Australia 2022

[Emlemily]

Firstly is this even likely to be possible in October 2022?

We're planning on a 3.5 week trip to Oz in October 2022. This is going to be a once in a lifetime trip. I had cancer last year and my critical illness plan paid out a nice little lump sum and I've always wanted to go to Australia so I want to use some of the money for a really special trip. We've had a travel consultant pice up an itinerary for us which comes in at around £7.5k. It's a lot of money and I want to make sure that I get my money's worth iykwim. DH won't hire a car and has an aversion to driving overseas so we need to fly between cities. Any critique of our plan is welcome! We've not booked yet so want to make sure it's as good as it can be. Any suggestions for places to go in each destination would be great too.

The plan we've come up with is this:

Fly into Adelaide. I have family there so we'd spend 4 nights in the city.
Fly to Alice Springs for 2 nights then onto Uluru for 2 nights
Fly to Cairns for 4 nights
Fly to Brisbane - 4 nights
Fly to Sydney. Meet up with friends and stay 4 nights
Fly to Melbourne stay 3 nights
Fly home from Melbourne

The price we've been quoted includes all accommodation in 4 star hotels and apartments and all international and domestic flights.

I’m Australian and as you will know we are very protective of our borders. Anything in 2022 is still a bit questionable. The main issue is all the states have control over their own borders so you’re at risk of your plans being thrown into disarray if a state has a case and declares a snap lockdown. I really, really hope we will be past that stage by next year but worth mentioning.

As to your itinerary your DH is on the right track, distances are vast here and if you hired a car you’d spend your whole trip on the road.

I think 4 nights is too many in Adelaide unless you are super close to your family. It’s not very big or interesting. If you like wine you could go to the Barossa Valley which is nice.

Cairns is a big yuck in my opinion, we’ve only ever stayed there for one night if we had an early morning flight. I’d go a bit further north (an hours drive) and stay at Port Douglas. From there you can access the reef and the rainforest and it’s a gorgeous place.

I would skip Brisbane altogether. Either add some more days onto other legs of your journey (another day in Port Douglas and definitely another day in Melbourne) or go to the Sunshine Coast instead which is north of Brisbane. There’s an airport there. You could stay in Noosa which is lovely. Lots to do, nice restaurants, very friendly.

4 nights in Sydney is ok if you don’t mind a packed itinerary. If you add a day you could go to the Blue Mountains for some spectacular Australian scenery, well worth it.

I’d maybe try to do an extra night in Melbourne if you can. It depends on the kind of holiday you want. Great for eating out, coffee in little laneways etc. Not as many beautiful things to look at as Sydney (can you tell I’m from Sydney haha?)

Hope this helps!

Thanks Remaker that's really helpful. I've not booked yet as still a bit wary that covid will still be giving up problems next year as well, although I hope not. The company we're planning on booing with do give a covid guarantee so the holiday can be moved of needs be.

Is it possible to fly to Port Douglas as that does sound like it might be nicer than Cairns. We quite fancy a few relaxing days by a beach at some point so maybe that could be there. I really want to see kangaroos and koalas somewhere on the trip too, so anywhere recommendations for places I can do that would be fab!

I'm not super-close to my family in Adelaide, in fact the last time I met them was probably 30+ years ago when they came to the UK and I was a child. So we probably can chop a day off Adelaide and add it onto Sydney instead.

Cairns is a bit of a let down if I’m honest. Our saving grace was arranging a trip to lizard island. Got chatting to a tour organising guy in a shop over a beer and he told us all about the mass produced trips to the reef. He explained a lot of the reef is dead now due to the numbers on these so called cruises. If you do cairns do something like a trip to lizard island and may be only stay 2 nights instead of 4.

I agree with Port Douglas too.

I’d only do 3 days in Adelaide if all you are doing is seeing family but that said, do you really want to go? A big part of what’s you’ve listed involves massive amounts of flying time. Factor in checking in and out of hotels, transfers to the airport. Checking in and out at the airport etc etc, it’s a massive part of your trip.

As an example

Adelaide or Alice Springs to Cairn is 6 hours
Adelaide to Alice Springs is 2 hours
Cairns to Brisbane is just over 2 hours

I’d give an extra day each to Sydney and Melbourne.

What’s the breakdown of the 7.5k?

Sorry, you’ve given a breakdown of the costs. Have you shopped around or played around with booking sites yourself?

We had a month long trip to Australia several years back - fascinating place and we're hoping to go back next year - having postponed from 2020.

It's a shame your DH is so opposed to driving - we drove up the east coats from Sydney to Townsville, stopping off in Port Macquarie, Byron Bay, Airlie Beach amongst other places - taking boats out to the Great barrier Reef, Magnetic Island etc. Could you get your DH to re-think and say drive some of the way along the coast ? Could you do the driving? It was a very easy drive. By just sticking to the cities, you will be missing out on a lot that makes Australia Australia if you see what I mean. I personally couldn't face 7 flights in 23 days. Could you do some of it by train? Actually this is my biggest critique of your trip - too much time in airports!

As for suggestions for places to go...

Alice Springs - went to a fantastic night sky trip - lots of telescopes and a very informative guide.
Melbourne - Phillip's Island Penguins - fun trip with Little Penguin centre. Not sure how you'd get there from Melbourne, we drove ? coach trip
Also from Melbourne - we took a few days driving along the Great Ocean Rd - looking at the '12' Apostles rock formations - although some have collapsed since we were there. We stayed in Port Campbell.

Sydney -loads of things to do
a ferry boat out along the harbour - saw lots of dolphins
Sydney bridge climb - not for me, but DP really enjoyed it
Bus out to Bondi beach - bit of a disappointment as it's a very small bay, but certainly an iconic location

Brisbane - I really liked Brisbane - small city, easy to walk around. Think we stayed 2 nights before moving on to Noosa which is lovely.

You really can't go to the east coast of Australia and not see the Great Barrier Reef - we went from Airlie beach. Was a wonderful day , long but amazing. we went swimming over the Reef - DP went SCUBA diving.

Sorry this is a bit disjointed. We booked through Trail Finders and they were very good. We've also booked our 2020 / 2022 trip with them to the west coast and North and have been very good about postponing and re-booking.

Sorry cross posted with Crook - whatever you do, given the current COVID situation, don't book anything fundamental yourself. Do it all through an ABTA agent. It will then be classed as a package trip and if one section can't happen, eg Victoria has a lockdown, but Queensland is still open, you can postpone / cancel without financial penalty

Make sure you get top notch travel insurance that will cover you if you can't go due to anything including coronavirus.

Adelaide, Cairns and Brisbane will be a bit boring. Except if you go for a scuba dive or snorkelling trip in the great barrier reef then Cairns is worthwhile. Gold Coast would be better to visit than Brisbane, it's got all the ritzy tourist attractions including theme parks.

Consider coming to Canberra. We've got lots of tourist and cultural attractions, and lots of nature. If you like hiking we have loads just south in Tidbinbilla national park, lots of nature reserves in town where you'd nearly guarantee kangaroos if you go at dawn or dusk, plus the zoo has a wallaby and pademelon walk-through and patting area in case you miss out on seeing them in the reserves. It is worth a day trip at least to maybe see some museums and Parliament House. Flights from Canberra to Sydney are very short (less than 1 hr flying) and cheap,

Tasmania is a good call. One part of Oz I’ve not visited or lived in.

We're going to be booking with Freedom Australia and they are ABTA bonded so that's all ok. Will buy travel insurance as soon as the trip is booked.

You've all given me food for thought. I hadn't really given much thought to the time spent in airports, but DPotter I think you're right, looking at it it does seem a lot of wasted time when we could be doing other things. I'll need to work on DH to hire a car. He's adamant a holiday shouldn't involve driving but I've said I'll do it as I think it would be nice to do a leisurely drive perhaps from Brisbane to Sydney. Our friends are in Newcastle so that would be a good stopover for a couple of nights (and would save on hotel bills!)

The problem is absolutely no one can say with any certainty if 2022 is going to be feasible at this point. But god do I hope so and going the travel agent route with such a big trip, even if you could share a thousand or two off by doing it yourself is probably the way to go from a protection point of view.

I’d agree Brisbane with @Remaker that Brisbane is skippable (i just found it a bit boring!). Hiring a car and seeing Townsville & Magnetic Island would be good - both made far more of an impression on me than Cairns which was a bit over rated. Sydney is great!

I wouldn't drive Sydney to Brisbane, that's like a 10 hour drive even if you go inland. Along the coast (where there is actually something to look at) is even longer. In the UK there are towns and villages every 2 minutes but in Aus all you're going to see is dead grass in paddocks and lots of sheep and cows, and only go through towns like every hour or two. Also you don't want to have a car in Sydney, parking is difficult and expensive. The public transport is pretty good.

Also if you're planning to go any further north than Brisbane, it is tropical and you might start to suffer from the heat and humidity since you're used to UK weather. So keep that in mind when you're planning lots of outdoor activities (if they don't involve swimming, you wouldn't want to be outside all day).

I agree would not recommend driving Sydney to Brisbane unless you want to spend a week doing a road trip and staying at various places along the way. If you drive straight through it’s just a motorway with zero scenery.

Agree with the suggestion of Tasmania and you will see lots of wildlife there! It’s a good place to have car as distances are short and public transport poor.

I’d consider Adelaide, Alice Springs/Uluru, Port Douglas, Sydney, Tasmania, Melbourne.

There’s no airport at Port Douglas, you need to fly to Cairns and then drive. Hiring a car wouldn’t be a bad idea there are you can drive up to Mosman Gorge which is stunning. But most accommodation providers will offer mini bus transfers from Cairns airport. And then there are tours to the reef and the rainforest. If you stay close to the centre of town you can access everything on foot.

If you’re interested in Tasmania have a look at Cradle Mountain, Wineglass Bay, Gordon River. So much stunning scenery.

Ive been to australia a few times and I personally couldn't be bothered to get so many planes in a short period of time because once you're there you want to avoid a plane for a while....could just be me.....

you dont need to fly everywhere... have you considered Adelaide - uluru - alice springs via train - the Ghan is an amazing experience (esp considering this is a once in a life time trip). October will be warming up inland so i think this is a great way to see the outback in airconditioned comfort.
I love Adelaide so I am biased but yeah a couple of days unless your family are going to take you touring to barossa, mclaren vale or Adelaide hills. Have you considered a couple of days on kangaroo island? coaches go from city to ferry and run tours round the island - a lot of the island was burnt last year (like much of us) but its an amazing place and good use of 2/3 days is SA and amazing wildlife experiences.
Cairns is the main city in the tropical north - i love it and don't get the hate above - its a great jumping off point for reef/ daintree tours - port douglas and the beaches between are lovely. Brisbane is ok - again id look at train travel thru Qld - could be a great way to see the country.
obvs syd and melb are popular for a reason (not my bag personally but sure it will be fab)
Tassie is amazing - but could do a month alone on tas!
fingers crossed travel will be normal in 2022!

spirit of Queensland train runs Cairns - Brisbane. a lot of it via the coast and can do a hop on hop off ticket, staying a few nights along the way. this is what I would do (prob will in a couple of years)

Adl - uluru - alice via the Ghan
fly alice - cairns
cairns - bris via spirit of Queensland train stopping Whitsundays and fraser coast along the way.

I'm way to invested in your trip planning....

I did a month in Australia a year ago. When I arrived the jet lag knocked me out for a couple of days, so you might want to work out where you want to “arrive” to recover. Driving is easy - same side of the road, quiet roads outside of the cities. We drove Sydney - Melbourne, stopping where we fancied and booking accommodation as we went along, for a few days. Philip island (close to Melbourne) and the Great Ocean Road (which we did the whole length of in a day as that’s all we had left: don’t do this!) worth it alone to hire a car.

One thing to consider: cities are cities in much of the world (ok, Sydney’s setting is beautiful) but I found out of the city was more interesting to find out about places. Our few days in Tasmania (included devils, Hobart, Port Arthur and wineglass Bay Area) were amazing.

It’s big. And empty. We did Cairns (Port Douglas), Sydney, Sydney-Melbourne (via Canberra), Tasmania, Melbourne in the month there and that was a tiny bit of the landmass. Port Douglass (rainforest and reef) and Tasmania my favourites.

Oh and yes to the blue mountains.

If the tour companies survive COVID, there are bus tours to Phillip Island and along the Great Ocean Road that leave from the Melbourne CBD. Also tours to the Yarra Valley ( wine country) and the Dandenongs ( beautiful mountain range not far away).
If your husband doesn’t want to drive check out all the Australian tours on Viator for day trips from the cities.

I can't comment on the border situation, only that I hope it's sorted out by this year, let alone next year!!

That's a good itinerary but is a lot of 'bouncing around'.

For example, unless you specifically want to go to Alice Springs, you can fly from Adelaide to AYQ airport which is near to Uluru and the hotel/accommodation complex there. No need to do the double shuffle with Alice Springs unless you specifically want to.

I'd also be tempted to merge the Cairns/Brisbane durations and make it a week in Far North Queensland - Magnetic Island, Port Douglas, Daintree etc. There's nothing wrong with Brisbane, but it's not really a 'destination' for seeing anything out of the ordinary - unless you use it as a base to explore around the area more widely.

Maybe add a day to the Melbourne leg as well... depends on what you want to see and do exactly. If you want to go out of the city, there's plenty to do (Philip Island, Great Ocean Road etc).

You don't have to drive but if you want to get out of the cities, you need to really, otherwise you are just waiting for public transport - unless you look at some tours of course. Driving here isn't much different to the UK, there are some different rules/quirks but most of all, just be vigilant!

My mistake, doesn't look like you can fly Adelaide to Uluru - which is probably why the travel agent has sent you via Alice! Just be warned Alice and Uluru are a 5hr drive apart (nothing here is close!).

If you can get here, I'll take you to lunch at my favourite restaurant, Chin Chin. It's so Melbourne and something else - you'll love it

Used to live in Aus so ask me anything!
Everyone is right, fly to Cairns and you can get a shared transfer (small mini bus) to Port Douglas - gorgeous drive and PD is beautiful. Great restaurants and people. Can visit the Daintree rainforest and Great Barrier Reef from there too. If you need hotel recommendations feel free to dm me - I'm a big fan of that region!
Alice Springs - controversial but there isn't heaps to do there, I would just go to Uluru, see Uluru at sunrise or sunset, do the outdoor eating experience and see Kata Tjuta, Brisbane isn't terribly exciting either but I guess it depends what you are into?
Sydney and Melbourne are great places, if you want to keep costs low there are free walking tours in both.

In terms of borders, check your tour operators flexible booking policy. Will you be able to postpone or receive a full refund? Read the small print and check their trust pilot reviews for how they have treated others during this time.

Hope this is helpful!

What other things do you want to do?

You've said kangaroos, koalas, and beach.

Are you more interested in cultural stuff, or adrenaline activities, or scenic walks... Australia has all of these things and to make best use of your time figure out what you want to do rather than where you want to go IYSWIM.

2 recommendations from a very long time ago when I was there, overnight bivvi in the outback (no tents) and I was going to say Dunk Island but a quick Google suggests that's not possible anymore.

Skip Brisbane. Skip alice springs too can’t believe nobody has said that. Cairns is disappointing but lots of fab trips you can do from there. Port Douglas much nicer but doesn’t have its own airport. Not sure how you’d get there without a car, we did though just can’t remember how! Think a shuttle bus from cairns airport?

I really liked Melbourne and went on a lovely 2 day tour of the vineyards and great ocean road.

As a suggested ad on I did a 3 day camping tour around Kakadu NP which was fab. But Darwin is a dump.