Australia for 3 weeks in June/July is £10000 enough?

[Holidayfitness]

I went to Australia for a year 20 years ago and DH and 2 DC (teens) are keen to experience it. I've found flights to Melbourne with an internal transfer from Sydney to Cairns and then from Cairns back to London. I've priced up car hire and airbnbs in Melbourne/Sydney and Cairns and it's all come to around £8-£8,500. Is it realistic to think we could keep food (will only eat out a few times) and trips can be kept within £2k?

I wouldn’t have thought so. I’d budget at least £250 a day for 4 people. I think you need double what you propose and that won’t be generous.

For four people for three weeks? Not a chance. If my sums are right, that's less than £25 per person per day. You probably need to double it at least.

I don't think you're that far off if you're happy to self cater in the Air B&B

I think go another time when you have time to plan and save accordingly. It would be a once in a lifetime trip for us and I would want the Gan, Murray River. Tassie, drive around in a camper etc. my boss did it for his honeymoon and even staying with friends for two weeks it cost more than that.

Edit - plus that's low season, winter in effect so a lot of outdoor stuff would be ruled out. October November time would be better, December the prices are way high.

I think it'll be tight to be honest. That breaks down at under £100 a day - depending on what activities you do it could be eaten up by that 😬

I went last summer, same time and similar cities. I ended up spending an average of £120 a day on souvenirs, food (we ate out 1x a day but stuff like bakeries/cafes, and made breakfast/dinner from groceries in the Airbnb), fuel, admission to activities and incidentals. That was only me & DS who is 5, and included a few days of 'downtime' where we spent very little.

Thanks everyone I had a feeling that might be the case. We can probably stretch to another £2-3k as we have plenty of time to save - plan is for 2026. The kids are finishing exams so we wanted to do something special as we are unlikely to get 3 weeks together again. The other option is interrailing for 3 weeks which is cheaper but still pricey.

Very tight and will mean that you wouldn't be able to do many excursions that said if you are willing to cook and make picnics you could bring it in close

Well it depends what you want to do. But if you are staying in airbnbs with kitchens and happy to largely self cater and don't feel the need to do too many expensive tours/activities then I would have thought it was more than doable.

If I were you I would price up some key activities/tours that you wouldn't want to miss out on and then it should be pretty obvious. Personally I'd be more than happy doing quite a lot of self catering somewhere like Australia if you are an ok kitchen, are near food shops, and are not moving on to often. I certainly wouldn't let the need to self cater stop you doing the trip. But if there are activities that you feel you'd need to make the trip worthwhile then that is different.

I’m in Aus, you’d need a bigger budget, but what about hiring a juicy camper van (or similar) and driving instead of internal flights? You’d see so much of the “real” Aus and save a fortune. I think personally I’d avoid Melbourne and fly to Sydney, then hire a camper from there and drive up to cairns? Or even avoid Sydney and fly to Brisbane instead?

For reference; last year husband and I took a year off work and traveled around the entire country with our caravan…along with 3 teens and a toddler. We spent just under $10k (so approx £5000) on fuel (20,000kms while towing a 3.5tonne caravan), all food (two of our teenagers are super hungry boys), campsites, days out and everything else, including cell phone bills, Starlink internet. That was doing a loop of the whole of Australia, so you’d be able to do part of the east coast for a lot less than that.

Enjoy and feel free to message if you have any questions. I know camping and living like a backpacker isn’t for everyone, but the memories made and freedom is just something else. I miss it and would do the lap again in a heartbeat…or indefinitely!

I would do a meal plan for the three weeks including the meals out and see what that comes to and then see what's left. If you're savvy and do mostly self catered, simple - cereal for breakfast, packed lunches etc you can clearly see how much is left for activities.

Don't mean to sound blunt, but for a once in a lifetime trip like that I couldn't scrimp and overly worry about the spending budget. I wouldn't go absolutely mad either, but I'd have more than enough to not worry and be able to do unplanned things because I could.

Save, save, save. Kids get holiday or Saturday jobs if they can, economise at home and go away with a big pot of spending money. It's the only way for a trip like that IMV.

I think it's doable! Are you sure car hire and Airbnb's will cost that much? Car hire is cheaper in Australia than the UK. When we hire a car in Melbourne we can usually get a week for about $300-500. That's 150-250 pounds. You could go to some cute coastal places in Victoria and the YHAs are reasonable and actually really nice places to stay. Don't know about NSW. I would definitely be able to holiday for less than that.

Oh wait I've just seen that it's in June /July. You probably might not want to spend too much time in Victoria as it's the middle of Winter, unless you go to Phillip island and go whale watching or something.

I wouldn't want to spend £8.5k getting to a place, just to scrimp when I get there and not be able to do/see everything. You could have a hell of a trip to a different destination for that budget.

We have family there and normally we spend more than 10k for the 4 of us for 3 weeks with no accomodation costs. You've got some bargain flights there!

I was rounding up for airbnb costs and car hire and basing it on Sydney prices so we could probably get it cheaper.
I would love to do a campervan with DH but the teens are very city focussed so Sydney and Melbourne are a must. To be fair I mostly lived in Sydney when I was there so would love to revisit.
Thanks all I'll do a bit more research. We've done a fairly big holiday this year as well which is why the budget is more limited.

Do you have to do that time of year? It really is the worse for aus!!
(I live here)

Have you budgeted for petrol and insurance?

Flights are pretty cheap if you book early for domestic travel. Ours were about £45 each way to various places from Sydney

Wrong time of year as others have said. I imagine it will be much more expensive in season.

It's been decades since I went to Oz (solo) but I do regret missing Sydney and the North East. Obviously can't do everything.Went to Melbourne (friends there, was underwhelmed - sorry any Melbourne MN ers) and Tassie - hired a VW and drove around- then took the Ghan up to Alice.

A camper van adventure combined with self catering sounds like fun and would trim costs. Depends on the temperament of your children though I guess.

It's the only chance we will get to go for more than two weeks, I also hate the heat so I'm not too worried about it being colder.
We would only hire a car from Sydney to Melbourne and would use public transport to get around with one internal flight so petrol costs would be minimal.
We already have travel insurance so that's covered.

I don't think it is the wrong time of year at all if you are spending time in the North. We went in July/August and did Sydney/Alice Springs/Darwin/Cairns and back along coast to Sydney. Sydney weather was a bit English summer like. Rest of it was perfect and would have been far too hot in their summer.

I liked Melbourne when I went last time. I think a 2 bed apartment will give us more chance to get some space from each other! I mainly want to go back to Phillip Island though.

I went in November and the weather in Melbourne and Tasmania was rainy (Tasmania was very windy and nearly blew me off the road in my tin can of a car) and overcast.Alice was hot though.

I really enjoyed the ferry ride to and from Tasmania as well as the island itself.

Anyway enough of that! OP have a lovely trip! S/c sounds like a good plan.

I imagine Darwin/Cairns will get exceptionally humid in the summer, so scrub my input about the 'wrong' season!