There’s something deeply embarrassing about admitting this, but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the kind of holidays my family took when I was a kid. Not in a wistful, rose-tinted way either, but in that specific way you think about things that seemed completely normal at the time and now feel like archaeological artefacts from a different civilisation.

The 1980s and 90s were a golden era for a particular type of Australian holiday, and if you were there, you know exactly what I’m talking about. If you weren’t, well, let me paint you a picture that involves a lot more cigarette smoke, fewer seatbelts, and absolutely zero concern about sun protection.

The Great Australian Road Trip (In a Car Without Air Conditioning)

The quintessential Aussie holiday of this era was the road trip, preferably in a vehicle that was questionable at best and actively dangerous at worst. My family’s Holden station wagon falls firmly into the latter category, though at the time we thought we were living large.

These weren’t the carefully planned road trips of today, with accommodation pre-booked and routes mapped on GPS. These were adventures in the truest sense, which is a polite way of saying “we’ll figure it out when we get there.” Caravan parks were first-come, first-served. If the amenities block was clean, you’d struck gold. If it had hot water, you were basically at a five-star resort.

The destinations haven’t changed much. The Gold Coast. The Sunshine Coast. Port Macquarie. Merimbula. What has changed is everything else about the experience.

Theme Parks Before OH&S Became a Thing

If you went to Queensland in the 80s or 90s, you went to the theme parks. Dreamworld, Movie World, Sea World, the slightly terrifying and now-defunct Expo 88 site. These places were magnificent in their complete disregard for what we’d now consider basic safety protocols.

I have distinct memories of rides that would absolutely not pass modern safety standards, operated by teenagers who looked about as interested in safety briefings as I currently am in hearing about cryptocurrency. The queues were long, the sun was brutal, and the only shade came from those mesh tarps that filtered approximately 3% of UV rays.

Sea World deserves special mention because it represented peak 80s/90s attitude toward marine life. We thought nothing of watching dolphins do backflips eight times a day while eating hot chips. The educational component was basically “aren’t dolphins smart?” followed by more backflips. Different times.

Caravan Parks: The Original Budget Accommodation

Before Airbnb, before boutique hotels, before glamping was even a word someone’s marketing department had invented, there were caravan parks. These were the backbone of Australian family holidays, and they were glorious in their complete lack of pretension.

You’d rock up in your aforementioned questionable car, possibly towing an even more questionable caravan or tent trailer. The park managers were usually a weathered couple who’d seen it all and were impressed by nothing. The amenities were basic, the other guests were a mixed bag, and the camp kitchen was where you’d discover whether your family could function under pressure.

The entertainment was whatever you made it. A pool, if you were lucky. A playground with equipment that would now be condemned. Maybe a games room with a pool table and a Space Invaders machine. The kids would run feral, making friends with other temporarily nomadic children, while parents sat around communal BBQs comparing notes on the best routes and worst speed traps.

The Big Things: Our Architectural Heritage

No retro Australian road trip was complete without stopping at the Big Things. The Big Banana. The Big Pineapple. The Big Merino. These structures represented everything ambitious and slightly absurd about Australian tourism in this era.

They’re still there, most of them, looking slightly more faded but still proudly absurd. What’s changed is our relationship to them. Back then, they were genuine attractions. Now they’re ironic photo opportunities, but we still stop, don’t we? Because part of us remembers when a 15-metre-tall piece of fruit was the highlight of a 12-hour drive.

Bali Before Instagram

For slightly more adventurous families, Bali represented the exotic international holiday option. This was Bali before it became the Aussie suburb it is today, though let’s be honest, it was already pretty Aussie-fied by the late 80s.

The appeal was straightforward. It was cheap, it was close, and it was different enough to feel like a real overseas adventure without being so different that you couldn’t find a decent feed. Kuta Beach was the epicentre, a strip of sand and budget hotels where Australian accents outnumbered Indonesian ones during peak season.

My family went once in 1991, and I remember it vividly for all the wrong reasons. The traffic was chaotic, the hygiene standards were questionable, and my dad spent most of the trip negotiating with food poisoning. We still talk about it as one of our best holidays, which tells you everything about how low our bar was.

Coastal Caravan Parks and the Quest for Fish and Chips

Every coastal town worth its salt had at least one caravan park, and they all had the same basic layout. Sites closest to the beach were for the people who’d booked six months in advance or who’d been coming for 20 years. Everyone else got whatever was left, usually near the amenities block or the main road.

The routine was sacred. Beach in the morning, back for lunch, beach in the afternoon, shower off the sand (never quite successfully), then the nightly pilgrimage to the local fish and chip shop. These weren’t gourmet experiences. The fish was probably frozen, the chips were always slightly soggy, and the potato scallops were of questionable provenance. We thought it was incredible.

You’d eat dinner watching the sun set, probably fighting off seagulls, definitely getting sand in your food despite your best efforts. Then it was back to the caravan or tent for board games by lantern light because streaming services wouldn’t exist for another 20 years.

The Ski Trip (For Those With Delusions of Grandeur)

For families who wanted to feel sophisticated, there was the ski trip to the Snowy Mountains. Perisher, Thredbo, Falls Creek. These were expensive holidays even by today’s standards, which meant they were absolutely extortionate in the 80s and 90s.

I only managed one of these trips, courtesy of a school group booking that made it almost affordable. The accommodation was basic, the equipment was rented (and old), and the slopes were icy. The food was overpriced, the lift queues were long, and everyone got altitude sickness at least once.

We loved every minute of it because it felt cosmopolitan in a way coastal holidays didn’t. You could pretend you were in the European Alps if you squinted and ignored all the gum trees.

What We’ve Lost (And What We Haven’t)

The obvious stuff we’ve lost is the complete lack of digital distraction. No phones, no tablets, no WiFi. You were stuck with whoever you were travelling with and whatever entertainment you’d brought. Books. A Walkman if you were lucky. The car radio playing the same 15 songs on rotation.

We’ve also lost the roughness of it all. Modern travel is smoother, safer, more comfortable. You can Google reviews before you book anything. You can check the weather. You can navigate without a massive paper map that never folded back properly. Progress is good, obviously.

But here’s what hasn’t changed: Australians still love a road trip. We still stop at the Big Things (now for Instagram rather than genuine interest, but we stop). We still go to the same coastal towns, though the caravan parks have fancier names and better facilities. We still complain about Queensland drivers and Sydney traffic.

The bones of these holidays remain because they tap into something fundamental about the Australian character. We like space. We like coastline. We like the freedom of the open road, even if that road now has better signage and fewer potholes.

Could You Do It Again?

The question is whether you could actually recreate these holidays today, and the answer is complicated. Physically, yes. The destinations exist. The caravan parks are still operating (many have been significantly upgraded). The theme parks are there, now with working safety equipment. The Big Things remain big.

But you can’t recreate the context. You can’t unknow modern standards of comfort and safety. You can’t unlearn the habit of checking your phone. You can’t recapture the specific combination of freedom and innocence that came from being genuinely disconnected.

What you can do is acknowledge that those holidays, with all their flaws and discomforts, shaped how a generation of Australians think about travel. We learned that adventure doesn’t require a huge budget. That the journey matters as much as the destination. That a dodgy caravan park can provide better memories than a five-star resort.

These days I travel differently. Better accommodation, better planning, definitely better sun protection. But occasionally I’ll drive past a caravan park or see a Big Thing on the horizon, and I’ll feel that specific nostalgia that only comes from remembering holidays that were objectively pretty average but somehow absolutely perfect.

That’s the thing about retro travel. It’s not about the destinations being better then than now. It’s about us being different. Younger, less cautious, more easily impressed. You can’t really go back, but occasionally, it’s worth remembering where you’ve been.