Hume: sleeping in your car
Council rules: prohibited without a permit
Hume City Council has been read. Under the Hume City General Purposes Local Law No.1 2023:
Hume prohibits camping in a municipal place without a permit unless you are within a camping area.
Without a permit, a person must not camp in a municipal place unless such person is within a camping area.
Turns on "municipal place", which the local law defines, and on being "within a camping area". Hume also publishes a separate permit regime for camping on private property, which is a different question from this one.
Signs override this page. Whatever is signed at the site is the rule that applies, no matter what is written here.
What applies here regardless
The local law above is this council’s own. What is settled state-wide, and applies outside a council area, is where camping is allowed in Victoria.
In Victoria you can camp anywhere in a state forest, provided you set up at least 20 metres from waterways and stay no longer than 28 consecutive nights.
State forests are not national parks or state parks. Those are managed by Parks Victoria under different rules, and forest reserves are different again — in a forest reserve you may camp only in the official campgrounds the land manager provides, not in informal spots.
Nearest places with a published rule
The state road network has no mapped rest area inside Hume. The closest 8 places this site holds start 168 km away, in a straight line rather than by road.
- Halls Stopping Bay Northbound, Moama168 km N in a straight line
- Halls Truck Parking Bay Southbound, Moama168 km N in a straight line
- The Keyhole Rest Area, Moama174 km N in a straight line
- Nine Mile Parking Bay Northbound, Moama179 km N in a straight line
- Eleven Mile Rest Area, Moama181 km N in a straight line
- Long Paddock Visitors Site, Mathoura185 km N in a straight line
- Mathoura Rest Area199 km N in a straight line
- May Lawson Wayside Rest Area, Finley227 km N in a straight line
Where this comes from
- “Without a permit, a person must not camp in a municipal place unless such person is within a camping area.” — General Purposes Local Law No.1 2023, Hume City Council. Retrieved 1 Sep 2026.
- “You can camp anywhere in a state forest if you set up at least 20 metres from waterways and stay no longer than 28 consecutive nights.” — Camping — Visiting State forests, Victorian Government, Conservation Regulator. Retrieved 30 Aug 2026.
- “State forests are different to national parks and state parks, which are managed by Parks Victoria and have different rules.” “In forest reserves (general): You can camp in the official campgrounds provided by the land manager but not in informal locations where there are no facilities.” — Visiting State forests, Victorian Government, Conservation Regulator. Retrieved 30 Aug 2026.