Can Going Off Grid Make Solo Travel More Affordable?
As caravan park prices rise, fuel becomes more expensive and household budgets tighten, the cost of travelling Australia is beginning to change the way people travel. For solo travellers in particular, becoming genuinely self-contained may have less to do with disappearing into the wilderness and more to do with simply being able to afford to stay on the road.
A self-contained ute camper can open up far more choices about where you stop, without needing a powered caravan site every night.
Key Points
- Rising caravan park and travel costs are making long-term touring increasingly expensive, particularly for people travelling on a single income.
- Going off grid doesn’t have to mean heading into the remote Outback. Being self-contained can simply give you access to more low-cost camping options.
- Power, water, food storage and efficient appliances all play a part in determining how long you can comfortably remain independent.
- For solo travellers, every part of a touring setup needs to be manageable by one person, from solar panels and storage to water connections and everyday camp equipment.
- The real advantage of self-contained travel is choice: save money when you want to, then spend it on the places and experiences that matter most.
We’re beginning to notice the change ourselves. As I write this, we’re sitting on a powered beachfront site at Batemans Bay on the NSW South Coast, site number 65. It’s a beautiful spot. It would be even better if the rain would bugger off occasionally, but you can’t have everything.
What has surprised us is how quiet the park seems. Last year getting a site here was largely a matter of luck. This year it’s only around half full. A few days earlier at Tuross Head we noticed the same thing. Then Shellharbour Beachside Holiday Park contacted us offering extra nights because people were cancelling.
Three parks don’t make a national survey, and I doubt the ABS would place much weight on Kerri and I standing beside the caravan muttering that things seem quiet. But when you keep seeing the same pattern it does make you wonder whether the rising cost of travel is changing people’s behaviour.
It was this subject that came up while Kerri and I were speaking with Brendon Falk from Off The Grid Campers about the needs of women travelling Australia alone. Brendon’s point was simple: perhaps we need to stop thinking about off-grid travel purely as an adventure concept and start thinking about it as an economic one.
Plenty of room at the inn. The large number of vacant sites here mirrors what we’ve been seeing at several caravan parks during this trip, raising the question of whether rising travel costs are beginning to bite.
The cost of simply stopping for the night
Australians haven’t stopped caravanning. In 2025 they took 17.3 million caravan and camping trips, accounting for 57.9 million visitor nights and $12.6 billion in expenditure. The desire is still there. What is becoming more important is how much each night away costs.
By September 2026 the average powered caravan site nationally had reached $64 a night – five per cent higher than a year earlier – according to Caravan Industry Association of Australia data from 404 parks. Seven nights at that average costs around $448. Then you add fuel, food, registration, insurance, servicing, repairs and all the other expenses that join you whether you invited them or not.
For a solo traveller those costs bite particularly hard. There may only be one person eating dinner, but the servo doesn’t halve the price of diesel because there’s only one person in the cab, and the caravan park doesn’t offer a 50 per cent discount because you only intend sleeping on one side of the bed.
Brendon sees the same pattern. One of the cheaper grass sites near his home has risen from around $30–$40 a night to about $80. For an occasional weekend that’s manageable. Over three, six or twelve months it changes the economics considerably.
As Brendon puts it:
“They (solo travellers) need to consider going self-contained from an economics point of view.”
Travelling with the camper on the ute rather than towing a caravan is one approach to keeping a touring combination relatively compact and self-contained.
Off grid doesn’t have to mean the Outback
Mention off-grid camping and most of us picture somewhere remote – an isolated beach, a riverbank beyond the bitumen, a camp so far from civilisation that ordering a caramel latte requires a satellite phone and several days’ notice. That sort of travelling exists, and for many people it is part of the attraction. But it isn’t the only reason to become self-contained.
Going off grid might simply mean being able to stay at a showground, low-cost campground or free camp for several nights without needing a power point or water connection every afternoon. Saving $50 or $60 on one night doesn’t sound dramatic. Do it once or twice a week over several months and it becomes serious money.
More importantly, it gives you options. If the park in the next town is $85 and that fits your budget, excellent – stay, plug in and enjoy the facilities. But if $85 is more than you want to spend, being genuinely self-contained means you don’t have to. It isn’t just about where you can go. It is about where you don’t have to go.
Being genuinely self-contained is about having the systems to stop comfortably without immediately searching for a power point, water tap or amenities block.
Buying the dream is only half the equation
Brendon also raised another slightly uncomfortable question. What happens when somebody spends a considerable amount of their savings – perhaps even drawing on superannuation – to buy the ultimate touring vehicle and caravan, only to discover that the ongoing cost of using it is becoming difficult to afford?
It is easy to concentrate on the purchase price because buying the equipment is the exciting part.
When the options list takes over
Picture the scene. I see it time and time again at every caravan show: a cheerful salesman in a polo shirt (the sort of man who has never once slept on the ground without a memory-foam mattress and a climate-controlled awning) ushers a hopeful couple into the showroom. “Now, the base model is perfectly serviceable,” he says, in the tone of a man about to list every reason why the base model is, in fact, a death trap for the soul.
“But for just a modest extra outlay you can have the dual-zone climate control, the full-size dishwasher, the built-in espresso machine, the outdoor entertainment system with surround-sound speakers that can be heard in the next postcode, the pneumatic levelling system that automatically corrects for the slight slope of the earth’s curvature, the satellite television package that receives channels from countries you will never visit, the wine cellar (climate-controlled, of course), the outdoor pizza oven, the retractable solar array the size of a small airfield, and – this is my personal favourite – the emergency generator powerful enough to run a regional hospital should the solar array ever fail, which it won’t, because it is German design… but made in China to keep the cost down,” he reassures them with a practised smile.
There’s the new tow vehicle, perhaps a GVM upgrade, the caravan with ensuite, big fridge, washing machine, air conditioning and enough electrics to make a modest suburban house look under-equipped. Then the travelling starts. Suddenly the less glamorous numbers appear; fuel, insurance, registration, servicing, repairs, tyres, parks and living expenses, all coming out of the same budget.
It is entirely possible to spend a small fortune creating the ultimate symbol of freedom and then discover that freedom itself has become surprisingly expensive to operate.
This is where self-sufficiency starts making sense: find somewhere worth staying, set up and enjoy it without the location of the nearest 240-volt outlet dictating the itinerary.
Could travelling with less allow us to travel more?
Brendon’s approach with a slide-on camper is different. The camper becomes part of the ute or truck you are already driving. That won’t suit everybody. What it does raise is a more useful question: Could travelling with less allow us to travel more?
Rather than judging a setup by how impressive it looks parked outside the house, perhaps we should ask how easily one person can operate it, how much it costs to keep moving, and how long it allows that person to remain on the road.
Food capacity is part of self-sufficiency too. A decent fridge and useful pantry space can reduce how often you need to leave camp simply to restock.
Self-contained is a system, not a battery bank
When Brendon talks about being genuinely self-contained, he isn’t simply talking about fitting the biggest battery that will squeeze into a camper. The aim is enough capacity to remain comfortably independent for several days without continually hunting for a power point, water tap or supermarket. That comes down to four things: power, water, food and storage.
An impressive electrical system is fairly pointless if the water tank is empty, just as carrying enormous quantities of water doesn’t help if the fridge has flattened the batteries by lunchtime. In the smaller Off The Grid ute campers the company has retained substantial food storage – a 130-litre fridge/freezer, good pantry space and provision for extra refrigeration. Fresh-water capacity is around 140 litres in the ute camper and 275 litres in the larger truck model.
Those numbers matter for remote travel. They are equally useful if you simply want four nights at an inexpensive camp rather than four nights on powered sites. The objective isn’t necessarily isolation. It is independence.
Efficient appliances matter just as much as battery capacity when every watt of stored energy has to earn its keep.
Efficiency matters as much as capacity
Capacity is only half the story. A huge battery bank is of limited value if everything connected to it is chewing through electricity as though somebody else is paying the bill. Brendon’s approach is to match capacity with efficient appliances. The principle isn’t the brand name – it is making the available energy last rather than simply fitting more batteries. A 600Ah bank sounds impressive around a campfire. Knowing how many days it will actually run everything you depend on is considerably more useful.
For a solo traveller, storage is only useful if one person can actually reach it and use it without dismantling half the camper first.
One person has to be able to operate everything
For solo travellers this may be one of the most important considerations of all. When two people travel together there are usually two sets of hands. When you travel alone, every item needs to be considered from the perspective of one person using it without assistance.
Brendon says this thinking has shaped the latest Off The Grid campers. Water connections have been simplified and hard-plumbed. Many systems can be controlled by switches, touchscreens or remote, and equipment is judged not simply on what it can do but on whether one person can realistically use it.
Portable solar is a good example. An older folding 600-watt panel from his personal camper weighed around 22 kilograms.
“Twenty-two kilograms doesn’t sound catastrophic when written in a specification sheet,” he said. “But there is a rather large difference between lifting a nicely shaped 22kg weight in a gym and dragging an awkward solar panel out of a storage compartment before carrying it across uneven ground.”
That becomes a serious consideration if the customer is travelling alone and may be in her 60s or 70s. The newer system uses two lighter 450-watt panels of about 10 kilograms each – actually increasing portable solar capacity while making each panel easier to handle.
“Designing equipment for solo women shouldn’t mean making it pink and attaching another marketing label,” Brendon continues. “We ask questions that are much simpler. Can one person lift it, reach it, connect it, understand it and operate it safely without needing somebody else to finish the job?”
Compact doesn’t necessarily mean primitive. The aim is to carry the facilities you actually need without dragging half a suburban house around Australia.
Self-reliance without carrying the kitchen sink
He also doesn’t believe travellers need to prepare for every conceivable disaster. Trying to cover every scenario quickly turns a simple setup into a mobile engineering project. His approach is simpler: sensible self-reliance. Carry enough water, enough electrical capacity for a realistic period, enough food for several days, and appropriate recovery and communications gear for the places you actually intend going. And make sure you can operate everything yourself.
One of the rewards of having more choice about where you stop is that occasionally this becomes the view from the bedroom.
The freedom to choose
Going off grid doesn’t mean declaring war on caravan parks. We enjoy them ourselves – in fact we’re staying in one as I write this. There is nothing wrong with plugging into power, connecting the hose, having a decent shower without staring at the tank gauge and wandering down the road for a coffee.
The difference is whether you have to do it every night. If you are properly self-contained you have choices. You might spend several nights at a showground or low-cost camp, then use some of the money saved on a beachfront site somewhere special. You might stay out of parks for a week and then happily pay for a couple of nights to catch up on washing and fill the tanks. Or you might decide the park you’ve just arrived at is simply more expensive than you are prepared to pay and keep driving.
For someone travelling alone that could mean another few weeks or another month on the road rather than another month sitting back home staring at the camper.
And if the cost of travel continues in the direction we are seeing, becoming genuinely self-contained may no longer be something reserved for serious off-road adventurers heading into the middle of nowhere. For many ordinary travellers, and particularly women travelling Australia alone, it may simply become one of the smartest ways of staying on the road.
Related Reading:
- Beth, Betsy and 6,000 Kilometres of Going Solo
- Choosing Somewhere to Stay When You’re Travelling Alone
- Thinking About Travelling Solo? Start Small
- Slide-On Camper vs Motorhome
