Where to hire camping and hiking gear in Australia
- and is it cost-effective to hire?
There are many good reasons to look into hiring camping and hiking gear. If you have school-aged kids going to camp for the first time, if you don’t typically go hiking but want to give it a go with some friends plus many more reasons outlined below.
In Australia, you can hire camping and hiking gear from Rooze, Overnight Aventures and Outdoor Adventure Hire. And there are many others that operate within each state. They can be hard to find but in this blog post, you will find a comprehensive list of places where you can hire camping gear.
And like everything I seem to look at, I did a price comparison to work out if hiring equipment is cost-effective. And I would say it is cost-effective – but it does depend on who you hire from, what you would buy if you didn’t hire and how likely you are to hire the gear again.
Here are links to some of the information you will find here:
Where can I hire camping and hiking gear in Australia?
I’ve put together a list of companies in Australia that hire out camping and hiking equipment, along with where these companies are located and the range of products they have available for hire (refer to the section here for what I mean by limited, good and wide range).
I’m sure there are more specialist places out there, but these are the ones I found after several hours and days of searching. Hopefully, you find something to suit your needs.
Note: Enter the initials of your state in the second table to find places near you.
Australia-wide camping and hiking equipment hire sites
| Company | Range |
|---|---|
| Rooze | Wide range |
| Overnight adventures | Wide range |
| Outdoor adventure hire | Wide range |
State-based camping and hiking equipment hire
| Company | Location | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Lighter faster hire | Seaford, VIC | Wide range |
| The equipment library | Northcote, VIC | Good range |
| Wilderness shop | Box Hill, VIC | Good range |
| Wallaroo camping hire | Moorabbin, VIC | Wide range |
| Scouts Q Store | Dandenong South, VIC | Good range |
| Bogong | Melbourne, VIC | Good range |
| 50 days | Melbourne, VIC | Limited range |
| Wilderness adventures | Lismore or Lennox Head, NSW | Good range |
| Sydney camping hire | Greystanes, NSW | Good range |
| Eco treasures | Ku-ring-gai, NSW | Good range |
| Lifes an adventure | Belrose, NSW | Limited range |
| Aussie camping hire | Heathwood, QLD | Good range |
| Support crew | Brisbane, QLD | Wide range |
| Try before you buy | Brisbane, QLD | Good range |
| Adelaide camping hire | Trinity Gardens or Port Adelaide, SA | Limited range |
| Aussie Journeys | Unknown, SA based | Limited range |
| Annapurna camping equipment hire | Adelaide, SA | Unknown - but worth a shot |
| Glamp yourself | Perth, WA | Wide range |
| Dwelling up adventures | Dwellingup, WA | Limited range |
| Camping culture | Perth, WA | Good range |
| Broome hire centre | Broome, WA | Good range |
| Camping hire WA | Craigie, WA | Limited range |
| Mont adventure equipment | Fyshwick, ACT | Good range |
| Capital camping hire | Queanbeyan, ACT | Limited range |
| Nomadic camping hire | Alice springs, NT | Good range |
| Gone bush camping | Darwin, NT | Limited range |
| Top end camp hire | Darwin, NT | Good range |
| Tasmanian wilderness experiences | Hobart, TAS | Limited range |
| 3 capes gear & gourmet | West Hobart, TAS | Limited range |
| Wild island adventure hire | Launceston, TAS | Limited range |
| TAS camping hire | Unknown, TAS based | Limited range |
What type of gear can you hire?
Those with a limited range of stock would have these basics:
- Tents
- Sleeping bags
- Sleeping mats
- Bags
And others that have a good range of stock also have the following:
- Cooking gear
- Torches
- Clothing
- Boots
- Hiking poles
- Chairs
- Tables
While those with a wide range may also have the following:
- Phones
- Location beacons
- Radios
- Lightweight water bottles
- Water tanks
- Fridges
- Stoves
- Compass
- First aid kits
- Cooler box
- Pillows
- Various little items you might need
Is hiring equipment cost-effective?
So as a fun exercise (!) I thought it would be interesting to compare hire prices with the cost of buying the items new, and calculate the number of uses you need to get out of an item before it makes more sense to buy the item.
I did this for the equipment my son uses for Scouts. I got the hire costs from two places – Overnight Adventures and Rooze – based on a two-day hire. As the table below will show, the prices they charge vary greatly. One was chosen because of the range of products and the other I looked into because of quality and price.
The product prices I got from Anaconda. I am not comparing apples with apples here i.e. I didn’t look up the price of the same product under hire. What I looked up was the price of a mid-range alternative that I would likely buy if I was to buy the equipment outright.
From this information, I worked out how many separate 2-day hires I would get before I hit the purchase price.
| Equipment | Overnight Adventures | Rooze | If purchased new.. | No. of uses - Overnight Adventures | No. of uses - Rooze |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| One man tent | $42 | $10 | $100 | 6 | 10 |
| Sleeping bag | $48 | $18 | $60 | 1 | 3 |
| Sleeping mat | $18 | $18 | $120 | 7 | 7 |
| Cooking pack | $30 | $18 | $60 stove + $12 cutlery + $50 pots + $40 bowls = $162 | 5 | 9 |
| Camp chair | $17 | $10 | $30 | 2 | 3 |
| Backpack | $60 | $18 | $120 | 2 | 7 |
| Head torch | $18 | $40 | 2 | ||
| Pillow | $24 | $40 | 1 | ||
| Waterproof jacket and pants | $48 | $140 jacket + $80 pants = $220 | 5 |
So that was all very unexpected.
The table above demonstrates a number of things and a few things to keep in mind:
(1) If I had compared the hire price against the price of the product being hired (they seem to be premium brands), the price difference would have been much greater, and therefore hiring would be even more cost-effective. Why did I compare the hiring price to the price of mid-range products? It’s because I imagine most people in my position are tossing up between a mid-range product and hiring the equipment – so that’s what I compared in the table above.
(2) It really pays to shop around. The charges varied greatly between the two sites I compared with Rooze being the most reasonably priced by far, without compromising on quality. But then again it does not have the range of products that Overnight Adventures had.
(3) It seems that when it comes to sleeping bags and smaller items, it doesn’t seem cost-effective to hire if you are going to go on at least 3 different 2-day camping trips i.e. across 6 days of use.
The question of whether it is cost-effective or not really depends on where you are hiring from, whether you intended to purchase premium products outright or something cheaper and how often you are going to hire such equipment. And the cost-effectiveness does depend on the product in question.
But this should show that it is worth looking into at the very least. And if you are coming at this from a sustainability and space-saving lens, not just an economic one, hiring equipment would pay off for you.
What are the benefits of hiring camping and hiking equipment?
Here are some situations where it makes sense to hire camping and hiking equipment instead of buying it such as:
- School camps
- First time camping
- Occasional camper
- Extra gear needed for specialised camping/ hiking trips
- To try expensive equipment before committing to the purchase
- Groups needing extra backup gear
- You live in a unit or have limited space to store extra equipment
And hiring is associated with a whole host of benefits such as:
- You can save money – if you are not going to use the equipment frequently, hiring can pay off. Or if you are thinking of purchasing really expensive equipment, hiring is a good way to try before committing to a large purchase
- You can save space – this equipment can take up a lot of space in the home and if you do not use the items frequently enough, that space could be put to better use
- You get to use a premium product – use quality products on your trip instead of low-quality products you would have otherwise purchased
- You save time – since taking care of the item and fixing repairs can take up your time if you own the items outright
- You are saving resources – by participating in the circular economy, you are saving further resources being extracted from the planet unnecessarily.
Of course, it was the last point that brought me to this idea – the fact that it doesn’t make sense to buy something new when someone has the same item available for me to use at a fraction of the cost.
If you’re not sold on this or you haven’t found what you need from the options listed here, buying new is not the only option out there. Try to borrow from friends, see if there are any local community groups (like Scouts) that can help out or check out the second-hand market through eBay, Gumtree, Marketplace or your local op shop.
And there are some peer-to-peer rental sites that often have camping and hiking equipment.
xxx Tahsin
