You may have heard the term 'relocation deal' when researching for a driving holiday. Generally campervan rental providers use this term to offer incredible deals to help move their fleet from one location to another. They even offer campervans for as little as $1* a day. The deals sometimes seem too good to be true, however, it's still more efficient for them to have someone else to drive the campervan between depots than it is to pay for the transportation themselves. Here are some things to consider if you do happen to find a relocation deal:
Currently, we do not have a specific relocation deals page, but we recommend you always search with your travel plans in mind as you may find yourself a good deal. Our top hint would be to also change your pickup and drop off locations—if you can—to see if other deals are on offer for locations close to the ones you're searching for.
Yes. Our car rental partners do offer relocation deals to help move their fleet from one location to another. However, unlike campervan bookings, their bookings and fleet allocation can change within minutes based on supply and demand. Therefore, the deals may not be as readily available for a passenger car compared to a campervan. Our customers have still been able to grab one-way car rental deals by searching on our website.
As an avid budget traveller, I’m always looking for ways to travel cheaper. On my three-month trip through Australia, I had heard about relocating rental cars from a fellow traveller, who has just used this method of transport and was very excited to share his tips. It turned out to be the perfect way for me to travel through Australia; I would save money, see loads more of the country and spare the environment a bit compared to flying.
After car-sharing from Sydney to Melbourne and simply hiring a car to get from Melbourne to Adelaide, I decided to give car relocations a chance. I didn’t really know where I would go, either north or west, so I let fate decide. Fate, in this case, being the availability of a suitable relocation deal within the timeframe I wanted to depart. After a few days of repeatedly checking in on a few websites that were offering car relocation deals, I found my ride: a brand new white Toyota Camry with automatic gears and cruise control.
My backpacking 23-year-old self wasn’t expecting this! And the best part? It only cost me $1 per day, including $100 fuel! I looked carefully at the small print in the contract I was given, trying to find the catch.
There are definitely some things that are good to know:
But: no catch. I signed and got the keys. I was off to Perth!
The road trip was tough. I was the only driver, and it was a 2.500km journey through a very open desert landscape of the Nullarbor plane and the “90 miles straight”, Australia’s longest straight road. The combination of the summer heat and the ease-of-driving setup with cruise control and automatic gears called for a lot of stops. It was a real challenge to time my fuel stops too; sometimes there would not be a next fuel pump for 300km! The fuel stops were a fun part of the journey by themselves, as I would stop in many middle-of-nowhere-type villages such as Cocklebiddy, always meeting some very interesting characters.
I have used car relocation many times in Australia and have driven more than 11.000 km (this was even more than I thought before adding it all up!) using vehicles ranging from a hippie van to a sedan and from a 4-person RV to a tiny 3-doors. I definitely recommend travelling through Australia this way, especially when you are backpacking on a budget. It really slows down your travels and gives you time to see and experience things you wouldn’t normally find in the big cities.
