Is it madness to plan a holiday to Australia this year?!

[soootiredddd]

Just that really. Mainly asking from a Covid/Putin perspective (now that's a sentence I never thought I'd write!). I know no-one has a crystal ball, but for many personal reasons this year would be a good one for us to go and visit my sister and we obviously haven't seen her for a long time now. We can go outside school holidays, although do have some other restrictions so were looking at going roughly 20ish June - 12th July. I'm mainly worried that Australian government will reintroduce the quarantine rules for vaccinated travellers if they start to see a spike in cases as they go into winter. We obviously wouldn't want to go on a 3 week holiday to Aus and spend 2 of them in quarantine... DCs will be 3 and 1 so can't get them vaccinated but don't think unvaxxed under 5s will be an issue?

(I know it's madness to consider a 24 hour plane journey with a toddler and a preschooler but it's the only way we can see my sister so needs must!)

I wouldn’t want to this year due to potential covid restrictions (I work in travel) but then I don’t have family there. I would

Sorry posted too soon.

I would think you would need a substantial amount of extra time and money just in case

I'm planning on going early June for 3 weeks, I'm so hoping things don't change for the worse between now and then

We're hoping to fly out early part of May for six weeks. Having had 8 flights cancelled since April 2020, I've got everything crossed that it happens!

I read an article a couple of weeks ago that said that the main problem with Australian holidays right now is that all the hotels, beauty spots etc are packed with Australians holidaying at home- so you can’t get in anywhere.

My partner lives over there so I have a bit of an advantage of him knowing a lot of 'off the beaten track' type places

@Boood that doesn’t bother us too much as a) we’d be staying with my sister but also b) we’re going to Sydney in July so it’s not their season for beach holidays anyway.

My parents have just been over to visit family and they've had no problem, other than a hairy wait for PCR results for the way back as they're dropping like flies with Covid. (At least where they were - I can't speak for the whole of Oz!)

OP if this pandemic has taught me anything, it’s GO WHEN YOU CAN!

It’s tempting to wait until next year, surely things will be more normal then (etc) but by then another awful variant has come along and places are back in lockdown.

If the flights are transferable, given your ‘accomodation’ is flexible just go for it.

Sydney is stunning in June/July. My favourite time of year.

Agree with PP that bookings are nuts right now. your family should book cancellable short stay trips (Hunter valley, etc wherever) now. Booking.com mostly do free last minute cancellation and you can filter out air b n bs who have strict policies.

Do it. We have joined the rest of the world and COVID is endemic in
Aus now. I think it’s highly unlikely there will be further restrictions.