13 Best Caravan Parks in Australia

The phrase "best family caravan park in Australia" gets used loosely, but in this case the evidence stacks up. The resort holds multiple Australian Tourism Awards and for good reason: 13 waterslides, a 3.5-acre farm animal park, mini golf, an outdoor cinema, and a fully staffed kids club are all included at no extra charge for guests. That last point matters enormously when you are travelling with children across a fortnight holiday on a budget.

The location is what cements it. Airlie Beach sits at the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands, which means day trips to Whitehaven Beach — one of the finest stretches of silica sand on the planet — are available by fast catamaran from the marina, roughly five minutes by car from the park. Snorkelling on the outer reef, scenic flights over the heart reef, and sailing charters all operate year-round from here.

Accommodation ranges from powered caravan and camping sites through to fully self-contained multi-bedroom cabins sleeping up to eight. The surrounding town of Airlie Beach has a genuine pedestrian heart, with restaurants, the lagoon swimming area, and supermarkets all within a 10-minute walk.

Sitting on the shores of Pumicestone Passage with Bribie Island visible across the glassy water, this resort has done something most parks only dream about: it built overwater villas suspended above a three-metre-deep swimming hole. Families of up to ten can stay in poolside retreats, while couples seeking something quieter can book a waterfront studio and spend the evening watching pelicans navigate the tidal channel.

The park sits roughly an hour north of Brisbane, making it an ideal first-night stop for anyone leaving the city on a northbound lap of Australia. Nearby, the Glass House Mountains rise dramatically from the Sunshine Coast hinterland, offering half-day hikes before you push on toward Noosa or the Whitsundays.

The onsite facilities include a lagoon pool, a restaurant that does a solid wood-fired pizza, and a dedicated hire fleet of kayaks and paddleboards. The surrounding passage is shallow and calm enough for children to snorkel on incoming tides when visibility is good.

This park took out the Gold Award at the 2025 Qantas Australian Tourism Awards in the Caravan and Holiday Parks category, which places it at the top of the national conversation for good reason. Located a short drive from the Gold Coast's major theme parks — Dreamworld, Movie World, and Wet'n'Wild all within 10 to 15 minutes — the park functions as both a destination in its own right and an affordable base for a theme-park-heavy family holiday.

Pets are welcome with proof of current vaccination. The park accommodates dogs on both powered and unpowered sites, and the surrounding suburban streetscape has good walking routes through local reserves. Luxury cabin options sleep up to six, and the pool complex with waterslide gives children a reason to abandon theme park plans entirely on rest days.

North Star sits roughly 40 kilometres south of the Gold Coast and two hours north of Byron Bay at Hastings Point — a location that sounds modest until you realise it places you on one of the cleanest, least crowded stretches of NSW coastline north of Coffs Harbour. The park's Neptune's Castle water play area, toddler lagoon, Marine Environment Museum, and fully supervised site layout during school holidays and weekends have earned it a devoted following among families returning year after year.

What distinguishes North Star from the theme park style of family holiday is its proximity to genuine wilderness. Brunswick Heads is a 20-minute drive south, Cabarita Beach is immediately adjacent, and the lowkey nature of Hastings Point itself means children develop a coastal independence here that busy resorts cannot offer. Families camp beside one another in a way that still feels neighbourly rather than institutional.

Tathra on the Sapphire Coast is the kind of place that NSW residents refer to among themselves as a secret, despite it appearing on award shortlists year after year. The NRMA Tathra Beachfront park sits on the headland above the main beach with views that extend south toward Merimbula and north toward Bermagui. A lifeguard-supervised water park and seasonal kids club operate through the school holiday periods, while the beach itself offers rock pool exploration and a surf break suitable for learners.

The park was recognised as a national finalist at the 2025 Qantas Australian Tourism Awards, and also holds the distinction of combining beachfront camping with sustainable eco-friendly design — timber walkways, native plantings, and low-light policies that protect the nesting zones on the headland. The drive south from Sydney takes about six hours, which makes Tathra a genuine destination stay rather than a passing night.

Anyone who has driven the Great Ocean Road in either direction knows the particular feeling that arrives when the bitumen crests the hill above Apollo Bay and the bay opens below you. Marengo Holiday Park sits at the southern end of that bay where the road bends toward Cape Otway. The park offers both powered and unpowered sites and a camp kitchen that stays busy through spring and summer.

What makes Marengo stand out for those with dogs is the genuine freedom it offers: a fully fenced dog exercise area, grassy open sites away from the cabin clusters, and an off-leash beach zone within walking distance during morning and evening hours. The Great Otway National Park begins within four kilometres, offering rainforest canopy walks, glowworm gully after dark, and the Cape Otway Lighthouse for a morning with history.

The Twelve Apostles are 55 kilometres southwest, making Marengo a logical two-night base for anyone doing the classic road trip from Melbourne. Apollo Bay town itself is small but well-provisioned, with a Saturday morning farmers market that draws from the surrounding hills.

Anglesea sits an hour south of Melbourne and was the first proper town on the Great Ocean Road for generations of Victorian families. The beachfront caravan park here occupies a unique position: it borders both the Anglesea River estuary and the main surf beach, giving it a double water frontage that is essentially unmatched at this price point anywhere in the state. Bush walking tracks and mountain bike trails lead directly from the park boundary into the scrub surrounding Bells Beach, which is nine kilometres away.

The Anglesea Golf Course, where kangaroos share the fairways with golfers in what has become one of Victoria's most photographed tourism moments, is a four-minute drive. For families who want beachside camping without committing to the full Great Ocean Road itinerary, Anglesea is a perfectly self-contained destination.

Cable Beach is one of those places that exists in the Australian imagination even for people who have never been to Broome. The 22-kilometre stretch of rust-red pindan cliffs meeting turquoise water has appeared in more travel photography than almost any other landscape in the country. The caravan park that sits directly behind the beach gives caravellers and campers the same view as the adjacent resort hotel at about a quarter of the price.

Broome itself is a town of genuine character — the old Chinatown precinct, the outdoor Sun Pictures cinema (one of the world's oldest outdoor cinemas still operating), and the camel operators who walk their strings along the beach at sunset. The park serves as a base for those continuing the Gibb River Road into the Kimberley, which begins roughly 30 kilometres east of town. Accommodation spans powered sites through to air-conditioned safari-style tents.

There are perhaps a dozen places in Australia where wildlife interaction at the standard of Monkey Mia occurs naturally, at no theatrical cost, every single morning. The wild dolphins that visit the shallows at Monkey Mia have done so for decades. A small group arrives on most mornings to accept fish from rangers in a managed interaction program operated under the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions. The entry fee to the marine park is modest, and the ticket doubles as a pass to the dolphin feeding session.

The resort and caravan park here occupies the only accommodation point within the Shark Bay World Heritage Area on this coastline. From powered sites and safari tents through to motel-style rooms, everything shares the same view across the glassy bay toward Dirk Hartog Island. Camel rides along the beach, Aboriginal cultural walks, and snorkelling in the extraordinary visibility of the bay's waters are all available nearby. The Hamelin Pool stromatolites — the oldest living organisms on earth — are 35 kilometres south by sealed road.

The MacDonnell Range Holiday Park has accumulated more than 30 individual tourism industry awards over its history, a record that reflects consistent excellence in a notoriously demanding environment. Alice Springs sits at the geographic centre of Australia at an elevation of 580 metres, meaning summer days push above 40 degrees while winter nights can fall below 5. The park has calibrated its facilities accordingly: shaded powered sites, a resort pool that becomes central to daily life in midsummer, and a Sunday pancake breakfast around a campfire that has become a genuine local ritual.

The reason to be in Alice Springs extends well beyond the park. The West MacDonnell Ranges contain gorges — Standley Chasm, Ormiston Gorge, Glen Helen — of a physical drama that photographs cannot fully convey. The Larapinta Trail, one of Australia's finest long-distance walking routes, begins in Alice and runs 231 kilometres west through this landscape. Uluru is 460 kilometres south by sealed road, a three-day loop that most travellers combine with a Kings Canyon visit via the Mereenie Loop.

Goolwa sits at the mouth of the Murray River where Australia's longest river system finally meets the Southern Ocean after a journey of 2,500 kilometres from the Great Dividing Range. Discovery Parks has built one of the most comprehensively equipped family parks in South Australia on this spot: an epic splash park with slides and a giant tipping bucket, two heated pools, a massive playground with flying fox, a bouncing pillow, and pedal karts provide enough within-park activity that families can spend two full days without leaving the grounds.

The surrounding Fleurieu Peninsula is an exceptional landscape for day trips. Goolwa Beach itself allows four-wheel drive access along the surf beach. The Cockle Train runs a heritage steam journey between Goolwa and Victor Harbor. The Murray estuary and its birdlife — pelicans, black swans, and wading species in their hundreds — can be explored by kayak and river cruise. The South Australian state government's travel voucher scheme has made parks like this particularly affordable for interstate visitors in 2026.

The Flinders Ranges are South Australia's most dramatic inland landscape: a folded ancient seabed now exposed as ridgelines, gorges, and the elliptical basin of Wilpena Pound, a natural amphitheatre of rock rising 500 metres from the surrounding plain. Rawnsley Park Station sits at the southern entry of Wilpena Pound and offers the full spectrum from tent and caravan sites through to luxury eco-villas with panoramic range views and private decks built for sunset watching.

The park consistently appears in TripAdvisor's national top-10 camping lists. Its practical advantages include the only commercial access point to Wilpena Pound Resort's network of walking trails, an onsite restaurant that sources from the property's own cattle operation, and a 4WD tour program into the northern ranges that accesses terrain unreachable by conventional vehicles. Emu flocks, yellow-footed rock wallabies, wedge-tailed eagles, and the occasional echidna are visible from the sites themselves.

Port Arthur is one of those places that repays emotional investment. The former convict settlement — now a UNESCO World Heritage site — is Tasmania's most visited attraction, and the NRMA holiday park sits within a few minutes walk of the site entrance. Shipstern Bluff, one of the Southern Hemisphere's most formidable big-wave surf breaks, is visible from the Tasman Coastal Trail that begins nearby. The Stewarts Bay State Reserve provides a protected swimming beach a short walk from the park.

The park itself is well maintained with modern amenities, and its location on the Tasman Peninsula makes it a logical base for exploring the area's sea stacks, blowholes, and dramatic coastline accessible on foot or by sea kayak. Visitors combining a Tasmanian circuit with Port Arthur typically allow two nights here minimum — the ghost tour offered at dusk in the convict ruins alone justifies an extended stay.