Campervan Tips – Where to Find a Place to Sleep at Night

This subject is much more diverse than you might think. The obvious reply is to get a large nationwide camping book (in Australia the ‘Camps’ series is good and about 3cm thick in content of places to stay) and take suggestions from there. Some countries are very well set up for people on road trips and there is plentiful places to stay for free. I’ll tell you right now I NEVER paid to park my campervan overnight in Australia, and I did that for 6 months so it is possible.

Of course there is the paid option. Plenty of camping sites will happily charge you to park there and most provide a water and electricity outlet. Some of you may even get wireless internet. If you are travelling with your senior relatives, you may want to look for a 55+ RV park in advance. If you are an RV park owner you may want this RV park commercial laundry equipment. An RV laundry area complete with equipment is a good feature or amenity to attract RV parkers to your area.

A good camping book will tell you what the facilities offer before making your choice. Often I found exactly the same was available for free nearby though. Showers and taps providing clean water are all along the coast in Australia, so that’s half of your concern dealt with. The other part electricity – well how much do you need? I got a DC/AC converter for my campervan (at about the same cost as 1 night in a paid camping site) so I could charge my laptop, mobile phone/mp3 player during the day when the engine is running. At night I run these items on their battery power (which is one reason why battery life is important when considering a laptop, I recommend a Samsung NC10 / or Apple Macbook Pro.

So that’s what to do if you have assistance, but what about if you don’t? Well to be honest it is all up to your judgement, experience and common sense. Staying in residential areas, or on the side of a highway can lead to trouble. Although I found busy residential areas (main road) it is OK to stay for one night as passing cars/visitors will be expected, although you won’t get away with cooking there. But a quiet neighbourhood you will stand out more so I generally avoided them.

Parking beside highway

Good places I found include a new building development (although there will be builders there in the morning – but they tend to see the funny side of some campervan in their site and not disturb you). Large commercial sites car parks (NOTE: Check there is no gates on the doors so you have the option to drive out if necessary). I found DIY stores the best, but some supermarkets also were good – park in the darkest corner – you can cook here too. Some places have security run through who may ask you to move on, some have cameras to take into consideration too. But you can usually chat them around to letting you stay. My best plea was ‘I’m too drunk to drive now’ in which case they either call the police or leave you for being sensible and not driving.

Parked by Rollar coaster

Another place I stayed occasionally is train station car parks, they have to be small train stations and a bit out of the way – but you can usually get the train into the city you are visiting and that will work out cheaper (and often quicker) than finding all day parking inside a city centre. These usually have cameras, and I’ve got away with staying in them for a while after choosing correctly. You can also get off peak train travel in/out of the city and have your breakfast when the peak period has passed (or if you have a non-cooked breakfast you can have it whilst watching everyone rush into work – which is nice).

Another great places is car parks beside the beach – check they are free to park in at night otherwise a ticket attendant will be happy to slap one on your windscreen. They also come with showers, taps for filling up your water supply and in Australia (and NZ I believe) often come with free electric BBQs so you can save your gas bottle and cook on them!

Sometimes you can just park ON the beach!

One more is general tourist area’s. These are often not visited at night and a bit out of the way. I found a beautiful waterfall to park next too once, and I stayed there a couple of days. They had toilets, showers, and scenery, I popped into the local town for beer and pizza to enjoy it. Also tourists tend to arrive fairly late (10am+) before anything gets busy.

Tourist areas include lighthouse carparks!

These sort of area’s aren’t guaranteed to be safe and undisturbed though, I often had the police wake me up and ask what I was doing, especially if you accidentally park in a drug dealing area which I did once and they thought I was dealing (yeah in a bright orange/green/blue van). I don’t think the police ever asked me to move on though, they just wanted to check up on me as usually someone reported me as being suspicious (people closing big stores do this occasionally).

You need to think about who will be there in the morning and at what time. If you wake up early then you can get away with a lot of things. If you park outside a school you can expect a bit of noise during week days around 8am. DIY/Supermarket shoppers tend not to arrive until 9am, and it doesn’t get too busy until 10am – especially if you’re parked at the back of the car park.

It is usually much harder to find a place to stay in cities than on the open road – believe it or not. You can usually park outside hostels in cities, especially in countries like Australia which expect people to be in campervans often. I find the most important aspect is to move regularly. Don’t stay in the same place one night after the other (unless it’s really secluded) as it is much more noticeable and gets people talking.

Enjoy, and happy camping! Please feel free to leave any comments on where you have found as I’m sure everyone else who has been in a campervan has come up with some ‘ah ha!’ moments when it comes to finding a place to park for the night.

Tagged as: australia travel tips., campervan tips, where to sleep in campervan