The west coast is what the east coast was thirty years ago: long empty roads, campgrounds full of shooting stars, and a reef you can swim to from the beach. There is no backpacker bus worth using here — you rent a campervan or join a rideshare from a hostel noticeboard, and you commit to real distances. Perth to Broome is about 2,400 km without detours; with them, closer to 3,200.
The van and the maths
Budget campervans run AUD 90–140 a day in 2026, plus roughly AUD 450 in fuel for the full run — diesel gets expensive north of Carnarvon. Relocation deals occasionally drop that to a few dollars a day if your dates are flexible. Travel April to October; summer up north is dangerously hot and half the accommodation shuts. National park passes are the bargain of the trip: a WA holiday pass covers everything for about AUD 60.
Perth to Kalbarri
Ease out of Perth via the Pinnacles at Nambung, thousands of limestone spires rising from yellow dunes — eerie at dusk, empty at dawn. Push on to Kalbarri, where the Murchison River has cut a red gorge inland and the coastal cliffs drop sheer into the Indian Ocean. Nature's Window at sunrise is the shot everyone wants; go before 7 a.m. and you will have the rock arch to yourself.
Shark Bay
The Denham peninsula detour adds 260 km and is non-negotiable. Shell Beach is made of nothing but tiny white cockles to a depth of ten metres. At Monkey Mia, wild dolphins have visited the shallows daily for over fifty years (entry about AUD 25). The stromatolites at Hamelin Pool are lumpy, unglamorous, and 3.5 billion years in the making — the oldest living things you will ever be unimpressed by, until it sinks in.
Ningaloo: Coral Bay and Exmouth
This is the reason the west coast exists on backpacker maps. Ningaloo is a fringing reef — at Coral Bay and at Turquoise Bay near Exmouth you walk off the sand, drift over coral gardens, and haul out before the current takes you past the exit point. Free, no boat required, better than most paid snorkel trips on the other coast. The splurge: swimming with whale sharks (March to July, AUD 450–500) or humpbacks later in the season. We rated the whale sharks the best single day of a year on the road — a bus-sized fish materialising out of the blue while your snorkel guide yells at you to kick harder.
Inland to Karijini
From Exmouth, swing 600 km inland to Karijini National Park in the Hamersley Range. The gorges here are slots of banded iron two billion years old, with spider-walks between walls and freezing plunge pools at the end: Hancock, Weano, and the layered amphitheatre of Dales Gorge. Camp at the eco retreat or the national park ground (AUD 15–20 pp) and check road conditions — some access roads are gravel.
Broome
The last 600 km to Broome roll through red dirt and termite cathedrals. Broome is a strange, lovely finish: pearling-town history, camel trains on Cable Beach at sunset, and mango smoothies at the courthouse markets. Time your arrival for a full moon between March and October and you get Staircase to the Moon, the tide flats reflecting moonrise in golden rungs. Sell the rideshare seat, drop the van, and fly out — or keep going into the Kimberley, which is another story entirely.
