Queensland Road Trips: The Ultimate Guide to Caravan Routes & Budget Camps

After 50,000 km of red dirt and coastal highways, we’ve mapped the reality of caravanning in Queensland. From the rugged Matilda Way to Cape York and the tropical Coast Road, this guide breaks down the best low-cost camping. This is the state that refuses to be one thing, and our Queensland road trips guide gives you the exact budget camping locations and road trip itineraries you need for a self-contained caravan adventure.

North Queensland has some of the most remote driving on the continent: corrugated tracks threading through rainforest to the tip of Cape York, or the long red-dirt sweep of the Savannah Way. But Queensland is also one of the most accessible touring destinations in the country. The Matilda Way and the Great Inland Way are wide, well-serviced and scenic. The Bruce Highway coastal route connects an almost unbroken chain of caravan parks, showgrounds, and beachside free camps from the Gold Coast to Cairns.

This state has a version of itself built for everyone. The grey nomad who wants nothing to do with corrugations. The family chasing the classic coastal lap. The overlander heading for Cape York. The trick is knowing which Queensland you’re heading into, and planning accordingly.

This guide covers the full picture: the inland arteries, the coastal drive, the adventure frontier, and what’s coming next on our own itinerary. It draws on over 50,000km of Australian travel in our 4WD and small hybrid caravan, including our completed east coast lap and Cape York run.

Queensland at a Glance

Region	Key Routes	Accessibility	Best Time to Visit
Matilda Way	Cunnamulla to Karumba (via Longreach & Winton)	All rigs: sealed highway	April – September
Great Inland Way	NSW border to Cairns (extension to Cooktown)	All rigs: sealed highway	April – October
Bruce Highway (Coastal)	Gold Coast to Cairns	All rigs: sealed highway	Year-round (avoid Wet season in the far north)
Cape York Peninsula	Cairns to the Tip	4WD + high clearance required: unsealed roads/tracks	May – October (Dry season only)
Savannah Way (QLD section)	Cairns to NT border	Mixed: sealed east, unsealed centre/west	May – September
Outback Way (QLD section)	NT border to Boulia	4WD recommended: remote unsealed	April – September
Overlander’s Way	Mt Isa to Townsville	All rigs: sealed highway	April – October

Queensland Road Trips Map

The free interactive map below shows campground locations, points of interest, starting points for walks and fuel stops. Click on a campground for information on it and zoom in to see more detail.

The Cost of the Sun: Budgeting for the Sunshine State

Queensland will give you some of the best road tripping in Australia, but it won’t always do it cheaply. The gap between camping inland and camping on the coast is large enough to shape your itinerary. Better to understand that before you leave home than after your third $85-a-night coastal park in a row.

The short version: inland Queensland is among the best-value touring in the country. The coast, particularly during peak season, is not. Here’s how to handle both.

The Great Divide: Inland vs. Coast

The Matilda Way and Great Inland Way pass through towns where the accommodation economy was never built around tourist dollars. The result is a strong network of free and low-cost camps to supplement the showgrounds. For fee sites, $15 to $25 dollars a night is the norm, not the exception. For that money, you’ll regularly get a powered site with hot showers, a dump point, and a locals’ oval to walk the dog around. Nobody is charging a beachfront premium because there isn’t one.

For the inland routes, we have done stretches of up to 12 consecutive nights in free camps.

The Bruce Highway coastal route operates on a different logic entirely. Commercial parks between the Gold Coast and Cairns know their value and they charge accordingly. During peak season (June – August), a powered site for two adults around the Whitsundays, Airlie Beach, or Port Douglas will routinely hit $70 – $90 per night, or more. Add school holidays and you’re looking at pre-booked minimums and peak-rate surcharges on top. These parks earn their prices. The facilities are generally good and the locations are often beautiful. But if you’re on a budget and haven’t planned around the coast, it will eat your travel fund faster than you’d believe. However, there are budget options if you know where to look.

The Showground Secret

If there’s one piece of Queensland-specific knowledge that separates experienced budget travellers from people burning through their savings, it’s this: Queensland’s showgrounds are exceptional, and most tourists don’t know they exist.

Many inland towns of any size have an agricultural showground that opens its gates to travellers outside of show season. These aren’t grim overflow areas. The better ones have powered sites, clean amenities, dump points, and a caretaker who takes pride in the place. Barcaldine, Charters Towers, Finch Hatton, Goondiwindi: the list runs the length of both inland routes and several regional towns off the coast.

Prices typically range from $20 to $35 per night, with some offering power. Off-season availability is generally excellent. The catch is that they fill up during local show dates (check ahead) and the better-known ones get busy during peak grey nomad season. Arrive by early afternoon or book ahead where you can.

Rob’s Tip: The showground circuit is the backbone of inland Queensland touring, but it pays to know what you’re looking for before you need it. WikiCamps is the best tool for tracking showgrounds down, though as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, take the listings with a grain of salt in larger towns. The Queensland Agricultural Show Schedule is also worth bookmarking: showgrounds close to travellers during their annual show, and if you arrive on show weekend expecting a quiet powered site, you’ll be sharing it with a prize bull. Beyond showgrounds, Wikicamps lists donation camps and council rest areas. Cross-reference both apps before leaving each town. The good spots fill by early afternoon in peak season. Donation camps in particular can go from empty to full in a single morning once word gets around.

The Outback Tax

There’s a counterweight to the cheap camping inland, and it’s worth being straight about: the outback tax on fuel and groceries is real. Diesel on the Matilda Way can be 20 – 40 cents per litre more than in a coastal city. In the most remote sections (Bedourie, Boulia, Birdsville) you pay whatever the roadhouse is charging because there’s nowhere else to go. Supermarkets thin out quickly once you leave the larger inland centres, and the IGA in a small outback town is not competing on price with Coles.

The practical response is to plan your fuel and grocery stops at the larger inland hubs. Longreach, Emerald, Charleville, and Cloncurry all have competitive fuel and reasonable supermarkets. Fuel price apps like Petrolspy are less useful inland due to fewer data points, but are worth checking at each town. Bulk up on non-perishables before leaving the last major centre. Carry a 20-litre jerry can as an emergency reserve, not just a comfort blanket.

The honest maths still favours inland touring for budget travellers. Twenty dollars a night in a showground versus $80 on the coast is a $60-a-night saving that absorbs a lot of expensive diesel.

The Inland Arteries

Forget the idea that Queensland’s interior is just something you pass through to get somewhere else. The inland routes are the journey: wide open bitumen stretching to a horizon broken only by the occasional wedge-tail eagle, towns that celebrate their stories with pride, and a pace of travel that forces you to slow down in the best possible way. This is shearing shed country, dinosaur country, Banjo Paterson country. It’s where Queensland gets honest with you.

Both the Matilda Way and the Great Inland Way are fully sealed, well-serviced, and suited to every type of rig. The case for going inland is simple: fewer trucks than the Bruce, more low-cost camping options, and a cultural depth the coastal highway can’t match. You’re not fighting for a powered site next to a noisy highway. You’re pulling into a showground where a local waves you over to explain the best fishing spot on the Thomson River.

The Matilda Way: Cunnamulla to Karumba

The Vibe: The Matilda Way runs roughly 1,700km from Cunnamulla in the south-west to Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria, passing through Charleville, Longreach, Winton, and Cloncurry. Australians who’ve done it talk about it with a quiet reverence. The landscapes are ancient and enormous, the towns are proud of themselves in a way that coastal tourist towns rarely manage, and the night skies are among the darkest on the continent.

The distance between fuel stops is the main planning consideration. You can be 250 – 300km between reliable fuel on the Matilda Way. Fill the tank whenever you see a servo and treat it as part of the ritual rather than an inconvenience.

The Must-Stop Towns: Matilda Way

Longreach is the non-negotiable centrepiece of the Matilda Way. The Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame is worth a full day. The Qantas Founders Museum is on the same street as the airline’s first headquarters. It’s the kind of only-in-Australia experience that makes you glad you didn’t take the coastal shortcut. Book ahead in peak season (June – August) as the town fills up fast.

Winton punches above its weight at every turn. The Age of Dinosaurs museum is on a mesa with views across the Outback and is one of the finest regional museums in Australia, full stop. The Waltzing Matilda Centre, recently rebuilt after a fire, tells the story of the song with far more nuance than the singalong version. Don’t rush through Winton.

Charleville anchors the southern end and deserves more than a one-night stop. The Cosmos Centre stargazing tours are exceptional. The Charleville Historic House Museum is full of machinery and artifacts of times long past. It even has the vault from the original bank.

Featured Campgrounds: Matilda Way

Charleville CMCA Park: A gold-standard example of what the CMCA’s member park network does at its best. The volunteer hosts here set the bar. The amenities are spotless, the management is attentive, and the atmosphere is exactly what you want after a long day on the Matilda Way. Low-cost, self-contained rigs only. Like other CMCA sites, we have stayed at, they welcome non-members at a higher price. If you’re not already a member and you travel this way regularly, this park alone makes the case for joining. Read our full review.

Barcoo River Camping Area (Blackall): This is outback hospitality in its purest form. Pull up on the banks of the Barcoo River, drop your 10 dollars in the honesty box, and you’re home for the night. It’s within easy walking distance of Blackall’s town centre, which means cold supplies and a counter meal are never far away. The river setting is lovely: quiet, flat, and the kind of spot that makes you extend your stay without planning to. A textbook example of the donation camp done right. Read our full review.

Cloncurry Coppermine Creek Freedom Camp: Cloncurry is where the Matilda Way starts to feel seriously remote, and this freedom camp is the perfect staging point before the road north opens up. It is right on the edge of town, convenient enough for a fuel top-up and a supermarket run, quiet enough to feel like you’re already out there. It is restricted to a forty-eight-hour limit and self-contained rigs only. Best of all, it is a free camp. Don’t linger longer than the rules allow; this one works because travellers respect it. Read our full review.

Rob’s Tip: The Matilda Way is at its best in the golden hour before sunset. If you can time your arrivals to be parked up before 5pm, do it. The light on those red plains is something else. Plan your drives to finish early rather than race the clock after dark. The distances are deceptive, and roo strikes spike sharply from dusk onwards.

The Great Inland Way: NSW Border to Cairns

The Vibe: The Great Inland Way is Queensland’s best-kept touring secret. It runs from the NSW border to Cairns through the Central Highlands and Bowen Basin (with an optional extension north to Cooktown) and it’s entirely sealed. Where the Bruce is trucks, roadworks, and coastal park queues, the Great Inland Way is quiet cattle country, gemfields towns, and a sense that you’re seeing a Queensland most tourists drive right past.

The route continues into NSW as the New England Highway.

It’s not the route you’d choose for beaches. But for sheer variety of landscapes and for getting further north without the stress of the coastal highway, it’s hard to beat. The Central Highlands (Emerald, Clermont, Springsure) are in some of the most underrated countryside in the state.

The Must-Stop Towns: Great Inland Way

Emerald is the commercial hub of the Central Highlands and an outback town with good facilities. The replica of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at The Big Easel in Morton Park is inexplicable and wonderful. Fairbairn Dam and Lake Maraboon, just outside town, are among the better camping and fishing options in central Queensland.

Sapphire Gemfields (Rubyvale/Anakie): Pull off the Great Inland Way and spend a day fossicking for sapphires. You don’t need a permit for surface fossicking, and a half-decent find is entirely possible. It sounds gimmicky. It isn’t.

Clermont is a working cattle and coal town that makes no particular effort to sell itself to tourists, which is exactly why it’s worth stopping in. The local history museum, Lake Clermont swimming area, and an honest pub meal at the end of a long day’s drive are all the recommendations it needs.

Featured Campgrounds: Great Inland Way

Goondiwindi Showground: The perfect entry point to the Great Inland Way for anyone crossing the Queensland border from the south. Over 40 powered and unpowered sites, clean amenities, and a level of organisation that puts many commercial parks to shame. The locked gates at 5pm give it a secure, settled feel that solo travellers in particular will appreciate. This is a transit stop that earns a two-night stay. Read our full review.

Virgin Rock Camping (Springsure): A few kilometres from Springsure and completely free, this is one of the best scenic camps on the entire Great Inland Way. The cliffs of Virgin Rock, illuminated at night and extraordinary at sunrise, form a backdrop that no powered site in any commercial park can compete with. The ground is level, the spots are well-spaced and well-positioned, and the whole area has a natural amphitheatre quality that makes you feel remote without being far from town. Get there early. This one fills by lunch in peak season and there’s no booking system to save you a spot. Read our full review.

Greenvale Three Rivers Hotel: The quintessential outback pub stay. Free unpowered camping behind the hotel for self-contained rigs, which makes the Three Rivers one of the most generous stops on the Gregory Development Road section of the Great Inland Way. The beer is cold, the caretaker is friendly, and the location is critical for anyone pushing through this stretch. Don’t just tank up and disappear, though. Read our full review.

The Overlander’s Way: Townsville to Mount Isa

The Vibe: Following the path carved out by 19th-century cattle drovers, this 900km ribbon of bitumen cuts straight across the shoulder of Queensland, transforming from rugged, ancient red-rock country to tropical coastline. This is the ultimate route for history buffs and families alike, seamlessly stitching together gold-rush ghost towns, the birthplace of the RFDS, and a massive stretch of the prehistoric inland sea known as dinosaur country. It’s sealed, incredibly well-serviced, and highly accessible.

The Must-Stop Towns: Overlander’s Way

Julia Creek: An absolute champion of an outback town. Call into the visitor centre to spot an endangered Julia Creek dunnart and time your run for April if you want to see the town swell for the legendary Dirt ’n’ Dust Festival.

Hughenden & Richmond: The twin capitals of the ancient inland sea. Hughenden has “Hughie” the Muttaburrasaurus, while Richmond’s Kronosaurus Korner is a non-negotiable stop to look at marine reptile fossils (and try your hand at the local fossicking pits).

Charters Towers: A throwback to the 1890s gold rush. The heritage streetscapes and historic Stock Exchange Arcade make it feel like a living movie set.

Rob’s Tip: The stretch through the Selwyn Ranges between Cloncurry and Mount Isa is scenic but winding, with regular mining traffic and quad-road trains. Give the trucks room, use your UHF radio to communicate, and pull into the Corella Dam turn-off early in the afternoon to lock down the best water-facing campsite.

Featured Campgrounds: Overlander’s Way

Mary Kathleen Campground: One of the most unique free camping experiences in the country. You park your rig right on the old concrete slabs of this abandoned uranium mining town. It’s quiet, completely unpowered, and incredibly spacious. The big drawcard here is the rugged 4WD trek up to the former open-cut pit to see the striking ‘Blue Lake’. Just remember that the toxic cocktail of heavy metals means it is strictly a ‘look, don’t swim’ situation, and keep the dog well clear of the water edge. Read our full review.

Julia Creek RV Rest Area: A gold-standard council initiative offering free camping for up to four nights on the edge of town for self-contained rigs. It’s the perfect, welcoming base to save on fuel and support the local businesses. Read our full review.

Hughenden RV Campground: A good, low-cost council-run site right on the edge of town. For a small fee, self-contained travellers get a level, secure place to unhook the van, stretch the legs, and explore the town’s dinosaur trail without rushing. It’s incredibly convenient for a quick walk to see ‘Hughie’ the Muttaburrasaurus or to stock up on groceries before heading further inland. Read our full review.

The Coastal Route: Cairns to the NSW Border

The Vibe: The Bruce Highway is not a road tripper’s dream in the traditional sense. It’s a logistics artery shared with B-doubles doing commercial runs the length of the state. But that’s only the story if you stay on it. Queensland’s coastline hides a remarkable number of quiet caravan parks, beachside low-campgrounds, and national park camps just a few kilometres off the highway, almost completely invisible to the traffic thundering past.

The key to the Bruce is knowing when to leave it. Treat it as a transit road. Use it to connect dots rather than as the destination. The detours are where Queensland’s coast reveals itself.

Planning the Coastal Route

The Bruce runs roughly 1,700km from the Gold Coast to Cairns. In a caravan, a comfortable day’s drive is 300 – 400km, about five or six driving days end-to-end. Most travellers take considerably longer, and they should. The reef access points, the Whitsunday detours, and the Atherton Tablelands alone could absorb a week without effort.

Peak season runs from June to August, when southern travellers head north in volume. Book powered sites in popular coastal parks at least four to six weeks in advance, particularly around the Whitsundays, Airlie Beach, and Mission Beach. The shoulder seasons (April – May and September – October) have the same weather with considerably less competition for sites.

The Coastal Pockets Worth the Detour

Rainbow Beach and Inskip Point is the staging area for a Fraser Island (K’gari) crossing and one of the best-value coastal camping spots on the southern half of the coast. The coloured sand cliffs are the kind of natural feature that makes you feel like you’ve discovered something most people drive straight past.

Eungella National Park is high in the Clarke Range behind Mackay. It’s famous for platypus sightings at Broken River, and they are reliable most mornings. The campground at Broken River is peaceful, well-maintained, and a world away from the coastal highway. The access road is sealed but winding; check current conditions for larger rigs before committing.

Mission Beach is a rare thing on the Queensland coast: a quiet beach town. Low-cost accommodation, cassowary sightings on the road in, and easy access to day trips to Dunk Island. It is 25 km off the Bruce and feels like it belongs in a different era.

The Atherton Tablelands deserve at least three days. Crater Lakes, waterfalls, coffee plantations, and a network of low-cost campgrounds that most travellers miss entirely. Come off the Bruce at Innisfail or Cairns, loop the tablelands, and come back down refreshed.

Featured Campgrounds

Bush to Beach Farmstay (Yeppoon): The antidote to every crowded coastal caravan park on the Bruce. This over-18s, pet-free farmstay is just minutes from Yeppoon and Emu Park, close enough to the coast to smell the salt air, far enough from the highway to hear nothing but wallabies at dusk. Dave and Lea run a welcoming operation: the sites are spacious, the setup is self-sufficient, and the wildlife that wanders through makes it feel more like a nature retreat than a campground. This is a boutique experience with a limited number of sites. Book ahead as it fills up, and walk-ins may be turned away. Read our full review.

Ball Bay Campground (Cape Hillsborough): A little-known camp managed by Mackay Regional Council and consistently overlooked by travellers locked onto the main highway corridor. Secluded, grassy, and right on the beach, unpowered only, which keeps the generators and the resort crowd away. The beach fishing is excellent and the Cape Hillsborough walking tracks are on your doorstep, including the famous sunrise beach where eastern grey kangaroos come down to the waterline at first light. It’s one of those rare coastal experiences that doesn’t cost a fortune. Read our full review.

Forrest Beach 72hr RV Park (Hinchinbrook): The budget hero of the Hinchinbrook region and one of the best community-run parks on the entire coast. Flat, grassy, and a short stroll from the beach and the local hotel. At $15 per night, it has value that commercial parks in this area simply can’t touch. Clean amenities, a dump point, and potable water. Big rigs are welcome and long-term travellers are well catered for. Read our full review.

Rob’s Tip: For Forrest Beach, fees are paid at the local takeaway or the real estate office in town, not at the park. It takes five minutes and it matters. Community-run parks like this one survive on the honesty of the travellers who use them. The money stays local, the facilities stay open, and the next nomad gets the same clean amenities you did. Don’t be the person who drives off without paying. For Bush to Beach, get your booking in early, especially for June to August. Dave and Lea deliberately limit the number of rigs on site, which is exactly why the experience is worth the effort of planning ahead.

The Adventure Frontier: Cape York & the Savannah Way

The Vibe: North of Cairns, Queensland stops being polite about what it asks of you and your gear. Cape York Peninsula is one of the last true road-trip frontiers in Australia: corrugated, river-crossed, and dust-coated, all the way to the most northerly point on the continent. The Savannah Way’s unsealed western sections are a similarly serious commitment: remote, scenic, and entirely unforgiving of under-prepared rigs.

This is where setup matters. Being honest about your rig’s limits could save you a very expensive recovery. If you’re in a large, heavy road van without off-road capability, the main Peninsula Development Road is achievable in a good dry season, but it demands respect and preparation. If you’re in a dual-axle van with standard suspension and no high clearance, the Savannah Way’s western sections are not the right trip for your current setup.

These are the type of trips that we choose and set up our gear to tackle.

Cape York Peninsula

The route uses Peninsula Development Road (PDR) from Lakeland and Bamaga Road. It is roughly 780 km to the Tip. In the dry season (May – October), it’s accessible to well-prepared, high-clearance caravans. The Jardine River crossing requires a ferry (barge fee applies).

The Small Van Advantage: Cape York

This is where a lightweight, high-clearance hybrid setup earns its keep. The corrugations beyond Coen can be relentless. Heavy dual-axle road vans cop this punishment brutally: drawbar stress, cracked welds, and shaken-loose fittings are common casualties. Our single-axle configuration and off-road suspension absorb corrugations significantly better than a twin-axle setup at equivalent speed. Lighter also means more ground clearance and less dig-in on the sandy creek crossings north of the Jardine.

Fuel range is the other critical factor. Between Cooktown and the Tip, fuel is available at Lakeland, Musgrave, Coen, Archer River Roadhouse, and Bamaga. Gaps can be 200km+, and prices will make you wince. A lighter rig drinks less. North of Coen, plan for a 20 – 30% range reduction on your highway figure.

If you’re in a large road van, Cape York is not impossible, but it is a different trip. Stick to the dry season. Travel with another vehicle. Carry two spare tyres for the van and two for the tow vehicle. The PDR floods quickly and without warning, even in June and September.

Featured Campgrounds: Cape York

Kalpower Crossing (Rinyirru/Lakefield National Park): The ideal introduction to Cape York camping. Set on the Normanby River with decent national park facilities, it has that classic river-crossing atmosphere without throwing you straight into the deep end. It’s also your first proper lesson in the ‘Be Crocwise’ mindset: read the signs, respect the water, and set that habit early because it applies to every river camp north of here. As an alternative to staying pinned to the main PDR, it’s hard to beat. Quieter, more scenic, and a real taste of what the Cape delivers when you leave the main road behind. Read our full review.

The Bend (Coen): The social hub of the Cape run. A free camp on the Coen River where solo bikers, small hybrids, and surprisingly large setups all end up in the same sandy clearing, swapping stories about what the road north looks like today. The sites are sandy and the river is cool and clear. Both are exactly what you want after the corrugations south of town. This is the reset button before the PDR gets serious. Use the time here well: check your dust seals, check your tyres, check your water, and talk to whoever came south that morning. They’ll tell you more about current road conditions than any app will. Read our full review.

Fruit Bat Falls Campground: The oasis of the Cape York run. Spring-fed, green, and extraordinary. This campground is right on the PDR near the falls and is one of the most sought-after stops north of Coen. It fills fast, and the sites are not generous. This is where the small van advantage becomes concrete: a compact, self-contained rig can tuck into spots that leave larger dual-axle setups circling or moving on. If you can get a site here, take it. Read our full review.

Rob’s Tip: Before you leave Cairns for the Cape, do three things: top up every tank (water, fuel, and the ones in your head), check the RACQ road report for the PDR, and join a Cape York road conditions group for real-time condition reports from people who drove the road yesterday. The official reports can lag by days. Also, check your tyre pressures every morning. A slow leak caught at camp is a very different problem from a blowout at 80km/h. Of course a tyre pressure monitoring system would be a great asset.

The Savannah Way

The Queensland section of the Savannah Way stretches from Cairns to the NT border through some of the most remote country in Australia. The eastern section between Cairns and Georgetown is fully sealed and accessible to all rigs. West of Croydon, sections become unsealed, remote, and demanding.

The route extends into the Northern Territory and WA before ending in Broome. We cover these legs under the NT and WA sections.

The Small Van Advantage: Savannah Way (Unsealed Sections)

West of Croydon is where a high-clearance hybrid setup delivers real advantages in durability, fuel economy, and access. The corrugations are long and monotonous: not sharp and violent, but the kind that vibrate every fastener loose over 400km if you’re carrying too much weight. Check every external fitting, door latch, and annexe bracket before leaving Georgetown. We do a full external inspection every couple of days on unsealed sections.

Large road vans can handle the sealed eastern Savannah Way without hesitation. The unsealed western sections require an honest assessment of your rig’s capability, not an optimistic one.

Featured Campgrounds: Savannah Way

Undara Experience (Mount Surprise area): This is a Discovery Park well-located for exploring the Undara Lava Tubes. Book the tour (which you should be doing anyway as it’s the only way to access them, and they are worth it). In 2025, the price for a powered site was $15 per night if you also book a tour. We booked two nights and extended to three. Check if this promotion is available before booking accommodation or a tour. Book the tour, get the site discount, and stay longer than you planned.

Gilbert River Rest Area: A reliable, shaded, and spacious stop between Georgetown and Croydon. This is the Savannah Way doing exactly what it does best: a quality rest area that appears at precisely the right moment in the day, has a level spot under decent shade, and lets you sit in the Gulf Country silence for a few hours. No frills, no facilities to speak of, and no reason to rush out. Read our full review.

Leichhardt Falls: The frontier camp of the Savannah Way. A dry-weather-only freedom camp on the edge of one of the wildest waterfall settings in outback Queensland. It is remote, unpowered, and spectacular in the way that only isolated places can be. The access track is a bit rough and the area is unforgiving of oversized or underprepared rigs. This is where compact, manoeuvrable setups earn their place: the access requires confidence and clearance, and the camping area rewards rigs that don’t need a three-point turn to park. Get here, set up, and watch the light change on the falls. Just don’t go near the water. Read our full review.

Rob’s Tip: Leichhardt Falls looks like a swimming hole. It isn’t. Despite the name, this is saltwater crocodile territory: the falls and the water below them are active habitat. Look at the falls from the bank. Photograph the falls. Do not walk to the water’s edge, and do not let dogs or kids near it. This applies regardless of what other campers are doing when you arrive. The Savannah Way has a way of making remote places feel safe and familiar after a few days on the road. Don’t let that comfort override your judgement near water west of Georgetown.

Coming Next: The Outback Way (Queensland Section)

The Outback Way is billed as Australia’s longest shortcut: 2,720km of mostly unsealed road connecting Winton in Queensland to Laverton in Western Australia, via Boulia and the Northern Territory. It’s the third of our trans-continental crossings. We’ve done the Nullarbor (sealed) and the Savannah Way (partly unsealed). The Outback Way is next on the list. We will be doing this from the WA end and will start what we are calling the figure-of-eight trip.

We’re not writing this section yet because we haven’t driven it yet. We don’t write about roads we haven’t been on. That’s the Road Trip Nomads rule. We’re planning the crossing during the 2027 dry season. The full guide will follow once we’ve cleared the dust from our gear and the flies from our teeth.

What we can tell you now: the Queensland section between Winton and the NT border is accessible to well-prepared self-contained rigs in the dry season. It’s remote, flat, and extraordinary. Beyond Boulia, the road quality varies significantly. Firmly 4WD/high-clearance territory. Watch this space.

Rob’s Tip: If you’re thinking about the Outback Way and can’t wait for our guide, the Outback Way website publishes quarterly road condition reports. The NT and WA sections are the most variable. Queensland is generally more forgiving in the dry. Either way, treat it like the Great Central Road: minimum 100 L of spare water, two spare tyres for the van, a satellite communicator, and a frank conversation with yourself about what happens if something breaks 200 km from the nearest town. Two permits are required for the section between Uluru and Laverton.

Start Planning Your Queensland Trip Now

Queensland’s seasons are not forgiving if you get the timing wrong. The wet season (November – March) shuts down Cape York completely. It turns the Savannah Way’s unsealed sections into extended mud baths and pushes the far north’s humidity to levels that make van life uncomfortable. The dry season window (May to October) is when Queensland opens up. The best sites, the most reliable roads, and the most agreeable temperatures all align in that six-month stretch.

If you’re planning a Queensland trip for the 2026 dry season, now is the right time to start. National park campsites in Cape York and on the Savannah Way open for bookings months in advance and fill quickly once the season kicks off. Popular showgrounds along the Matilda Way are increasingly booked up through June, July, and August as the grey nomad wave moves north.

Use the interactive map above to explore the campsites we recommend across each region. Every pin has been personally vetted, with no guesswork about access and no optimistic assessments about road conditions. If we’ve said it’s suitable for all rigs, it is. If we’ve flagged it as 4WD only, we mean it.

Wrapping Up

Queensland doesn’t do anything at a small scale: not its distances, not its landscapes, and not the range of experiences on offer. That’s what makes it so well-suited to the road trip format. You can spend a month here and feel like you’ve only scratched the surface, which is exactly the right feeling to leave with.

Pick your Queensland. Drive it properly. Then start planning the next one.

Queensland Curated Campgrounds

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