Arguably a road trip is the best way to explore a destination. Having a car means you can stop wherever you want and whenever you want, and can explore some of the more off-the-beaten-track highlights. However, managing the driving, especially if you are alone, can be challenging. At nearly 10 hours and over 900 kilometers, the drive between Brisbane and Sydney is the longest I have ever undertaken alone. I’ve done this drive three times in the last four months, and each time I learn something new! In this post, I will be sharing all of my best road trip tips so that you can have a safe and comfortable journey. I will be sharing my experience based on the road trip between Brisbane and Sydney, however you could apply these tips to any long drive.
Tips for planning your drive
How long is your trip?
The first thing you need to do is decide how long your road trip is going to take. Got unlimited time? I recommend really taking your time and exploring the area! If you are driving from Brisbane to Sydney, there are heaps of beautiful places to explore. Check out my Brisbane to Sydney road trip highlights for my recommendations on where to stop and stay along the coast.
On all three of my trips, I planned to take the drive in two or three days. However, I ended up taking only two days on every occasion. There are a number of factors that contributed towards this decision, including the weather and the fact I had a job to start! On my first trip down, the weather was atrocious. It rained the whole time! So I didn’t stop at as many interesting places as I thought and drove further on the second day than anticipated. Heading back to Brisbane I was desperate to get home and make the most of the time with my family! Then heading South again there was flooding and heavy rain forecast. I didn’t want to get stuck up North and miss work.
A few more little things to make life easier!
Driving solo can be exhausting, so make sure to bring lots of snacks and good food for breakfasts, lunches and dinners. I personally love a good trail mix, and porridge for breakfast. If you can afford it, try eat out in the towns you stop in! This supports the local economy and is way tastier than microwave meals in my opinion! You should also make sure to stop approximately every two hours. I don’t know about you guys, but I start to feel a bit tired and out of it after two hours! Plus I can’t go that much longer without needing the bathroom!
Five best road trip tips
Below, I will share five of my best road trip tips that I have learnt from driving between Brisbane and Sydney. They range from driving choices to important things to bring! I hope you find them helpful.
1. Make use of the rest stops
When I was planning my drive, I didn’t even think about using the rest stops. I wanted to stop at cool, interesting places where I could do some sightseeing. However, with the bad weather on that first trip, I ended up choosing to stop at rest stops. And they’re great! Each rest stop is equipped with toilets and picnic tables, and some even have playgrounds for the kids. In fact, a lot of the rest stops along the Pacific Highway have recently been renovated so the facilities are in great condition. If you are driving with someone else, you can simply use them as a place to swap drivers before continuing on. But if you’re driving solo, they are really nice, safe places to stop for lunch and to stretch your legs. Plus, they add no extra time to your drive being mere meters off the highway!
If you’re driving more rurally, some of the rest stops might not be in as good condition. A friend told me that out in Western Queensland, there were some pretty run-down and disgusting toilets! So be warned! There are also sections of the Pacific Highway where there are no rest stops, such as between Northern New South Wales and the Northern Gold Coast. In these areas, though, it’s quite easy to drive a short way off the highway to the local beach! Benefits include much nicer views!
2. Drive furthest on the first day if you can
The second time I drove between Sydney and Brisbane, I was travelling home to visit my family and friends and pick up some more stuff. I was so keen to get home that I managed to drive all the way to Coffs Harbour from Sydney on the first day! I already knew I could drive this far in a day, as I’d done it on my way south back in December. But I was surprised by how much easier it seemed. I believe this is because it was the first day of my trip and I had lots more motivation and energy! I did the same on the way back to Sydney; pushing on to Taree due to the bad weather forecast.
The benefit of driving this far on the first day is that the second day is way shorter! On the way north, I was home with my family by 2pm in the afternoon and I arrived back to Sydney ready to unpack my second car-load of stuff just after lunch. The other benefit to this is that you’ll miss peak hour traffic! The first time I drove into Sydney, it took around 3 hours from Karuah thanks to some absolutely shocking traffic through Newcastle! Driving through Newcastle and into Sydney was nowhere near as bad in the middle of the day. The drive from the Gold Coast to Brisbane can also be quite bad in the evenings. So I wasn’t sorry to miss that either.
3. Don’t book accommodation in advance (dependent on time of year)
If possible, I recommend that you don’t book your accommodation in advance for your road trip. Of course, in some situations, it will be necessary, such as if you are travelling over Christmas or school holidays. Sometimes, it doesn’t take as long as anticipated to get somewhere. I discovered this on my first trip South to Sydney. Because of the wet weather, I didn’t stop at as many places as I thought (and hoped). This meant I arrived at Karuah, where I had booked to stay the night, at 2:30pm. With all the extra time, I was able to make it to Sydney that evening.
After this experience, I decided not to book my accommodation in advance for my trip home in March. On the afternoon of the first day, you can stop to decide how much further to drive. You can even check what accommodation is available and book online. I chose to do this as opposed to just rocking up so that I could guarantee the room was still available for me! This ended up working especially well, after I left Brisbane a day early due to flood and heavy rain forecasts for the mid-north coast. If I had pre-booked accommodation, I would have had to cancel or change my booking dates.
4. Make sure your GPS is up to date
Something I didn’t consider before driving from Brisbane to Sydney, but that I highly recommend, is checking your GPS is up to date! Most of the Pacific Highway south of Ballina has been re-done in recent years and no longer follows the same route. My car is from 2014 and my GPS has never been updated, so a lot of the time it thought we were driving through the middle of nowhere, when in fact it was a multi-lane highway. Luckily I was able to use my phone’s Apple Maps instead! However, I don’t like to rely on my phone all of the time; which brings us to the final point.
5. Bring a charging chord to plug into your car and a portable charger
The downside to using your phone for navigation is that it drains the battery quite quickly. I wasn’t planning to stop again between Karuah and Sydney on that first trip down, but had to pull into a rest stop to swap to my in-built navigation. Despite being plugged in to the car all afternoon, my phone dropped to only 3% with about an hour to go! Being lit up with the navigation display all the time plus being connected to Bluetooth for music was just too much for it. I don’t even have an old phone; it’s an iPhone SE 2020 and was only about 6 months old at the time. So I had to stop and swap to my CD and inbuilt navigation.
If nothing else, make sure you always have a phone charging chord in the car with you. However, a portable charger wouldn’t go amiss either. The benefit of having a portable charger as well is you can charge your phone while stopped at the rest areas. I tended to use it a lot in my breaks to stay in touch with family and friends, which certainly didn’t help its battery life!
On my second trip away I brought my charging chord and portable charger in the car with me but I only ever had to use the chord. I think the main reason my battery drained so fast on that first trip was because every time I stopped I had the COVID safe app on. COVID is practically a thing of the past here in Australia now (touch wood!!!), with only the occasional small outbreak (I’m talking like 8 people) in the big cities. So I barely open the app anymore. But because it uses Bluetooth it drains a lot of battery! Even still, I would recommend carrying the cord and portable charger with you, just in case. It’s certainly better safe than sorry!
What are your road trip tips? Let me know in the comments!
I have no doubt that the more road trips I do, the more I will learn. Have you been on a long road trip and have some additional tips to share? I’d love to hear them, so please let me know in the comments! Don’t forget, you can check out the best places to visit between Brisbane and Sydney by clicking here. I hope that these posts inspire you to go on your own trip!
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