Drive'n'Hear™

All Drive ‘n’ Hear audio tour guides are designed to give you maximum flexibility during your drive. As a general guide, most drives can be completed (one way) within three to four hours’ travel, maybe stopping just a couple of times. If, however, you wish to explore the road and all its fascinating detours and sidetrips, your driving adventure could take as long as a week! We normally recommend that if you are keeping to the recommendations of the guide, you can comfortably do and see most of it in one to two days.

In short, there is no best time! Most of our roads (as everywhere) get busier in summer, when the weather tends to be kinder. But we have travelled our roads in every season, and as you listen to your guide, you will discover that there are things to see and do right throughout the year. The only thing we would remind you of, directly from our driving experiences, is that for the most part, it will be warmer in your vehicle, than outside, so plenty of layers is always a good idea.

You will need a vehicle of some description, yes. Preferably one large enough for you and at least one passenger. We don’t recommend you do the trip solo, as juggling audio controls and the Explorer’s Key (map and hints) could be dangerous.

At just about every town, large and small, you will find a place to refuel if you need to. We recommend that you fill up at the beginning of your drive. Unless you have a real gas-guzzler, you should find that you get to the end of the trip with fuel to spare. For information about what Drive ‘n’ Hear does to off set the carbon emissions from your drive, click here.

We think the places Drive ‘n’ Hear will take you are well worth spending some extra time exploring on your own, and links to accommodation booking services with suggestions for all budgets and styles can be found on the planning pages for each road. (Click for the Great Ocean Road or The Shipwreck Coast (Apostle Coast) ). You might not need anywhere to stay if you plan to complete your drive in less than a day.

When you are planning your drive, we encourage you to do the same sort of research as you normally would for a trip. Drive ‘n’ Hear audio guides are not a substitute for the great recommendations you can find in guide books, tourist information centres, through word-of-mouth, or on our own planning pages. Because we focus on the drive, and the things that you can see and do pretty much from the road, we feel that the attraction is the drive itself! Where there is an attraction that has significance to the road, we may mention it, but as always, you stay in control of your journey. This gives you the greatest amount of flexibility with your travel plans

Like other tourist attractions along the road, there are lots of terrific guide books, websites, and information centres which can help you. Again, we understand that what our explorers love about Drive ‘n’ Hear guides is that we don’t make all the decisions for you! We are not a tour bus with a schedule, and meals don’t come as part of your deal (it was too messy to squish into the CD cases….and MP3 players won’t chill the drinks either!). It’s up to you. As a general rule, most of the towns you will drive through have several dining options (usually along the main street, but you’re the independent traveller, explore!). When we do our research drives for each guide, one of the best parts is deciding where we’ll eat next. Amongst our favourite options are picnics (when we can be bothered!), but what we can tell you is that we’ve never, ever gone hungry on a road trip.

Once you have purchased your Drive ‘n’ Hear guide, you will see our Explorer’s Key, which functions a lot like a map, so you might look at it and decide you don’t need any more than that. What you will notice is that we don’t give you a lot of extra detail, particularly smaller streets in the towns. If you have booked into a little B&B somewhere “off the beaten track”, you might like to a) get detailed directions from the B&B, b) a more detailed map from a Tourist Information Centre along the way, c) a detailed map before you leave (what if the TIC is closed when you get there?!) or d) all of the above.

You will need to have the software for your MP3 player loaded on to your PC. You will also need to ensure that you have sufficient memory left in your player to hold two discs (approximately 160MB).

For downloaded orders, you should be ready to do the drive in less than five minutes, maybe a bit longer if you’re not one hundred percent proficient with downloading files and transferring them to your mobile device. For CD orders, we normally allow up to five working days within Australia, and up to ten working days for international orders. If you suspect your order has gone astray, please contact us.

See above! You will also need either a CD player (if this is the format you have chosen) or an audio system capable of amplifying MP3 files. Some systems have jacks that you can plug your MP3 player into, but there are plenty of options. We often use the small radio transmitters you can plug into MP3 players – all you have to do then is tune the car radio into the right frequency and you’re good to go. Click here for more information.