I rented a stranger's van and drove 1700km in four days

If you’ve been on social media any time in the last five years, you’ll know that #vanlife is more than just a hashtag. It’s a movement.

Rainy mornings were spent tucked up in bed.

Who among us has not looked at a photograph of a steaming cup of coffee on linen sheets, turquoise ocean visible through open van doors and thought: “I should quit my job, sell all my worldly possessions and drive around Australia in an artfully converted delivery vehicle?”

The good news is that nothing so drastic is required. Camplify, a start-up from Newcastle, has been running a sort of “Airbnb for vans” for the last five years, with 10,000 vehicles now on the books across the world, ranging from troopies to old-school panel vans to Mercedes Sprinters with bleached timber fit outs.

After consulting the options, I opted for Swell Chaser, a brand-new double-height van with a rooftop deck and two surfboards included. Though I’d never been on a surf trip before, I was attracted to the theoretical possibility of catching some waves, while my fiancée appreciated the green-tiled kitchen and live houseplants. Something for everyone.

Pickup was in the beachside Sydney suburb of Dee Why, from a blue-eyed surfer dude named Jack who ran me through the pre-drive safety checklist in the most relaxed way possible (while also making it extremely clear that I should not under any circumstances try to take his 3.2m tall baby into a car park or drive through).

Whether you're chasing waves or obscure tourist attractions, Hipcamp has you sorted. Picture: Alex McClintock

Twenty minutes later, we were on the road, heading north on the Pacific Highway alongside half the population of Sydney. As vehicle rental experiences go, it certainly beat the usual lines and paperwork you get at a traditional rental office.

Our destination for the night was Blueys Beach on the Mid North Coast, where we’d decided to continue the high-tech vibe of the holiday by booking a Hipcamp. For those not familiar, Hipcamp is another Airbnb clone, but this time for campsites – a marketplace where people with land can offer space for campers. The idea is great news in locations without traditional holiday park facilities and for travellers with pets who can’t access National Parks.

Staying near the beach was a big plus. Picture: Alex McClintock

Facilities can vary wildly, but our spot at Blueys Beach Farmstayz had toilets and running water - not a given - and was only five minutes’ walk from the beach. The only problem was the weather. When we woke up the next day (in linen sheets, obviously), it was bucketing down.

After a brief spell staring morosely at the wet sand and a slightly concerning message from our next Hipcamp host (“you have a 4wd, right?”), we started talking. #vanlife is all about freedom and flexibility, isn’t it? Why chain ourselves to the idea of a beach holiday in the rain? Jack had generously given us unlimited kilometres – why not head inland, away from the weather?

Despite the weather, we made the best of it. Picture: Alex McClintock

The steep and slippery Oxley Highway through the rainforest from Port Macquarie to Walcha made me rather glad I’d opted for Swell Chaser over, say, a 1975 Kombi, but the sunshine on the other side of the Great Dividing Range washed any remaining tension away.

Sure, the togs stayed in our bags, but we got to experience the beautiful winding roads of the Northern Tablelands and probably Australia’s best full-size tribute to Stonehenge: The Australian Standing Stones National Celtic Monument in Glen Innes. I mean, what’s the point of a road trip if you don’t visit at least one eccentric rural tourist attraction?

Eccentric attraction? Tick. Picture: Visit NSW

Of course, the other point of a road trip is to spend time enjoying the places you drive to, which we didn’t quite nail. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that just because you’ve rented a two-tonne steel box with a bed and houseplants doesn’t mean you have to spend your whole trip inside it.

Chasing the sunshine put us way out of position for our next HipCamp booking, at the Peach Farm in Mororo, near Yamba on the Far North Coast. We arrived the next day after a five-hour drive, stopped for an obligatory Instagram on the van’s top deck and fell asleep straight after pulling into our campsite.

All's well that ends well. Picture: Alex McClintock

A working property with a serious tourism side hustle, the Peach Farm offered not only the chance to pick fresh fruit, but also the opportunity to pet just about every variety of domestic and barnyard animal known to man, from alpacas to peacocks. Little wonder the dozens of children camping there with their parents made almost as much noise as the roosters.

Unfortunately we didn’t have time to smell the roses and pet the donkeys, as the long weekend was drawing to a close and we had to motor the 600+ kilometres back to Sydney.

A big lesson was not to book too many places. Picture: Alex McClintock

We did make one glorious stop at Crescent Head, but I regret to inform you that the surfboards remained in storage. While our experience with high-tech booking platforms was seamless and the Swell Chaser herself was perfect, we could have organised our stops a little better.

That’s why the hashtag for my next long weekend getaway isn’t #vanlife – it’s #planlife.

The writer was a guest of Camplify and Hipcamp. 

Originally published as I rented a stranger's van and drove 1700km in four days