Leaving the Reservation

Leaving the Reservation - the Lure of Caravanning & Camping

Why is caravanning, motor-homing, 4WDing, camping and generally pulling up stumps to do the the lap around Australia all the rage? Channel Nine's A Current Affair recently did a piece on it at the Melbourne Outdoor Living Show we attended, and we got to be a part of it.

Packing up to do the lap around Australia is an interesting phenomena that has been gaining in popularity for years, but really blew up after Covid. Seemed that after being cooped up for so long people couldn’t wait to get back outside, and there was a frenzy of first time campers that hit the road. Then when they did get out they realized how fucking amazing Australia is and it started to catch on; why go overseas when there's a backyard as good as ours waiting to be explored? People embraced the beauty of Australia and the joy of immersing in it and now they’ve told everyone else, it just keeps growing.

High interest rates and the cost of living have contributed as well, with many selling up and hitting the road to get away from the slog of daily existence and the stress of grinding out a living. If you can travel with your house on your back and wake up to a beautiful view in a new part of Australia every day, why wouldn’t you?

Lucky it's such a big country and there's plenty of room for us all to be driving around. Australia is uniquely and perfectly suited to road trips so it comes as no surprise we have a whole industry built up around travelling the outdoors, and in fact make some of the best vans and pop ups in the world right here in Australia. Did you know it only takes two days for a factory to build a caravan? Try doing that in the backyard shed! Of course it’s not just caravans and motorhomes and 4WD’s, it’s all the camping accessories you need to go in them and with them that's needed as well, like camp chairs for instance :)

Tuff Arse snuck in for 10secs of camp chair wisdom at the end of the piece, ok it's unlikely to start a Hollywood career for Rolfie from Tuff Arse, but it’s nice to see even TV reporters have good taste and can spot a comfy camp chair.

Watch the video