Ignore the naysayers – the great Aussie coastal holiday is alive and well

May 20, 2026 — 5:00am

There are little punk kids riding around on bikes, no helmets on, careening around the place. Their parents sit on fold-out chairs out the front of their caravans, no doubt ready to crack a few frosty ones.

Some other kids are playing an actual game of Marco Polo in the pool. A couple of teenagers nearby are doing their best to make it look like they definitely don’t want to join in.

Still more kids are playing a game of novelty-sized Connect 4 in the shade of a few palms while a couple of adults whack balls at each other on the tennis court.

It’s Easter holidays in Australia, and I have to say it looks very much like Easter holidays did when I was one of the kids in the pool playing Marco Polo. All the standard trappings are here in the caravan park, the kids cutting loose, the parents trying to get some downtime, not a phone or an iPad in sight, just people riding bikes and kicking balls and knocking the tops off bottles.

The place is Discovery Parks in Byron Bay, a classic caravan park and campsite about 10 minutes out of town. This is the sort of spot people come to for a cheap getaway, a school-holiday road trip, a no-fuss place to stay and spend time and let the kids enjoy themselves.

I remember this from childhood. This is where we had holidays too – not this exact site, but somewhere very like it. We stayed in a tent back then; no one had these massive campervans, and even caravans were rare. However, the site is similar, and the vibe is roughly the same.

I wrote a few months back about our Easter road trip, the pressures of sharply rising fuel costs, the danger that the great Australian school holiday could be under threat. I’m happy to report back that rumours of its demise are exaggerated. The great Australian school holiday is thriving. In fact, it might be healthier than ever.

There are probably plenty of you thinking: No kidding. Where have you been, mate?

And that’s fair enough, because the truth is that I’ve been looking overseas, I’ve been chasing exotic dreams of ryokans and Picos de Europa. Some of us tend not to place enough value on the simple joys of home when destinations overseas seem so much more interesting and desirable and you want to share the world with your kids.

So here’s the deal at Discovery Parks Byron Bay: it’s not quite as simple as it used to be. Yes, there are campsites if you want to pitch a tent, and powered sites if you want to park a caravan. But there are also a heap of permanent cabins in all sorts of configurations, because modern-day budget travellers – including us – might not have the gear to do a caravan park stay without it.

So we’re in a two-bedroom cabin with six beds in it, and our kids are losing their minds. They’ve got activity books, they’ve got bunk beds, and they’ve got ready access to a pool and a massive inflatable jumping pillow thing. If you were to ask them to describe their dream holiday it would probably look a lot like this.

There’s a kitchen here, so we can save money by making our own food. There’s a balcony, so we can sit outside and watch the water birds come and go and sample the product from the nearby Stone & Wood brewery while the kids happily trash the place inside. Good clean fun.

There’s a waterpark here, which there never used to be when I was a kid, a big space with waterslides and fountains and cannons. The kids go from the waterpark to the big bouncy pillow to the pool and back to the waterpark again. If we’d brought their bikes they’d no doubt be cycling around with the other little punks daring the cars to take them on.

One of the great things about a caravan park is that it challenges you to leave, to go outside the grounds and look for something to do. Here, that leads you into Byron itself, where we can go swimming with the kids and then grab fish and chips nearby and sit at the park above Main Beach, watching the sunset while a busker plays acoustic tunes.

Life is going to get expensive in Australia over the next year or so. Interest rates are probably going to go further up. Fuel prices are going to go further up. There’s going to be a squeeze across the board, particularly for families. All of a sudden, cheap, simple holidays are looking really attractive.

So this is good news. The simple Aussie road trip is the same as it ever was, as enjoyable as it ever was. In this age of AI and VR and tourist attractions that fight for your dollar with increasingly modern and outlandish facilities, a big inflatable pillow and a space to play Marco Polo do the job just fine.

The writer stayed as a guest of Discovery Parks.