When to go

Australia seasons are unknown to me but the important thing that I realized is that unlike school in the United States, there’s not just one summer break in Australia. There are multiple school breaks that made things really busy when traveling around. I would recommend avoiding them if you can.

Money

For the most part you can use your credit card in Australia. There were only a few times that we had to use cash. Even the Sydney Metro accepted directly using a card without having to use a transit card.

Food

The food in Australia was kind of meh. Sydney had some decent meals but outside of that in all of Queensland was super expensive and not very good. I would recommend trying to cook if you can.

Where I went

Hervey Bay

Hervey Bay is this town north of Brisbane that was super cute. It’s close to Fraiser Island. The Island itself is okay but there is a little bay where whales go to have their babies. I would recommend going in August as late September all the whales already had calves and we weren’t allowed to swim with them.

There’s also further south you can go kayak near or with dolphins but we didn’t get a chance to do it.

The drive up from Brisbane though is super long and I would recommend breaking it up with a visit to the Gold Coast or Sunshine Coast. We stopped at the Steve Irwin Zoo on the way to break up the day and the drive.

Port Douglas / Daintree

We fly into Cairns and did a quick drive up to Port Douglas area. We actually stayed in Mossman which was a nice in between spot between Port Douglas and Daintree. Port Douglas had all the major food though and the rest of the area was kind of meh for food. There’s lots of night life including bar trivia at Port Douglas too.

Port Douglas is actually a really nice spot to do Great Barrier Reef tours. I would actually recommend going diving if you can instead of just snorkeling.

Sydney

Sydney is super chill. I would highly recommend it at least for a few days. Sydney Opera House is gorgeous venues and I would recommend the tour but book in advance! They also have an architecture tour every few weeks too that if you’re lucky enough to get I would suggest.

The food there is a lot better than in Queensland and you can get some delicious meals here though expect to pay a lot still. Even bahn mi was kind of pricey.

The one thing I highly recommend in Sydney is that you go to Centennial Park during sunset. You can see all the birds hanging out and you can see the bats migrating out of the park. It’s super cool and one of my favorite things in Australia. You don’t get to see this many birds in most places.