The wife and I are in the (very) early stages of planning a trip to Australia. We are looking to spend about 16 days there (including travel time).

I'd like a few pointers on the following:
-What places should be visit? I'm thinking something like: Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane(?), and Cairns/Great Barrier Reef
-What would a good budget be for something like this? Flights for all of the above are about $4,800. We'd like to stay in one nice hotel on the beach with a great view and then go budget on the other cities. Is $125/day not including room a good goal?
-Any online travel resources I can look into?

TIA

Paging HollywoodBQ....

Thanks

We're looking at October of next year (during school) but are open to alternatives though we need some time to save up!

just got home from two weeks there

http://forums.texags.com/main/forum.reply.asp?topic_id=2422914&forum_id=54

my favorite part of the trip was three days of hiking in the outback

http://www.intrepidtravel.com/us/australia/3-day-uluru-safari-75048

didn't get down to melbourne,, but i've heard its nice

sydney reminded me alot of san francisco

brisbane was cool, but, felt kinda 'business-like'

gbr was pretty cool, cairns felt extremely touristy,, like it wouldn't exist if not for gbr tourism

whatever you think your food budget is, double it. australia is expensive

couple of thoughts:
- Port Douglas instead of Cairns: Several very cool resorts there. We stayed at Thala Beach Lodge and it was great, but maybe a bit too far from town. You still have plenty of options to get to GBR
- Brisbane: May be the Gold Coast/Surfers Paradise area is a better spot to spend most of your time. Nice beaches, though Surfers Paradise may be a bit too touristy. We stayed at the Sheraton Mirage, which is a bit outside of SP.

Thanks for the tips

Take a look at Hamilton Island for GBR. I believe there are a few hotels there to stay at. When I did GBR I stayed at Fitzroy Island off of Cairns. The beach isn't great because it is covered in coral but you can snorkel off of the beach and see a lot of stuff. Also United has a flight from Cairns to Guam. That may be a good option if you are using miles. I think I got about 2.75c/mile value in economy back to Houston.
In Sydney we did a booze cruise on an old pirate style ship that was pretty good. They also have some pretty good wineries outside of town. The Blue Mountains are overrated.

Thanks again.

I forgot to mention that neither one of us are divers so we'll be snorkeling a lot

many gbr tours offer intro dives, even if you can't swim you can dive. that said, i never felt comfortable diving and spent more time snorkelling. don't know if it was the water pressure or what,,

We backpacked Australia about 8 years ago, and our favorite place was Noosa. We rented a place there for about 6 weeks. It is their mailbu. The beaches are warm and you don't have to worry about getting in the water like you have to further north. There are whales and koalas all around.

I highly recommend hiking the Blue Mountains near Sydney. Also, Gold Coast has gorgeous beaches.

My wife is 'Strayan so we've done a few trip to Oz while we've been together.

Perth / Margaret river - Great wine country. Perth is pretty quiety.

Obviously Sydney should be on the cards... Lots of stuff there. Bridge Walk, Ferry to Manly, Check out all the different beaches. The drive on the coast between Woollonggong and Sydney is very pretty.

We did a few days in Melbourne last year and really enjoyed. Find a nice restaurant on the beach in St. Kilda, Great Ocean Road would be something like the Pacific highway. Melbourne is pretty much the sports capital of AUS... You can see a rugby game, australian rules football, or cricket (actually fun to watch as it's more about boozing than watching).

Remember that the seasons there are backwards, especially in Sydney and Melbourne. Sydney doesnt get to be really warm and amazing until January IMO. I'm sure Hollywood can chime in.

Been busy with work. Sorry for the delay.

For some reason, it is pretty much impossible to get a hotel in Australia for less than $250/night or so. +/- $50. And every Australian hotel feels the need to charge $30/night for Internet access.

Return flights between the US and Australia typically go for about $1,800 or so in economy on Qantas. Sometimes you can find a sale fare from Los Angeles or Dallas for less. The other main carriers who fly between LAX and SYD are Delta, Virgin (V Australia) and United. You can sometimes find cheaper fares on Air Fiji or Air New Zealand. The all time lowest economy fare, I've ever seen was $888 RT from LAX to SYD about 7 years ago. More recently, $1,300 is about the best super discount fare you can find.

For the rest of your domestic travel around Australia and New Zealand, flights are going to be similar to domestic flights in the US. Qantas will be your best bet but Virgin Australia, JetStar and a few others (probably avoid Tiger) are competitive.

Don't really know what you're after but there are plenty of travel guides written on Australia.

Obviously you want to hit Sydney - Opera House, Harbour Bridge, Taronga Zoo.

Other than that, it's kind of what are you into?

I've also heard many people complain that making the journey to Uluru (Ayers Rock) is a waste of time and money for going to look at a giant rock. But... something like staying in an underground hotel in Coober Pedy might be interesting.

I like Perth and Brisbane pretty well. Brisbane is the most Texas like of the Aussie cities I've been to. And if you're into Military History at all, the national war memorial museum in Canberra is a must.

If you just want to hang out and get drunk and stay on the beach, I recommend Bondi or Manly. Manly is close to where I live to I'm partial to it but Bondi is the one that everybody knows.

Just stay out of Kings Cross after midnight. The alcohol fueled violence kicks off around 2am and gets very ugly.

Good Luck with your trip. If you want to meet up in Sydney, I'm happy to do so if I'm around.

Thank you all for the help!

If you want to save a lot of money, look into adult hostels. They are not 5 star by no means, but they are much cheaper than 250 a night. We met some great people sharing a kitchen and cooking meals with. Everything will be expensive. A 6 pack of beer is 15-20 US$ so be prepared for that. We stayed for three weeks and would grocery shop for most of our breakfast and lunch meals while traveling and hiking throughout the country. We used star airlines for the smaller in country flights. If you would like more detailed info, just ask.

Thanks Orb, my wife's only requirements for a vacation is that we have a private bedroom and bathroom!

Figured I'd bump my old thread. Looks like I'm going to try and squeeze New Zealand in also. We'd have about 8 days.

What do you guys think of this Itinerary?

The NZ itinerary is very similar to what we did, that hits all of the high points. We did this type of trip over 16 days.
The glacier is cool only takes about 1/2 day
****ord sound and Christchurch are awesome.
The glow worms caves are very cool. The trek we did was a small hole in the ground where you had to rappel about 200'
Rototua was cool, if you had to skip 1 leg it would be there.
The hostels and small hotels are all very clean and tidy.
The days are long that time of year, you can get from Auckland in the morning to waitomo do the caves to Rotorua that night.
Spend more time in the South Island.

I second the hostels. Sydney has some nice hostels
Here are the areas we loved...
Sydney and surrounding beached
Byron bay
Noosa
Whitsunday islands - southern Great Barrier Reef highlight of the trip. We stayed for 2-3 nights on a small sailboat and visited the nicest beaches in the world. Nobody around but our boat of 12
Skip..
Brisbane and Cairns
You can literally book 2 nights in Sidney, find a hostel that has a travel booking company and plan an awesome trip with their advise.

We weren't there quite as long as you will be, but had a fantastic time in Sydney, GBR (Cairns-Port Douglass) and NZ South Island. Wish we'd had even more time in NZ. Try to not overload your itinerary too much. There is so much to see and do. It will be an awesome trip.

Thanks guys, so far Itinerary is getting lined out below. Thoughts?

1 (night) Flight
2 Flight
3 Syd
4 Syd
5 Syd (Blue Mountains)
6 Cairns
7 Cairns (GBR)
8 Cairns (Kuranda)
9 Uluru
10 Uluru
11 Kings Canyon
12 Alice Springs
13 Aukland
14 Waitomo/Rotorua
15 Rotorua(?)/Flight to Queenstown
16 Queenstown
17 M!lford sound
18 Franz Josef
19 Christchurch
20 Melbourne
21 Melbourne
22 Flight

You're going to be rooted by the end of that trip. By the end of your aussie trip, you'll understand what rooted means.

Looks like I'll be in Queenstown while you're there.

Do some diving in the Great Barrier if you're certified. Cairns is effing awesome. Hopefully you have nice clothes that aren't meant for warm weather. Please dont be that bad dressing american dude.

Thanks, think we might cut out the north island (days 13-15) and spread that time out more evenly...

We're young and pretty active, but I understand that flying, packing/unpacking will take it out of you...

What time of year will be here mate?

Nick, are you part of the beer family?

quote:

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Nick, are you part of the beer family?

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Tooheys make a Tooheys new and Tooheys old branded beer. At some stage they were owned by different families, with our family related to the Tooheys Old side, regrettably it was the one that was purchased by Tooheys new, which has gone onto make all the $$$

Looking at October. Probably spanning three weeks Wednesday-Wednesday