Australia for the first time: what surprises people, and what we would do differently

Australia is the size of the mainland United States, or of Europe without Russia. Sydney to Uluru is three hours in the air. Uluru to Cairns is often not a direct flight at all. A first-time itinerary built by someone who has not internalised that will contain five regions, seven flights and about six real days of Australia.

This is what surprises people, in the order in which it surprises them.

First, a word about how we run Australia

Our own offices are in Japan, Vietnam, India and the Philippines. Australia is not one of them. It runs through partners we have worked with for years: an operator in Sydney, reef operators in Cairns and Port Douglas we selected boat by boat, and ground people in the Northern Territory and Tasmania.

Australia and New Zealand sit furthest from our own footprint, and most Australia files we build are one of two things. Either they are the second half of an Asia trip, Japan or Vietnam or Singapore and then south, which is a genuinely good way to travel and splits an enormous flight into two survivable ones. Or they come from travellers who have already been somewhere with us and would rather have this one planned by someone who knows how they travel. We are comfortable with both. We would not claim more than that.

The surprises

The internal flights are the itinerary

This is the whole thing. In most countries the route is decided by what you want to see and transport follows. In Australia the route is decided by which legs exist on your dates, and the good days hang off that skeleton.

The leg that catches self-planners is Ayers Rock Airport to Cairns. A direct service exists in some seasons and some years and not in others. When it is not flying, the connection routes through Sydney or Brisbane and costs you most of a day and a chunk of money. Which way round you do Sydney, the centre and the reef is not a stylistic choice. It depends on what actually flies in the weeks you are travelling.

The rest of the flight rules we work to: no more than four internal flights in fourteen days, never a domestic flight on the day of the international departure, and full-service carriers rather than low-cost ones on any leg where a cancellation would cost you a booked reef day. More on the arithmetic in how many days do you need in Australia.

Two weeks is two or three regions, not five

Everyone arrives at this the hard way. Two weeks holds Sydney, the red centre and the reef, comfortably, with four flights. Three weeks holds four regions. Anybody selling you five regions in fourteen days is selling you airports.

The first thing we do with an Australia brief is subtract. It is the least popular part of the first phone call and the reason the trips work.

The sun is genuinely different

Visitors from Europe and North America underestimate this every single time. Ultraviolet levels in Australia are meaningfully higher than at comparable latitudes elsewhere, and burn times in summer are short enough to matter on a walk to lunch. Hat, long sleeves, high factor sunscreen reapplied through the day, and sunglasses. Australians treat this as ordinary rather than dramatic, which is a good guide to how seriously to take it.

The related surprise is the desert at night. Uluru in June and July is cold after dark, occasionally below freezing. People pack for a desert and shiver at the sunrise walk.

Biosecurity is real and it is enforced

The declaration card at the border is not a formality. Food, plant material, wooden items, seeds and anything that has been on a farm must be declared, and undeclared items attract genuine fines. Hiking boots with soil in the tread are a routine problem and inspections happen. Clean them before you fly. Declaring something costs you a conversation. Not declaring it can cost you several hundred dollars.

The wildlife is real too, and mostly not the wildlife you were worried about

The animals visitors fear are statistically almost irrelevant to their trip. The ones that matter are these.

Kangaroos and wombats on the road at dawn and dusk. A strike at speed is a serious accident, which is why most rental agreements restrict driving outside daylight hours in remote areas and why our itineraries are built to respect that.

Rip currents. The genuine risk on the surf coast, not sharks. Swim between the flags on a patrolled beach. If you are caught in one, it pulls you out rather than under, and you swim parallel to the beach rather than against it.

Stingers. Box jellyfish and Irukandji are present in tropical coastal waters roughly November to May, which is why swimming in the north in those months happens inside netted enclosures or in a full stinger suit on a boat.

Crocodiles. In the north, in rivers and estuaries and sometimes on beaches. Obey the signs absolutely. There is no judgement call to make here.

The distances on the road signs

Everything is metric. A sign saying 400 km means 250 miles and roughly four hours, and there may be one fuel stop in that stretch and no phone coverage at all. Phone signal disappears between towns in the centre and the north, which means route notes have to work offline and a breakdown plan cannot rely on calling someone.

Most standard hire car agreements also exclude unsealed roads, which rules out several routes that look like ordinary roads on a map.

The cities are further apart in character than in distance

Sydney is a harbour city that shows off, and it is right to. Melbourne is a food and coffee city that makes you come to it. Brisbane and Adelaide are easy and underrated. Hobart is small, cold and has one of the more interesting art museums anywhere. A first-time trip that treats them as interchangeable urban stops is missing the point, and a first-time trip that tries to visit all of them is missing the country.

The food is better and cheaper than expected

Casual eating in Australia is genuinely good and priced reasonably, the coffee is excellent almost everywhere, and tipping is not expected. The surprise runs in the pleasant direction. Where to spend the food budget is in what to eat and drink in Australia.

Uluru cannot be climbed, and that is not a loss

Climbing has not been permitted since October 2019, at the request of the Anangu traditional owners. Some first-time visitors arrive vaguely disappointed and leave understanding why. The base walk at dawn, around 6 miles (10 km) on the flat, the Valley of the Winds at Kata Tjuta and a guided day with an Anangu guide are all better than the climb ever was, and the last of those is the single thing most likely to change how you understand the place.

The reef is not uniformly what the photographs show

Parts of the Great Barrier Reef have been badly damaged by repeated bleaching events. Other parts are in good condition. The difference between a wonderful reef day and a disappointing one is almost entirely site and operator choice, and the price difference between them is under $150. This is the single most consequential decision on a first Australian trip and we have written it out separately in which Great Barrier Reef trip is worth the money.

What we would do differently on a first visit

1. Three regions, four flights, fourteen days. Sydney, the red centre, the reef. Ordered around what actually flies. This is Australia in 14 days.
2. Three nights at Uluru, not one. The most common upgrade we make to a draft.
3. Two reef-capable days, not one. Wind cancels boats.
4. A guided day with an Anangu guide in the centre, and a First Nations guided walk in Sydney or the Blue Mountains. The country reads differently afterwards.
5. A night in a gateway city before the flight home. Always.
6. Fly in via Asia. A stop in Japan, Vietnam or Singapore on the way splits a very long flight and makes the first three days in Australia something other than a recovery.

Entry, in one paragraph

Almost nobody enters Australia without pre-approved authorisation, and there is no meaningful visa on arrival for tourism. Two schemes cover most visitors, an Electronic Travel Authority and an eVisitor authorisation, and which one applies depends on your nationality. Both are electronic, both are linked to your passport, and both must exist before you board rather than when you land. The rules and the fees have changed more than once, so we confirm the current requirement, the current fee and the correct application route for your specific passport and travel dates, and we send you the official link rather than a copy of a rule that might be a year old.

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Keep reading

• Australia: the complete guide to planning your trip
• How many days do you need in Australia?
• Which Great Barrier Reef trip is worth the money
• What to eat and drink in Australia
• Classic Australia in 15 days
• All our Australia trips

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