From Perth Airport, your Cheap Perth Car Hire from www.carrental.com.au/Perth-Car-Hire will drive your friends and your family in the vast lands of the city and complete your holiday treat without a sweat. Perth is a usual holiday destination due to the warm sun during day time and the cool moon in the evening. It is a place where nature exactly knows what people from different places need – a perfect blend.

Getting a cab at 30 AUD or bus at 15 AUD from the airport to take a fifteen minute drive to the Central Business District is simply too taxing. In case you are planning to travel and visit interesting places in Perth, avoid taking an initial bus or taxi drive to the business centre. Instead, get a car hire for your travel right from the airport. It will not work that way.

Before stepping out from the plane at Perth, be sure you already have your motorhome waiting for you, your friends or your family. Perth Car Hire providers can be reached in their websites anytime and discuss the kind of itinerary you want for the holiday. Their cheap rental prices, the kind of motorhome you want, the number of days you’re in, including your pick up place and time and drop off location can be reasonably discussed and scheduled to your advantage. Discounts and bonus surprises can be availed of if you book your holiday treat earlier.

With your fully equipped and classy motorhome, you can visit the 63 beaches of Rottnest Island for your backpacked adventures. For your outdoor activities, you can trail on foot and discover the magic of the various cascading landscapes. Before dusk, you can join the Fremantle Festival with festive music and musicians to cool your nights.

All of these and more will be yours if you take the services of Perth Car Hire to blend your trip with nature.

Filed under: Category Campervan Hire, Perth Car Hire | Tags: Perth Car Hire by northern
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Your cheap Sydney car rental is much more affordable if you know exactly what you’re looking for when choosing. Understanding your needs will help you better understand the type of  Sydney car rental service that will suit your budget as well as your travel plans.

Your first step to making your rental more affordable is figuring out your exact flight details. For example, what time and date will you be arriving? Knowing when your flight really is will allow you to choose between various promotions. In some cases promotions are available for certain days of the week at a particular cheap Sydney car rental service as opposed to another.

Similarly, knowing where you will be heading is also important. If you are planning to head over to the hotel right away, or head to another location to get a camper, you will find it worthwhile to choose as exact a drop off location as possible so that you can save on the money you are going to use for your airport rent a car. This is primarily because the farther and the more out of the way you travel in your cheap Sydney car rental, the more expensive it will be.

You should also make a note of how many of you will be going on the trip. If for example, you happen to be travelling with a group of friends then your airport rent a car should be a van or perhaps a mini bus. The cost of hiring a mini bus, or even a van is more affordable than hiring two individual vehicles for all the travellers.

You don’t have to spend lots of money when travelling provided that you travel smart. Travel better and cut down on your cheap Sydney car rental costs by following these useful tips.

Filed under: Category Campervan Hire, Cheap Car Rental Sydney | Tags: Cheap Car Rental Sydney,Cheap Sydney Car Rental by northern
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The Sydney Car Hire can give you the modest up to elaborate car hire services like motorhomes for whatever travel plans you have in Newcastle. For easy booking, link to their websites for detailed guides and travel information and discuss online all things that bother you up for your trip. For sure, their car rent staff will be very glad and truly interested in providing solutions to all your worries the soonest possible time.

Their car hire prices are super-duper reasonable and within your budget plans. More excitingly, you can choose the right kind of vehicle for your comfortable travels off road. You can book much earlier than your travel schedule and enjoy some premium discounts and bonuses. As you’ll soon see, you can be sure they will be there for you on the exact pick-up time and drop off schedule.

Newcastle, the home of simplicity and beauty is just 162 kilometres north-northeast of Sydney, Lack Macquarie and Port Stephens. From there, your Sydney Car Hire will give you a cool off road experience to the Hunter Valley, the North Coast region and the great State of Queensland. Along the road, you can stop-over for some beach funs and casual stroll for your stressed feet.

For your stomach progress, visit Blue Water Pizza for a heavy munch of your favourite pasta. Or, get a heavy lunch at Jonah’s on the beach for mouth watery sea-food delicacies. In case you want to relax and enjoy some live music, dances and pub foods, stay at Lass O’Gowrie Hotel until the wee hours of the night.

For the highlights, get into Silo – a single venue for all kinds of entertainments you want to experience in Newcastle – including a superb dine of home-grown produce, ales and other spirits of the Hunter Valley.

Indeed, Sydney Car Hire can treat you like kings and queens on your travels.

Filed under: Category Campervan Hire, Sydney Car Hire | Tags: Sydney Car Hire by northern
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There are different options for a campervan hire Sydney that you can take advantage of anytime you travel on this quaint Australian city. A campervan is often referred to as a simple camper. There are also other people who call it as a caravanette. However by definition, it is a self propelled type of a vehicle which is able to provide both a transport as well as a sleeping accommodation to its driver and passengers.

The word typically describes a van that has already been fitted out. The said vehicle is featured with a coach that is built in its body in order to be used as an accommodation of those who’ll be riding on it. In the United States of America, the camper van is referred to as a Recreational Vehicle or an RV. The Americans have also manufactured larger as well as bigger camper vans compared to the ones that Europeans have produced as well as the other parts of the world.

However, not too many people own a campervan because it can be more expensive than an actual and normal vehicle especially in the island of inspiration – Tasmania, Australia. This is the main reason why people hire camper vans when necessary. Many of the travellers have opted for campervan hire or rental in order to go to or explore different places in the country. Taking advantage of a campervan hire Sydney is typically known to be of better value compared to other car rentals and at the same time having an accommodation on top of it.

As you can see, the main accommodation of the traveller is guaranteed. There is no need to move around any of the luggage. Also, you do not have to go through all the stress and hassle of figuring out how to get to your next destination if you travel with a campervan hire Sydney.

Filed under: Category Campervan Hire, Campervan Hire Sydney | Tags: Campervan Hire Sydney by northern
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Visiting friends or loved ones across the country would be really exciting but when it’s a holiday season, you cannot avoid the stress yet with cheap Gold Coast car rental, it is amazingly possible. When it is a holiday season, it feels like everybody flew in the same place as you did. The airport is crowded and people are everywhere. It can become very toxic. Yet with the spirit of Christmas in the air everyone can be a little nicer. However, getting a ride to your destination can become pretty complicated. With so many baggage or packages for the holiday season, it is not practical to take the train or any other public vehicle. Good thing hiring a car along Gold Coast is always possible and you can get good deals almost all the time.

cheap Gold Coast car rental is a good way to welcome the guests with a good experience. Instead of walking long distance to find some good hotel, you can actually have someone pick you up and take you where you should go. In fact, if it seems like quite far, you can get a campervan and instead of staying in some expensive or budget hotel, you can sleep your way to your destination.

Imagine how practical it can be. You save on time and money and you get to enjoy more time during the vacation with your loved ones. And when it comes to additional load, size is not a problem at all. If you have gifts with you then they will surely fit any vehicle. However, if you are too tired and you want to relax a bit then you can also demand for some comfort and convenience with a campervan and arrive in your destination refreshed and still excited. With a cheap Gold Coast car rental you can ask for the perfect vehicle to pick you up.

Filed under: Category Campervan Hire, cheap Gold Coast car rental | Tags: Cheap Gold Coast Car Rental by northern
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Cheap Melbourne car rental is just within your reach at the Melbourne airport – one of the busiest in the country. It can quickly facilitate all your transport needs from the airport to whatever destinations you have in mind.

Melbourne airport is the home of different people all over the world. It’s always been busy 24/7. People with different travel intentions and professions make their way from this part of Melbourne. More than half of people coming in daily are local and foreign tourists who want to spend their holidays visiting marvellous scenic spots and world heritage sites. The rest of them are businessmen for some business deals, international movie stars for their unwinding activities and curious scientists and writers for their studies and publications.  They just come and go.

That’s the reason why it’s busy 24/7. For cheap travel tours in Melbourne, avoid the taxis and the buses. Though they can get you to the Central Business District, it could cost you more than what you usually pay. Cheap Melbourne car rental is the best idea if you have important plans in coming over.

To avoid time-consuming and irritating booking problems, check out their websites for whatever plans you have in mind. For the businessmen, you can choose the right classy car you intend to use for your business transactions. For scientists and writers, you can choose from their lines of 4WD cars, so you can traverse the different landscapes and steep climbs and have an up close view of the places you want to discover and study. And for the many holiday campers, you can choose from simply spacious to luxurious motorhomes for your family and friends and savour all the thrills and excitements on the road.

With www.carrental.com.au/car-hire/vic/melbourne, your travel starts at the foot of the plane to anywhere in Melbourne plus bonuses and surprises from car rental companies.

Filed under: Category Campervan Hire, Cheap Melbourne car rental | Tags: Cheap Melbourne Car Rental by northern
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Motorhome Hire Australia has the privilege to treat you another momentous drive to Australia’s second-oldest city – Hobart.  The City of Hobart extends your holiday to the southernmost capital. This place of profound colonial heritage could fill your empty life with a cool motorhome drive into the base of Mt. Wellington where initial display of antiquated and contemporary arts will touch your hearts and minds. Hobart can certainly give much of its famous gifts of wonders through the right choice of car hire. A 7-day trip could already give you and your company a minimum bite of its amazing places. Of course, a longer itinerary would expose you more to what your eyes expect to see.

For full and exact details of information guide regarding the trip you have in mind, feel free to get in touch with car hire Hobart Airport companies. Aside from information guides, the agency can give you exclusive discounts and other surprise bonuses that other car hires cannot give. The company’s long lines of motorhomes to choose from will definitely give you an extra advantage.

Your long journey in this vast land starts with a tram tour from www.camperhire.com.au/motorhome that will give you a thrilling glimpse of Hobart’s amazing destinations.  At Port Arthur Historic site, a defunct penitentiary will make you imagine how hundreds of inmates take their routines in this well fortified structure.

For contemporary arts, visit Art Mob Gallery for many priceless aboriginal arts and jewellery. Handmark Gallery invites your selective and delicate taste of various displays of ceramic, glass, wood and textile handworks of gifted Tasmanian artists. Then you can drive to one of the key attractions in Hobart – the Salamanca Market. What makes this place special is their once a week opening for visitors to look and find for themselves practically anything they want to buy and anything they can think of. Only motorhome hire Australia can bring you there – convenient and hassle-free.

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Steve & Jen at the tip of Cape York - October 1998

It sounds like a staggering amount of people but it’s true that right now over 100,000 people are on their way on the trip of their lifetime travelling around Australia. A year from now it will be another 100,000 and a year after that, another.

Sounds like it would be crowded but Australia’s a big country and there is plenty of room for you.

But while there are so many people out there living their dream,  there are a lot more people that would like to go but never will. They say ‘I’d love to do that one day’ but they never will. When it comes to the crunch, selling or renting their house, quitting their job or taking the kids out of school just seems too hard.

Many people resolve to go when they retire and become ‘grey nomads’. By far the majority of around Australia travellers are grey nomads forming impromptu convoys up and down the highways around the country.

This is a great thing and I fully expect to become one myself in 20 or 30 years from now but here’s the thing.

Many grey nomads you meet on the road will have a similar story.

It goes something like this . . .

“It’s great to see you travelling around Australia while you’re still young, and with your young kids as well – fantastic. Oh how we wish we’d done it when we were younger and not waited until retirement”

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had that conversation of a variation of it.

I met a man at one of our camps who came over for a chat. He was in his late sixties and had been on the road with his wife for about 6 months. He told me about how he had seriously considered retiring 5 years ago. He had tonnes of money to see him out so didn’t need to work any more but despite this chose to work another 5 years before taking off on their perpetual big lap.

It had turned out to be the biggest regret of his life. He literally teared up while telling me about it. He already had enough money 5 years ago, now he just had more – so what.

What he now knew that he didn’t then is that travelling around Australia doesn’t need much money and he’ll never get those 5 years back. He could have lapped the country 5 times and met thousands of new friends, instead he just had more numbers in his bank account.

If travelling around Australia is something you really want to do and you’re not ready to retire yet then ask yourself what you will regret more – going now OR not going now. I think you already know the answer.

To make your dream trip, the ‘Big Lap’, a reality the very first step is to actually make the decision to go.

Most of the people who will be on their way around Australia 2, 3 or 4 years from now are dreaming about it and planning it already. They’ve made the decision and are working towards it.

Jen and I made the ‘decision’ to do the big one on our way up to Cape York from Melbourne in October 1998. We had escaped from our business for 10 weeks and were in our newly purchased second hand 80 series Landcruiser (same one we still have) and we started talking about taking a whole year off to drive around the whole country. We’d sell our business and just go. It was a fantasy that we allowed ourselves to indulge in but we kept talking about it.

For several weeks it was just an idea, a dream that was a lot easier said than done. Our business was not in a ready to sell state as we’d recently bought a new printing press and had a LOT of debt wrapped around it. We had a few years of work to do first at least.

But despite this, in the space of that 10 week trip, we resolved to do it, one day, one way or another, no matter what it took we were going to devote at least a year to doing the Big Lap.

At that stage we were in our late 20′s and without kids and we expected to go before kids arrived on the scene – funny how things turn out.

Planning To Go – Turning your dream into a plan

Once you’ve decided that you are no longer thinking about it but are actually going to do it then everything else starts to fall into place around the trip. It’s almost like magic!

It doesn’t matter how far out the trip is – it can be years away like it was for us (7 years and 2 daughters in fact) . But every decision you make and everything else you do from that point onwards will be done in consideration for how is it going to affect your trip, one way or another. If we buy a house what will we do with it when we go? Sell it or rent it out? If we buy a car will it be the one we take around Oz or not? What if we have a baby?

This helps to make your trip a reality because you talk about it and take actions as if it is a reality and inevitably it happens that way.

Draw a line between now and the future when you’ll be leaving and figure out what you need to engineer to get there. These are then your goals and your to do list.

To help keep you focussed on the goal, buy yourself a big map of Australia and stick it up on a wall somewhere in the study or the pool room. Somewhere that everyone can see it.

Use a texta to mark places you want to go and things you want to see. Talk about what you expect an area to be like and circle the ‘must see’ destinations. Get everyone involved including the kids if you have them. When you start to actually see your trip unfolding on the map it becomes a lot more real.

It’s likely there will be many hurdles to overcome between the decision to leave and driving out the driveway but determination will get you over the hurdles if you stay focused on your goal.

Be flexible – you may need to change dates, you may need to wait another year.

But decide now that no matter what, you are going to do the trip one way or another.

Now watch and see how everything starts to fall into place.

Feel free to leave a comment below to tell me you’ve decided to go. I’ll be the first to congratulate you.

Filed under: Category Planning, Slider, Trip Preparation | Tags: by northern
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Travelling around Australia with kids will be the experience of a lifetime for you and them

Some people called us crazy when we told them we planned to do a “Big Lap” of Australia with our young daughters who were only 18 months and 4 years old when we left. Some even called us irresponsible but the overwhelming majority could see that this would be a special time for us and our kids and it was worth any risk or hardship.

And they were right! The reality is that having kids is a challenge no matter whether you are living at home or travelling around Australia but on our 16 month adventure we learned a few things that you may like to take on board.

Ease The Transition

We started talking to our kids about our “Big Trip” about a year before we left. We put up a map on the wall and marked our proposed route. When we saw a place on TV we planned to go we’d point it out and talk about it.

Basically we built the anticipation so they were looking forward to it. We also had plenty of time to discuss any fears they may have before we got going.

We also emulated their bedroom to an extent in our camper trailer – we took their quilts, pillows, books and special toys so that they had a tangible connection with their life at home, again easing the transition.

It didn’t matter where we were geographically, their familiar and secure bedroom was always with us.

Keep The Routine

While half the fun of a Big Lap of Oz is getting away from routines and clock watching, kids feel secure when they have consistency. To strike a balance we always made sure the bedtime routine was consistent. This usually involved brushing teeth and a couple of stories in bed before sleep.

Kids also need their sleep and fortunately this was easier to achieve on the road. When you are basically sleeping outside and don’t have TV you tend to work your day around the sun so with 12 hours of night, getting the kids to bed at 7:30 was easier than getting them there at 8:30 at home.

Play

When you’re a kid, Life = Play so we gave our daughters a toy bag each which they could bring some of their favourite toys from home. For example, books, colouring in stuff, baby’s and dolls, dress up clothes etc. While we were actually travelling they could take a few things in the car and we put pockets over the back of the front seats they could stash their bits and pieces into.

Don’t go overboard though because kids are great at improvising and you really want them interacting with the environment so they learn new things. Our eldest, Savanna, built an Indian Tee Pee from a small tarp and some sticks and we made several cubby houses from tarps & rope along the way.

Entertainment

One of the best investments you can make before you go is an in-car DVD player. I realize that some people will argue that you don’t go on holidays to watch movies but put it in perspective. You’ll spend upwards of 400 hours in the car on a lap around Australia and there are only so many games of I Spy and 20 questions you can play. Allowing the kids to watch 2 or 3 movies on a long driving day will keep them sane and give you some quiet time to chat or just enjoy the drive.

We bought a DVD folder that has sleeves in it and transferred all the girls DVD’s into it before we left home which was much more compact and easier to manage that the DVD cases. You’ll also want to get headphones with your DVD player so you don’t have to listen to the same movies a dozen times.

Kids also love playgrounds and when we checked into a caravan park or stopped at a park for lunch, we always had an eye out for a good playground. They will play for hours and then be so tired that they’ll sleep soundly all night – perfect!

Driving Days

We soon learned that travelling with kids had an impact on the distance we could realistically cover in a day. Forget 800km days. We tried to set a limit of 500 km and even then we found that we’d cover an average of about 50km every hour so it was still a long day. You need to build in more and longer stops to allow the kids to get out and run around otherwise, well, they’ll drive you crazy!

We met a couple of families on our trip who were using their 3 months long service to do a lap of oz. We calculated they needed to cover an average of 300km every single day to get around the country which probably explained why they looked pretty tired and frazzled.

Friends

Kids make friends very easily, in fact sometimes a bit too easily. While it is great that they can walk up to some other kids and be playing happily 5 minutes later, this does create an element of risk that you need to keep front of mind.

In Alice Springs, Sara, who was about 2 ½ at the time, made friends with another boy near our camp and ended up wandering off with him to his site about 100 metres away. We found her 15 minutes later but it was a pretty nervous 15 minutes.

You can’t keep them locked up so you just have to keep your eyes on them all the time – we would tell them constantly that if they can’t see us, we can’t see them.

Whenever we spotted other kids camped nearby we’d try to say hello to the parents and we’d always find they were as happy for their kids to have someone to play with as we were. We would also then both be keeping an eye on the kids, which created a larger safety net.

We were also a little cautious with the types of caravan parks we’d stay in. Generally, the more “touristy” the better. We avoided parks that were predominantly full of permanent residents, partly because they were not geared for travellers but also because they can occasionally attract some less than desirable characters.

Safety

Having touched on safety, I’ll expand on a few more points.

Wildlife

There are inevitably risks associated with snakes, spiders & crocodiles but realistically these are minimal if managed. We trained our daughters not to jump over logs or run blindly into the bush and to be aware that snakes are around – but don’t be terrified of them because, given an easy exit path they will happily take it.

Our rule was that if you encountered a snake, STOP and freeze, then slowly back away from the snake, tell anyone else nearby to watch out for it then come and tell mum or dad. Savanna and I actually encountered a large Western Brown snake one night on the floor in a toilet in Karijini National Park and rather than make a big drama of it, we stood quietly and watched it and in a few minutes it went on it’s way.

Crocodiles are the other real risk in the northern part of the country. We taught our daughters that unless we absolutely knew otherwise, we assumed that all water had crocodiles in it. We didn’t tell them that crocodiles were bad or monsters but that they were wild animals that were always looking for food and if you get into their patch of water then they may accidentally mistake you for food. This was all it took.

Cars

I actually think that the biggest danger kids face while travelling is from speeding cars in caravan parks. Too many people ignore the “Drive at walking pace” rules in caravan parks and they speed around at anything up to 60km/h sometimes. Kids can so easily walk out from behind a car or caravan and not see or hear a car coming at them. If you see someone speeding in a caravan park, do everyone a favour and point out the dangers to them (one way or another) and if that doesn’t work, report them.

Realistically the danger of hitting a child in a caravan park while speeding is many times greater than having an accident while speeding on the road – unfortunately some people don’t think about the “what if” factor.

Getting Lost

Given your environment changes so frequently it may be hard for your 3 year old to explain where their camp is. It’s worth writing your mobile phone number on a card and putting it in your kids’ pocket so that in the event they do get lost then someone who finds them can give you a call.

You do have to be more alert for your kids safety while travelling but don’t let it put you off or worry you too much. Common sense and a good radar for trouble will keep them safe. Don’t try and shelter them too much – they should know why crocodiles and snakes are dangerous and how to avoid them but at the same time learn to love them for the amazing wild animals they are – it’s about respect, not fear.

Schooling

I can’t speak with authority about schooling your kids on the road because both of ours were pre-school age. However we did meet plenty of parents with school age kids along the way.

Here’s some of the tips we gleaned from them:

• The education department will give you far too many books and materials to take with you however apparently the Queensland Education Department has a compact travel schooling kit so this might be worth looking into.
• The workload set down is hard to keep up with and most parents seem content to let their kids learn as much as possible from the trip itself and catch up the academic stuff later.
• It is easier to do the schooling in concentrated bursts than bits every day.

Obviously the older your kids are, the greater the pressure will be to keep the schooling up so they don’t fall behind. One observation we made was that high school age teenagers were probably the least enthusiastic about the whole experience because they missed their friends and life back home and didn’t want to fall behind at school. This is something you would need to manage if you plan to travel with teenage kids.

Having said that, keep it in perspective. Not many kids get to travel around Australia at all and the lessons your kids will learn about Australia, life and other people should not be undervalued.

New Experiences

Sharing new and often unplanned experiences with your kids is a great adventure. Kids are highly durable and adaptable so don’t smother them in cotton wool. When we broke down in the middle of Western Queensland we were stuck for three days waiting for parts to arrive so we could fix the car. We had no facilities at all. We washed in a nearby creek and dug a hole for a toilet. The kids couldn’t have cared less. They take it all in their stride. In fact it has turned out to be one of the more memorable experiences of our trip.

Have your default routines to keep them in balance but also be prepared to adapt your trip to suit theirs and your needs. With clear boundaries and lots of love they’ll have the adventure of a lifetime with you.

And one more thing, buy them a digital camera each before you go. In years to come being able to look back at the photos from your trip will far outweigh the relatively small cost of a couple of cameras now.

Filed under: Category featured, How to, On The Road, Slider, Travelling With Kids | Tags: by northern
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