How much does two weeks in Australia really cost?

Everything below is in US dollars, per person, based on two people sharing a room, and it is land only. It excludes international flights, because those depend entirely on where you start. It includes accommodation, food, ground transport within regions, entries, the reef and desert activities, and the guiding we would normally build in. Internal flights are shown separately, because they are large enough to deserve their own line.

The four anchors we price against

These are the same numbers used in our complete Australia guide, because the guide and the magazine should not contradict each other.

Multiply those by the length of the trip and you get the land cost:

Then add flights. On a fourteen day route with four internal legs, budget roughly $500 to $900 per person, depending on the carrier and how early we book. That range is not padding. Sydney to Ayers Rock Airport in a school holiday week, booked six weeks out, can cost more than three times the same seat booked in March for a Tuesday in May.

Where the money actually goes

Accommodation, the biggest single line

Planning ranges per room per night for two sharing, not quotes. Australian hotel pricing moves with the season, the school holidays and the day of the week, so we confirm live rates for your dates.

The Uluru line is the one that surprises people, and it is worth understanding why. Every bed near Uluru sits inside a single resort village at Yulara, inside the national park boundary zone. There is no cheaper town twenty minutes down the road, because there is no town. It is a captive market and it prices like one. Three nights there is still the right call, for reasons we set out in the red centre month by month.

Food, which is the good news

Australian casual eating is very good and reasonably priced, and the coffee is better than in most of Europe. Tipping is not expected, and menu prices include tax.

• Flat white and a pastry: $8 to $12
• Bakery lunch, a good pie or a sandwich: $10 to $16
• Cafe brunch, the national art form: $18 to $28
• Pub lunch with a beer: $28 to $40
• Casual dinner, a bistro or a Vietnamese or Greek place: $30 to $50
• Good restaurant dinner with wine: $80 to $140
• Serious tasting menu in Melbourne or Sydney: $180 to $320
• Bottle of decent Australian wine in a shop: $15 to $25

A realistic daily food budget for someone eating well is $65 to $90. You can eat very well at $50 by making lunch the main meal, which in Australia is easy: the best cafes are lunchtime businesses and the bakeries are genuinely excellent.

Internal flights, the line people forget

The spine of the trip. Planning ranges per person, one way, booked a few months ahead on a full-service carrier with bags included:

Two things drive that number. First, whether a direct service exists on your dates. The Uluru to Cairns leg runs seasonally and not every year, and when it does not, the connection goes through Sydney or Brisbane and costs you most of a day as well as more money. Second, the carrier. Low-cost carriers price bags separately and cancel more often, and on a leg where a cancellation would cost you a booked reef day or your flight home, we pay for the better airline and tell you why.

The activities that move the total

• Reef day, shared boat from Cairns: $130 to $190
• Reef day, small-group outer reef from Port Douglas: $230 to $330
• Introductory dive on top of a reef day: $80 to $140
• Uluru sunrise and base walk with an Anangu guide: $110 to $180
• Field of Light or a dinner under the stars at Yulara: $120 to $260
• Sydney Harbour, a half day on the water with a skipper: $90 to $160 per person in a small group
• Blue Mountains guided walking day: $150 to $250
• Great Ocean Road, two days with a driver-guide: $600 to $1,100 for the pair
• Scenic helicopter, reef or Uluru, 30 minutes: $180 to $350
• Tasmania, a guided day on the Tasman Peninsula or Freycinet: $180 to $300

The gap between the two reef lines is the single most consequential $150 in an Australian budget. We argue it out properly in which Great Barrier Reef trip is worth the money.

Three complete two-week budgets

Fourteen days, per person, two sharing, land only, with internal flights shown separately so you can see the shape.

The careful trip, about $3,080 land plus $560 in flights

Sydney in an apartment hotel, three nights at Yulara in a mid-range room, four nights in Port Douglas with a hire car, a shared reef day, self-guided walking, and eating from bakeries, cafes and one good dinner a week.

The compromises here are in the rooms and in the boats, not in what you see. This is close to Australia in 14 days with the private days stripped out.

The comfortable trip, about $4,760 land plus $700 in flights

Four star hotels with one harbour-view night in Sydney, a good Yulara room, a small-group outer reef day out of Port Douglas, a guided sunrise at Uluru, a guided Blue Mountains day, and dinners booked rather than improvised.

This is the most common shape of Australia trip we build and the one we would choose for a first visit.

The boutique trip, about $7,280 land plus $860 in flights

Design hotels in the cities, two nights at a desert lodge instead of Yulara, a reef island or a private charter rather than a day boat, private guiding on four days, and a night in a gateway city before the flight home.

See boutique Australia in 13 days for what that looks like day by day.

What moves the number most

1. The month. December and January are school holidays and high summer on the coast. Accommodation rises sharply everywhere, and the red centre becomes a place you cannot walk in after breakfast. The shoulder months are cheaper and better.
2. How many regions. Every extra region is a flight, a hotel change and a lost half day. Cutting from four regions to three usually saves more than downgrading every hotel.
3. The reef day and the desert room. These two lines swing several hundred dollars each, in both directions, and they are the two where paying more actually buys something.
4. Which carrier. The difference between a low-cost fare with bags added and a full-service fare with a same-day rebooking option is often under $60 a leg, and it is the cheapest insurance against a lost day.

What we would not spend money on

The long-distance trains are experiences rather than transport, and bolting one onto a two week trip usually costs a day and several hundred dollars for a leg a flight covers in three hours. A helicopter over Uluru is spectacular and it is not better than the base walk at dawn. And a fifth region does not make a trip better. More on all three in what we would skip in Australia.

Plan this trip

Tell us your dates, the rough budget you have in mind and which of the regions matter most, and your named specialist will build a first outline with real hotels, real flight numbers and real reef operators. Free, and with no obligation.

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Keep reading

• Australia: the complete guide to planning your trip
• Which Great Barrier Reef trip is worth the money
• How many days do you need in Australia?
• Australia month by month, starting with the red centre
• Australia in 14 days
• All our Australia trips

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