The Big Lap: Planning and Financing Australia's Ultimate Road Trip

Highway 1 unspooling north out of Perth, the van hitched behind you, nothing booked and nowhere to be. The big lap is the trip most Australians say they will do one day. The gap between saying it and going is almost always money, and it is a far more solvable problem than it looks once you break it into two numbers: what the rig costs to buy, and what the road costs to live on.

What a lap of Australia actually involves

A lap is a circuit of the continent, usually run anticlockwise so you are heading up the west coast in the dry season. Most people who plan one budget for somewhere between 15,000 and 25,000 kilometres depending on how many inland detours they take, and anywhere from three months to two years on the road. Those two variables, distance and duration, set almost every figure in your budget.

Timing matters more than route. The standard rhythm is north through the tropics in winter when the humidity drops and the roads are open, then south for summer. Get that backwards and you are driving the Kimberley in the wet with half the tracks closed. Plan the season first, then let the route follow it.

What it costs to get on the road

The rig is the big-ticket item. A new mid-range touring caravan typically runs $70,000 to $120,000, and a well-kept used van a good deal less. Add a tow vehicle if your current car is not up to it, and the two together are usually the largest purchase a household makes outside a home.

Then there is the fit-out nobody budgets for. Solar and battery capacity so you can camp off-grid, extra water storage, a decent set of tyres, a full pre-trip service on both van and tow vehicle, and recovery gear if you are going anywhere remote. Set aside a few thousand for this and you will not be scrambling in week two.

One thing to check before you fall in love with a van: your tow vehicle's rated capacity, and whether the loaded van sits inside it. This is a safety and insurance question, not a technicality, and it is far cheaper to answer before you buy than after.

The running budget: fuel, sites and everything else

Fuel is the number that surprises people. A 4WD towing a van will not return the figure on the window sticker. Work on roughly 14 litres per 100 kilometres as a planning assumption and a 20,000 kilometre lap becomes about 2,800 litres. At a round working figure of $2.00 a litre that is about $5,600 in fuel alone, and a heavier rig at 18 litres per 100 kilometres pushes it to about $7,200. Check the current national average on the Australian Institute of Petroleum's pump prices page before you lock in a number, because this one moves.

Sites are the other recurring cost, and they vary enormously by how you travel. Western Australia's Parks and Wildlife Service is a useful anchor because it publishes its fees plainly: camping in most WA national parks is charged per person per night at $20 for an adult, with a family rate of $45 a night for two adults and children, and vehicle entry to the parks that charge it is $17. Commercial caravan parks cost more and free camps cost nothing, so most people land somewhere in the middle by mixing all three.

Everything else, food, insurance, rego, phone and data, mostly carries over from life at home. The genuinely new costs are fuel, sites and maintenance.

How to finance the rig without wrecking the trip

Secured or unsecured

ASIC's MoneySmart draws the line clearly. With a secured loan you provide an asset as security, and if you do not repay it the lender can take and sell that asset. With an unsecured loan you provide no security, rates are usually higher, and the lender's recourse is legal action instead. For a caravan, a secured loan against the van is the common structure and generally the cheaper one.

The loan term is the real lever

Personal loans usually run one to seven years, and where you sit in that range changes the trip more than the rate does. Take $85,000 over five years at an illustrative 9.5% a year and the repayment is about $1,785 a month, with roughly $22,100 in interest across the term. Stretch the same loan to seven years and the repayment drops to about $1,389, which is $396 a month back in your travel budget, but total interest climbs to roughly $31,700. That is about $9,600 more paid for the privilege.

Neither is the right answer on its own. If the monthly figure is what stands between you and going, the longer term is doing real work. If you can carry the higher repayment, the shorter term keeps close to ten thousand dollars in your pocket. Just make the trade knowingly.

Compare the comparison rate, not the headline rate

The comparison rate folds in interest and most fees, which is why MoneySmart uses it as the honest measure of what a loan costs. Their example is worth remembering: a loan advertised at 3% with a 6% comparison rate can easily cost more than one advertised at 4% with a 4.5% comparison rate. Lenders must tell you what assumptions sit behind the figure, and it is only accurate for the loan amount and term quoted, so compare like for like.

Stress-test the repayment before you sign

MoneySmart's advice on variable rate loans is to check whether you could still afford the repayment if the rate rose by 2% or 3%. On that $85,000 over five years, a rise to 11.5% takes the repayment from about $1,785 to about $1,869. It is a modest jump, but on a trip where your income may be reduced or paused, knowing the ceiling before you leave is worth the ten minutes it takes to work out.

Sort the finance before you sort the route

Get pre-approval before you go van shopping. Walking onto a dealer's lot knowing your number changes the conversation entirely, and it stops you negotiating on the monthly repayment instead of the price.

Search the PPSR on any used van. The Personal Property Securities Register at ppsr.gov.au tells you whether there is money owing on the van you are about to buy. A private-sale bargain with finance still attached is a problem you inherit.

Get quotes in writing and compare the comparison rate across at least three. Rates and fees differ more between lenders than most buyers expect, and the difference compounds over five to seven years.

Match the loan term to the trip, not just the van. If you are taking a year off work, think carefully about how repayments are covered during the months your income is lower.

Ready to make it happen? Emu Money compares caravan finance across 50+ lenders in one application, so you can work out what the rig actually costs you a month before you commit to it. Compare caravan finance options.

Subject to lender approval, terms, and conditions apply.