Lao Yao, nicknamed "Big Brother," IT Man, Melbourne programmer, CTO, likes all kinds of hands-on (not fighting) work, once a fortnight, to share with you all the skills you can get to Get in Muramura's interesting life. The last random "RVs play Uluru" generated a lot of responses, and I received a lot of questions about how to rent a RV in Australia and what you need to pay attention to when driving your own RV. I have a lot of questions about how to rent a RV in Australia and what you need to pay attention to when you drive it from your own car. I should ask you to sum up some of the information I know about rental cars, for your reference, I hope to organize their own RV travel in the future has a certain help. My personal experience is very limited, if there are incorrect or incomplete, you can refer to the online strategy.
To allay your concerns.
More and more people are starting to pay attention to RV travel because it brings a very unique experience, especially in Australia, a country where RV tours are extremely mature, and people can focus more on the enjoyment of the trip. Don't think too much about surrounding factors, such as road environment, law regulations, and environmental safety issues. But for many first-time commuters, there are some concerns that can't be ruled out, and the most common one is the following two points. I'd like to help you get rid of these concerns.
1) is the RV so big that it is easy to drive?
Compared to the average sedan, the RV is really tall, wide, and long, so it seems difficult to control, especially when turning. But it just looks like it's not much harder to drive than a regular car. As a result of the high driving seat of the RV, the large mirror behind the left and right, resulting in a wide field of vision, it can completely control the state and orientation of the car in the driving process, so it will not feel that the body is too large to control, as long as it is finished turning, and at the same time the line. Watch carefully when backing up, and driving a normal Sedan is not much different. Of course, there are other areas that need special attention to drive a RV, which will be described separately below. The fact is that nine of our Uluru drivers were driving this big RV for the first time, but none of us felt it difficult.
2) Safety issues during the journey
RV travel means you don't have to stay in a hotel, which saves you a lot of room expenses, and it gives you the "whatever you want" experience. There are too many places throughout Australia for you to park your RV overnight and replenish, including special RV camps, national parks, national forests, seaside camps, and so on. These places have a beautiful environment that really places you in the nature. And you don't have to worry about security at all. This is not to say "100% safe," but that you encounter bad people, toxic creatures, aggressive beasts, and a very low probability of natural disaster.
It is necessary to deal with all possible risks before you travel, but there is no need to simplify your journey or even give up the RV experience because of fear of these small probabilities of "danger." As soon as you decide to go on a RV trip, I'm sure the actual journey will outweigh your expectations.
Type of RV
There are three main types of RV, each of which has its own characteristics to meet different needs, so the RV should first determine its own needs before traveling, and then select the corresponding types of RV.
First: Motorhome
This is our usual sense of RV, "room" and "car" is one body, larger, generally for 2 to 6 people live, the car is fully equipped, including kitchen, bed, bathroom, bathroom and entertainment facilities. More manual diesel vehicles, more fuel-saving, but also automatic, rental cars must be confirmed before good. It is recommended that more than three people travel to choose this type of RV.
Second: Campervan
A small version of the Motorhome, or compact RV, is usually used by two adults or two adults and two children. The in-car facilities include only simple kitchens and beds, as well as simple entertainment facilities, usually without toilets and baths, so the journey is less convenient and requires a night in a RV camp. Most of these cars are gasoline automatic gear, fuel consumption is relatively high, but easy to drive. Suitable for lovers to travel.
Third: Caravan
The car, also known as the Trailer, is actually a trailer that does not have power, requires extra off-road towing, and has more facilities in it. This type of car is very convenient, especially in the city, you can leave trailer in the camp, and then only drive SUV into the city activities, without pulling the RV around.
About the driver's license.
Although the size of the RV looks large, it still belongs to the car series in Australia, holding the local full license in Australia can drive all kinds of RV, and the holder of the P license plate is not allowed to drive. Chinese driver's license C1 and above can be driven. Please pay attention to the need for an interpreter. In fact, many rental car companies do not see your translation at all, because they receive too many Chinese customers, they are already familiar with the Chinese driver's license, but if the police encounter, translation is necessary to reduce the trouble.
PS: Old Yao disdains those who have fake Chinese driving licenses and then come to Australia for a local full license, although these people have to pass the Australian test to get the license, but the focus of the full license is on "experience." Many people with less driving experience will not have problems in driving cars in the city, but once they drive big cars and encounter sudden situations, they will cause tragedies due to lack of experience. This kind of tragedy is irreparable, and there is no use in regretting such tragedies.
Where to rent a car?
Australian RV rental companies are not many, there are mainly the following, can achieve online bookings, convenient and fast. A 20% deposit is usually required at the scheduled time, and all remaining charges are paid 28 days in advance of the withdrawal. If the planned pick-up time is less than 28 days, all charges will be deducted directly.
1) Apollo
Web site: http://www.apollocamper.com
The car rental company only offers Motorhome and Campervan, not Caravan, the owner of the car to auto-stop, but also to provide 4WD rental.
2) Britz
Web site: http://www.britz.com.au
The old RV rental company offers almost all kinds of RV, as well as the 4WD, most of which are hand-shielded. Recently purchased cars are automatic, and if you're lucky, you can rent a whole new car.
3) Maui
Web site: http://www.maui.com.au
The rental company offers only Motorhome, and large Campervan (which looks like a bus), no compact campervan and caravan rental, but also ordinary sedan and 4WD rental, with more used cars, mostly manual.
4) Mighty
Web site: http://www.mightycampers.com.au
Mainly available for Motorhome and Campervan rental, the price is a little cheaper than other companies, but the personal feeling is not very good-looking cars, the majority of old cars, mostly manual.
Of course there are other rental companies, but I don't pay much attention, so without introduction, I would almost choose Apollo and Britz, for no special reasons.
Lease term and price
Almost all rental companies have the shortest rental period, some limited to 10 days from rent, or even a month from rent, prices also vary with the season, and large fluctuations. We went to Uluru to rent the six-person car for $390 a day, and we actually rented it for nine days, but because of the 10-day minimum rent, we paid the 10-day rent.
In addition, it is strongly recommended to buy all risks, no matter how experienced the old driver will inevitably have accidents, all risks can reduce your responsibility to zero, only a few dozen dollars a day. Our car costs only $45 a day for full insurance.
What is Relocation
If you think the price of a RV is still expensive, there is a particularly cheap offer to choose from, which is that the Relocation, usually costs only $1 a day, the equivalent of free, and you can simply pay for your insurance. What is Relocation? For example: if most tourists would choose the route from Melbourne to Adele, pick up a car in Melbourne, then return it in Adelaide, and on the contrary, few would pick up a car from Adelaide to Melbourne. As a result, Melbourne has fewer cars to run to Adelaide, when rental companies need to reschedule their vehicles and drive them back to Melbourne. Of course, they won't drive on their own, because hiring a driver is quite expensive, so they will post a Relocation message, specify a transfer from Adelaide to Melbourne, and set a specific pick-up and return date. Renting to customers at the cheapest price is actually using customers to schedule vehicles for them, and customers can also experience RV travel at the lowest price. Relocation information is usually posted on the rental company's website and accepts direct bookings. For example, there are Relocation buttons on the home page of the Apollo site:
Clicking in lists the current bookable itinerary:
You can see that the price is $1 a day, some of them also subsidize you oil money, quite cost-effective. However, this kind of itinerary is only suitable for those who have plenty of time and can choose the travel date at will, not for fixed office workers and students.
Get to know the facilities on the ca
Although the RV is fully equipped, you still need to have a certain understanding of it before you can arrange your itinerary properly, and the key points need to be understood as follows:
- On air-conditioning, Motorhome is two air-conditioning, one is the car itself with air-conditioning, and we drive the car air-conditioning is the same, engine ignition, air-conditioning only work; Another air-conditioning is the inside of the RV air-conditioning, night stop shutdown need to use this air-conditioning, and this air-conditioning is required to connect to the external power can be used;
- The microwave oven in the car also needs the external power to use, the car electric bottle is not enough to drive the microwave oven work;
- Vehicle water tank capacity is limited, the journey needs to save as much water as possible, every day to the car to replenish fresh water, as far as possible to reduce the use of bathrooms and baths in the car;
- There are sewage pools, showers and flushing latrines in the car. It is necessary to discharge sewage regularly, and it is necessary to go to the designated sewage discharge area, which cannot be discharged at will.
Where can I allow a RV to spend the night?
RV tours in Australia are very mature. There are a lot of places to spend the night. These include:.
- Dedicated RV campsite with public bathrooms, latrines, BBQ, swimming pools, sewerage points, etc. Parking spaces are divided into power and no power, which means there is no external power supply. Campsites are mostly charged, but not very expensive, usually calculated on a head-to-head basis, not equal to $10 per person. In Australia, you may not find a hotel somewhere, but you can certainly find a RV campsite;
- National Park. Most national parks have a place to spend the night with a RV, but it's just a piece of space that allows you to park, have no other facilities, eat and drink, eat and drink in the car, have no external power to use in-car air conditioners, and no sewage discharge points. If no RV campsite, National Park can be found as a temporary option;
- State Forest. To put it bluntly, deep mountains and forests, not only have no facilities, but also inaccessible, high risk factor, but very interesting.
Most people choose to spend the night at RV campsites because of power and timely replenishment, safe and comfortable. Here is a paid App, called WikiCamps, that can find all the camps on it, but it can't be booked online. You need to find the camp you want to park and then call or e-mail the camp.
Other suggestions
The six-person RV is a little larger than the four-person RV, but with two more people, it needs an extra bed and two seats. In fact, the per capita space is much smaller. So far, I have not seen a very reasonable layout of the six-person car. And the layout of the 4-person car is very good, per capita space is large, so we choose RV travel when the best 4-person group.
When two-car or multi-car team travel, be sure to prepare a walkie-talkie for easy contact.
In our consciousness, we always pay attention to the width and length of the car. It is most easy to ignore the height of the car. When driving a car, we must pay attention to the height limit of the road. Especially when entering the indoor parking lot, the door is not high enough.
The RV itself is heavy, braking distance is long, driving on the road should be stable, do not rush to speed up and brake fast, if the other passengers have a head broken blood is not good.
There are more facilities in the car, especially in the kitchen with knives, be sure to close all cabinets and drawers before driving, and don't put things in the car at will.
Finally, I wish you all a pleasant RV trip!
