Would you recommend renting or buying a camper van to drive up the east coast of...

[Lucy]

...Australia or get the bus? Me and my two friends are on quite a tight budget and are looking for the cheapest option really. The main problem is that I don't have a licence and one of my friends has only just passed her test! The third friend says she is cool with taking on all the driving but I feel bad! Would it be alot of driving? We have six weeks to travel from Sydney to Cairns! Does anyone know roughly how much it is to hire or buy a camper van and how you go about doing it? It is cheap to hire a spot on camp sites? The other other option we were thinking, was to get on the Aussie Experience hop on hop off bus and stay in hostels as we thought we would meet more people that way! Has anyone got this bus? How was it? x

 

[mel]

To buy a campervan you're looking at $100,000, it is MUCH cheaper to rent one.
These are three companies I have heard of:
http://www.apollocamper.com/
http://www.maui.com.au/
http://www.britz.com.au/

You don't have to pay for a site, you can legally stop in a rest area over night, most have toilets but not all have showers. A caravan park will usually cost around $25-$30 a night.

If you are taking 6 weeks, then you shouldn't have to do too many hours a day on the road. Get a map and work out some nice towns to stop at within 4 hours of each other.

You could also look at hiring a small car and staying at hostels. But first things, to hire a vehicle you need to be over 21, a campervan may even require you to be over 25. Maui states you must have a full licence and be over 21 years of age.