The genius way to road trip around Australia for free

FANCY a road trip across Australia in a campervan for free, with money thrown in for fuel? Seriously. These crazy deals are available every day.

A couple after getting out of their Campervan, look at Main Beach, Point Lookout, North Stradbroke Island. Pic Tourism Queen...

FANCY a ride across Australia for $1 a day? How about free fuel?

It sounds too good to be true, but in fact it really is the going rate for the cheapest road trip on the planet.

They are called “relocation” deals and are advertised when car-hire companies need to move a vehicle from one branch to another, which is every day.

The hire companies can either pay a driver to do it, or cut the hire price to nearly nothing in the hope budget-conscious traveller will do the job for them.

Often there will even be free fuel or some spending money thrown in, to make the ride even more ridiculously cheap.

That all boils down to a win-win setup. Happy campers get to enjoy a massively discounted rate and the hire companies get their vehicles shifted for a fraction of the cost they’d otherwise pay.

Deals are posted daily on hire company websites, and sites such as transfercar.com.au, imoova and coseats, which list all the available vehicles in one place.

At Transfercar, which started in New Zealand and has been operating in Australia since 2010, about 300 relocation deals are done nationwide each month. Most of them are runs between state capitals.

The cars available to be transferred around Australia right now on Transfercar.

Transfercar’s chief marketing officer, Pascal Languillon, said that the site handles deals for all kinds of vehicles across 120 car rental companies in Australia and New Zealand — some for $1 a day, some for $5 and some free.

“For travellers, it’s quite a simple process of browsing our site and looking for free, one-way car rentals,” he said.

Travellers then make a request, Transfercar confirms it with the hire company, and away you go.

“The thing is, it’s a service,” Mr Languillon said.

“By driving these cars for free you are actually providing the rental car companies an opportunity, otherwise they have to put those cars on a truck, or if it’s a campervan pay a driver to move it — it’s really win-win,” he said.

All the usual conditions of car hire still apply — hirers will need to stump up for a bond (or at least provide an imprint of their credit card) and can pay for insurance if they so choose.

So what’s the catch?

Firstly, sometimes the deals are no good and are best left to the hire companies to find someone with enough No-Doz to get the job done and pay them properly.

Even though Darryl Kerrigan always said “the faster you go, the more you see,” there is such a thing as too much driving and not enough time to enjoy yourself.

Two “deals” posted on one website this week, for instance, involve making the trip from Brisbane to Sydney overnight — which is great if you need to get from Brisbane to Sydney, but it’s not exactly a dream holiday.

Let’s be honest, you’re not going to get a chance to do a lot of this if you’ve got to get the campervan from Brisbane to Sydney in one day.

Secondly, you can’t be late. While every deal is different, some companies do penalise hirers if they don’t deliver the vehicle to where it’s meant to be on time — which is kind of fair enough, because being on time is the point of the deal.

Yet there are some bargains out there.

One website was recently advertising a nine-day Alice-to-Darwin trip in a five-berth four wheel drive and a six-day Townsville to Cairns run for $1 a day, among many other genuinely good deals.

Here is how to find them: Check early, check often and be ready to roll — deals are posted online every morning and they sell out fast.

TIPS FOR CHEAP TRIPS

● Be flexible: If you don’t need to leave on a fixed date, or even from a fixed location, then you are well placed to take advantage of deals as they come up

● Be ready to go: Deals sell fast, so be ready to put your money where your mouse is and book straightaway when you see a bargain

● Be careful: Not all of the deals are fantastic, so read the fine print and double check how far you are expected to drive within the time frame

● Be in Brisbane, Alice or Adelaide. Heaps of good deals are available from these cities.

It’s time to hit the road and drive.