Camperman: An Honest Review for Renters

Camperman's Australian fleet is four Toyota HiAce hi-top conversions: the Paradise Family 5, the Maxie-4 Deluxe, the Maxie 2-3 and the Juliette 3. Only the Maxie-4 Deluxe has a hot shower and flush toilet; the other three have neither, and none carries a heater of any kind.

Fridge capacity also varies rather than being fleet-wide: 55 litres on the Juliette 3 against 80 litres on the rest of the range. Transmission is fixed per model rather than a preference at booking: automatic on the Paradise Family 5 and the Maxie-4 Deluxe, manual on the Juliette 3 and the Maxie 2-3.

The company's own site states a A$500 damage excess, and a separate page describes a A$500 security bond taken as a credit card hold at pickup; the two pages do not make clear whether that is one figure under two names or two amounts stacked. A single-vehicle accident, including an animal strike or reversing into a fixed object, adds a further A$250.

No windscreen, tyre or excess-reduction product is published on the company's current pages, and no minimum driving-experience figure or young-driver surcharge could be confirmed for this market at the time of research. Ask the depot to itemise every amount in writing before handing over a card.

Standard staffed pickup runs Monday to Friday from 10:00 to 15:00 and Saturday from 08:30 to 11:00; standard returns run Monday to Friday from 08:00 to 15:00 and Saturday from 09:00 to 11:30. Sunday and after-hours collection is by prior arrangement only and carries a A$110 fee, per the company's own FAQ page.

Cancellation is the strictest published in this market: a A$200 fee applies even with thirty or more days' notice, rising to 50 per cent of the rental at twenty-nine to seven days out and 75 per cent at six to one days out, with no refund on the pickup day or a no-show. Deposits up to A$200 are non-refundable at every stage, so there is no genuinely free cancellation window at any notice.

This market rates a vehicle 'Unsealed roads OK' when its contract clears it for unsealed and back-country driving. None of Camperman's four Toyota HiAce hi-tops carries that clearance, so the whole fleet is restricted to sealed roads regardless of model.

Where a traveller may still stop overnight is a separate question, set by state law and local council by-law rather than by the vehicle. Australia has no national scheme for this, and many coastal councils ban overnight parking outright, so assume a booked campsite is needed unless the specific council says otherwise.

The 4.4 covers eight depots at an identical figure, three of which this site does not price. Positive entries single out five berths achieved on the larger models through internal layout tricks plus an included external tent, a cheaper route to a family trip than a six-berth motorhome.

The complaint is narrower: cosmetic age. Faded exterior paintwork, worn upholstery and dated cabinetry recur repeatedly across the sample, with no mechanical fault reported at this volume. At only 62 reviews, that single theme is effectively the entire negative record this platform holds against the company.

Trustpilot's recurring positive theme is not the vehicle but the money: renters describe all-inclusive pricing, no counter-side upsell on insurance or equipment, and bonds returned in full, including one detailed Brisbane handover where staff pointed out pre-existing damage before the trip began so it could not later be charged back.

The complaints here are about the van shell rather than the company's conduct. The high-top's upper bunk is described as claustrophobic, the front middle seat blocks a shorter driver's mirror, and small maintenance misses recur, a stove hob that will not stay lit among them; one Cairns account is markedly more serious than the rest.

Google's 4.4 and Trustpilot's 4.1 sit close together, which is itself informative. Reddit, cited across seven threads, is by contrast the most hostile record in this site's entire Australian research, with recurring accounts of vans handed over already faulty and of roof leaks that went unrepaired for days.

Sixty-two to 120 ratings is a small enough sample for ordinary, uneventful local hires to dominate it, while a forum concentrates the trips that went badly enough to be worth writing about. Neither record cancels the other; read the fine print on excess and cancellation before booking a longer trip.