permanently live in their vans because they can not afford a house / unit.
They live in the general district but move around every couple of days to placate the local council rangers from being fined by overstaying their welcome.
So for us, we generally stay at Showgrounds or Station stays if we want to do camp in "civilisation" on some occasions, the prices are pretty reasonable and you still get some decent space to set up.
That being said, when we find a decent "off grid " camping location that we want to come back too, I just "note" it in the Traveller app under my "Off Grid" folder..

Absolutely you can! Theres no shortage of free/low cost camps but the issue is being able to get in/availability - the number of RVs touring is astounding so you need to get smart if you want to improve your chances of finding the good camps that arent packed out.

First, youll find many listed in the ExplorOz Traveller app and you can see precise details on the map of the location.

We seem to have no trouble finding spots on the day we arrive. We have been touring fulltime around Australia for the past 12 months and we have a bit of a system that works for us. Each state is different but the same principles to easily finding availability at free or low cost camps apply:

1. Avoid the coast
2. Avoid being within a 2 hour radius of a city from Fri - Sunday or long weekends or school holidays
3. Avoid being in a region during its peak season
4. Check site availability on National Park websites to get a gauge of popularity and look for less popular locations. We rarely book sight unseen and then if we like it and have no service we setup Starlink and book it on arrival.
5. Avoid camps with bitumen access
6. Seek State Forests and 4wd tracks
7. Avoid the locations people promote/recommend
8. Plan your route using EOTopo maps and steer clear of main roads, become familiar with the colour of shaded map areas indicating state forest and explore alternate routes through those areas.

Obviously if you dont tow a big van its so much easier to use the above principles.

Personally, we never stay in towns and rarely know where we’re headed in the next 2 hours and have no problems. You will always find a camp in state forests and whilst National Parks need online booking they are only $7.25pp/night in Qld, and $6.30 - $24 pn in NSW plus some have no nightly fee but just have a $6 booking fee and theres tons of them. Hardly exhorbitant!!

In 2022-2023 we did a lot of remote WA in both the north and south but also the whole central Australia (and again did central WA/NT this year. Those regions offer tons of free bush camps along the dirt highways and minor tracks but most of the coastal camps and high profile locations need booking well in advance eg Kimberley, Karijini, Ningaloo, Dirk Hartog, Esperance beaches BUT there are hundreds of awesome free camps in the Wheatbelt esp at great spots like the many granite rocks.

We’ve just spent Aug - Dec in Qld and northern NSW initially chasing waterfalls in the wet tropics then exploring the Great Dividing Range taking as much unsealed routes as we could and we have mostly been camping in National Parks that offer decent hikes. Theres hardly been anyone around and these are indeed low cost camps. Earlier this year we did 3 monthsTAS almost completely free and unplanned, and all free in Vic and usually no one at the sites we’ve chosen or only 2-3.

We will be in Tas again in Jan & Feb, then March in Vic, prob April in SA and feel confident in finding free or low cost camps as we roam.

Heres a photo of a recent free camp we stumbled upon a few nights ago in the Barrington Tops region (state forest).


And heres another not far out of Armidale.

In NSW, State Forests are good. There's no booking fees and no charge, plus the toilets are usually pretty good. Wiki camps has been excellent for me. You have to steer clear of populated areas. You can stop in a roadside rest area if you don't setup a camp, basically pull up and go to sleep. They exist to stop you driving while tired.