FRESH from picking up the People's Choice award at the Australian National Busking Championships in Cooma, country music singer and instrumentalist Drew Blundell hit the streets of Wangaratta last week to experience busking for the first time in the rural city.

For over 15 years Drew has been busking across the country, but this was his first visit to Wangaratta, and while the weather wasn't ideal, he received a warm welcome.

Drew said he stopped into Wangaratta to visit friends and noticed the free busking spots marked on the streets, deciding to quickly register and give it a go while he was in town.

"This is probably the best system I've ever seen (for busking) in the country," he said.

"Most of the other places I go to, you have to go to council chambers first, fill out forms and pay for a licence - which is hard sometimes because you can't always get there in a timely manner.

"Busking is a very spur of the moment-type thing - you might be passing through and have a couple of extra hours, and decide to do a bit.

"It's a fantastic system here and should be adopted nationwide I think."

Drew explained he can spend all morning waiting in council chambers to pay for a licence, only to have the weather turn bad in the afternoon and spoil your plans.

Here, busking is free, and he only had to scan a QR code on one of the spots, before receiving approval which allows him to play at any of the 12 official busking locations around town.

Drew said in big cities like Sydney, you have to make a substantial amount of money busking just to cover your costs including paying for a licence, $50 per hour to park your car plus road tolls.

There's the added dilemma of fewer people now carrying cash - and while he has invested in a card reader, he's yet to take it out of the box.

"People are less likely to give (using cards) - that's what I think anyway," he said.

"I've been lucky I seem to attract a crowd and people who don't have cash will usually go to the effort to go and get some and donate, or buy my album, which is good advertising (for my music)."

Drew said he did pretty well outside Big W earlier in the week despite wet weather, and was expecting an even better reception playing in Reid Street a few days later.

Drew, who comes from Bungendore in New South Wales, is a regular at the Tamworth Country Musical Festival and makes a living performing and selling his albums on CD and USB sticks.

Over the last 30 years he says he's gone from playing to a few people in the street, to performing in front of a crowd of 40,000 at the Gympie Muster.

He's travelled 130,000 kilometres in the last 12 months, from the Northern Territory to Queensland and down the east coast to Victoria, and next year he has bookings which take him back to the NT, but this time he'll visit the Kimberley, Perth and return across the Nullarbor to South Australia.

"I see some amazing country - I travel all over Australia and into the outback, playing every day," he said.

"We have a beautiful country and some of the people I meet and places I get to see are pretty amazing."

Drew also loves the fact he get to perform with his cousin, Australian country music favourite Owen Blundell, who was the reason Drew became a musician in the first place.

Look out for them as they play across regional Victoria.