Travel: Australia Trip Planning

Australia trip planning! 4 weeks on vacation is amazing – if you ever get the opportunity to take that amount of time off in a row, you should do it! We visited Southeast Asia a while back and spent 3 weeks fully immersing ourselves in the culture – so wonderful!

Oh, the photo below is a selfie I sent to Bryce just as I walked out of the office on the Friday afternoon to kick off our vacation. I hurried home to pack and shower, then we flew out around 6pm! So much excitement.

Okay, here I’ll share a few tips, some resources, and how we planned our time in Australia.

First, when it comes to trip planning, we like to stay busy. Bryce and I are go-go type people. Yes, a beach day or perhaps a half day is enough, but you won’t catch either of us on the beach for days and days. Even when we go camping we hike and paddleboard, which we both find relaxing.

Okay, onward to how the trip planning for Australia took place.

Australia Trip Planning

Plan Dates

One of the first things that we did was plan our dates – that was easy since we worked backwards from some no-go dates (like Christmas) and settled on November 18 – December 16, 4 full weeks, end to end.

Book Flights

Next, I set some flight trackers with Google Flights and booked a multi-city fare for us about 75 days out. We booked our outbound flight from Edmonton – Cairns (via Vancouver and Brisbane) and then Brisbane – Edmonton (via Vancouver) as our inbound flight to get us home in time for the holidays. Air Canada had the best price so we booked through them directly.

Rent a Car

After flights were set, we booked a rental car using our AirMiles for $10.50 Canadian. Wild, eh? We used around 11K points, but it was so worth it to have a rental for 3.5 weeks one way, getting us from Cairns to Brisbane.

Plan Activities

The part that comes next is the trickiest – putting togheter all the things you want to do in all the various locations you’ll be visiting. This process took about 7-10 days to finalize. Once we had a list (being sure to leave time for spontaneity) I had a good idea of where we wanted to stop on our 2000km drive from Cairns to Brisbane.

Book Accommodations

We planned to stop in 11 places, spending 2-3 nights in most, finishing with 4 in Brisbane. For some, this pace is too fast, or perhaps too slow, so it’s important to know how you like to travel and do what feels right to you. From there we booked accommodations and that’s it!

Administration

Lastly, take care of any administration items that are needed. Plan for vaccinations, medications, or travel documents. When travelling to Australia as a Canadian, you need an ETA – it’s quick and easy – step-by-step info is here, yet I suggest using the app.

All in all, that’s how we planned our 4 weeks in Australia. Searching for motels and places to stay is one of the trip planning aspects that I like the most – it’s fun to read reviews, check out photos, and then decide – yes, that’s where we’re going!

Photos

Over the next handful of months or so, I’ll share blog posts that are more focused on some of our activities, like the Great Barrier Reef, some hikes, and the zoo, as well as some of the places we ate and laid our heads. For now, though, I’ll share some photos of us on our trip.