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How to get around Australia

cheap domestic flights

There are many different way to get around Australia, from camper vans to rental cars to domestic flights, below is a selection of transport options that you can book online to be waiting for you on arrival in Australia...
You can rent a car, hire a camper van or find some cheap domestic flights to get around Australia...

Around Australia by plane

Australia is an absolutely huge country and a lot of people do not realize how huge until they start driving.
If you're on a three week holiday and want to see a few different corners of the country then you don't have the time to do it by road like the backpackers that come for a year, and you will no doubt catch a few internal flights. You miss the scenery along the way but it is a good way to get across this ginormous continent fast and comfortable.

 

The main domestic airlines are Virgin Blue, Jetstar and Qantas, you can either go to their websites to find your flight, or you can simply type your destination and flight dates in the Jetabroad searchbox below and see all the options and prices of available flights and airlines next to eachother to make a comparison and book the best deal.

 

Jetabroad is a Sydney based travel company, offering cheap domestic airfares in Australia, as well as other flights from anywhere to anywhere else in the world on more than 450 airlines.
Their four step booking process is simple and quick and they continuously update airline information - so you won't be quoted a price for a seat if the airline says it's not available.

 

 

 

Student Travel Australia also has some great deals on domestic flights, and you don't necessarily have to be a student to enjoy cheap airfares !

cheap domestic flights

 

 

Flight Centre guarantees they have the cheapest flights, and if you can find a cheaper flight elsewhere they will beat it!

Flight Centre - Australia's #1 Travel Agency

Fly in comfort with Qantas, THE Australian airline !

qantas airfares to australia

 

 

Directflights.com.au is a great site to find cheap domestic flights around Australia and holiday packages too.

Direct Flights

 

 

ZUJI is a well established online travel agency that has offices throughout the Asia Pacific region. Booking with them gives you a choice of more than 400 airlines and 60,000 hotels!

 

 

 

 

A handy guide to the main Australian airports:
Airport:
Airport Website:
Distance to City:
Time to City:
Transfer to hotel:

Adelaide

7 km

15 min

 

Alice Springs

17 km

20 min

Book here

Brisbane

13 km

25 min

Book here

Cairns

6 km

10 min

Book here

Canberra

7 km

15 min

 

Darwin

12 km

15 min

 

Hobart

22 km

20 min

 

Melbourne

20 km

35 min

Book here

Perth

20 km

30 min

 

Sydney

10 km

35 min

Book here

 

Around Australia by camper van

Australia is the perfect country to travel with a camper van! Wide open roads, countless beautiful spots to pull over and camp, the freedom to go where and when you want, it is no wonder so many Aussies on retirement buy themselves a mobile home and spend years going around the country.
Nothing beats finding your own camping spot in the wild, having a cold beer admiring a wildly coloured outback sunset and a dinner cooked on the campfire under the magnificent starry skies.

Apollo Camper

 

budget camper vans budget campervan hire

 

Exploring Australia is a breeze with Cheapa Campa. With a full range of rental campers & motorhomes at fantastic prices Cheapa Campa allows you to travel in comfort on any budget.

Cheapa Campa Australia

Budget Backpacker Campervan & Motorhome Rentals. Hippie Camper is an Australian family owned and run company specialising in low cost campervan rentals for the budget conscious traveller. We started in 2006 and currently have four branches on the east coast of Australia from Cairns to Melbourne.

Hippie Camper AU

 

See our page Campervan hire in Australia for more useful info and links on renting a camper or RV in Australia

Around Australia by rental car

There is a wide choice of car rental companies where you can book your car or campervan online to be assured of a car on your arrival in Sydney , and most offer one way rentals between major cities. Nothing beats the freedom of having your own car to explore and stop when and where you want.

 

 

RentNewCars.com.au is an Australian company that exclusively distributes Europcar & Thrifty's Australian fleet of 16,000 new vehicles and offers access to over 200 locations around Australia via the RentNewCars web site.

Cheap Car Hire Australia

 

Budget Car Hire needs little introduction, the name says it all: car hire at Budget Prices with a car hire company with an international reputation, and this sites makes it even easier to find yourself a cheap hire car, or anything else with wheels: trucks,buses, campervans, utes, four wheel drives etc.

click here for budget car rental

 

Thrifty Car Rental is another international car hire business with a reputation for cheap rental cars.

click here for budget rental cars

 


Live in the UK? Use a local well known business and book your car through Ebookers:

cheap car hire

Buy a car

If you are staying in Australia for a long time then it may be worth your while to buy a car and sell it again when you have made your way around the country. Check out notice boards at backpackers hostels and the local Saturday papers. In the bigger cities there are often designated backpacker car markets, organized by councils who got tired of backpackers hanging out on the streets taking up valuable car parking spaces. Be sure to get up to date with government regulations first, don't buy a car that you later can not get registered.
Find your car online here at Carsguide.com.au

 

Around Australia by tour-bus

on border of queensland and northern territory
Photo by Rob Lapaer of Rainforest Hideaway B&B, Cape Tribulation, N.Qld.
Halfway between Cairns and Darwin in the Gulf of Carpenteria

Instead of traveling from A to B on some boring coach or plane and then booking a tour again on arrival, why not combine them! There are many tours that will take you on one-way trips around Australia, stopping regularly to enjoy the sights, spend the nights camping in the bush under magnificent starry skies or outback pubs, make friends along the way and actually enjoy getting from A to B !

Adelaide to Melbourne - in 3days / 2 nights you'll get from Adelaide to Melbourne and see Mt. Gambier, the Grampians, the Great Ocean Road, Geelong, Ballarat and get dropped off at Melbourne airport or city. More info....
For the wine lovers there is another trip that takes a slightly different route and takes in the Coonawarra wine region. More info....

 

Sydney to Byron Bay or the other way:

 

Adelaide to Alice Springs:

on the way from adelaide, south australia, to alice springs, northern territory
Photo by Rob Lapaer of Rainforest Hideaway B&B, Cape Tribulation, N.Qld.
A rare event, rain in the desert and a boggedGroovy Grape bus between William Creek and Coober Pedy

Groovy Grape does a great ten day trip from Adelaide to Alice Springs that includes the Flinders Ranges, William Creek, Coober Pedy, Ayers Rock, the Olgas and Kings Canyon. Contact via email

on the way from adelaide, south australia, to alice springs, northern territory
Photo by Rob Lapaer of Rainforest Hideaway B&B, Cape Tribulation, N.Qld.
The Cool Croc bus on the Queensland/Northern Territory border

More long distance one-way bus trips...

Around Australia by horse

horse riding in australia

Havehorsewilltravel.com.au is a great Australian BYO Horse Travel Website to find out the latest on where to stop, where to stay, trails to ride and events to attend. Whether you want to cover some miles, or just get away for a holiday with your horse.

Around Australia by ship

Cruisedirect has a choice of cruises, either along the Australian east coast or from New Zealand to Australia:

cruises in australia

Spirit of Tasmania have now doubled the ships, doubled the crossings and doubled the convenience! With two ships you are able to sail to or from Tassie overnight - every night!
Spirit of Tasmania I and II give you all the fun, excitement and romance of sea travel, so crossing Bass Strait will be one of the highlights of your trip. Feel your holiday start the moment you step on board as you sit back, relax and watch the waves roll by, or take advantage of all the great facilities on board.

spirit of tasmania

What's more, you can take your standard-sized car across Bass Strait for only $61.- each way.
Just think of the freedom you will have - and the money you will save - by taking your own car on holiday with you. You can tour Tasmania or the mainland at your own pace, discovering your own secret corners along the way. It also makes packing easy, as you can take as much as you like: just load up your car with extra suitcases, fishing rods, golf clubs - you name it! More info...

Around Australia by motorbike

motorbike around australia
Photo by Rob Lapaer of Rainforest Hideaway B&B, Cape Tribulation, N.Qld

Australia is a perfect country for motorbikes with its long, wide open roads and beautiful scenery. Dependent on what you want to see you'll have to choose your type of bike, the Harley pictured above may look cool but is not very suitable for exploring the more remote regions. Also you'll have to decide whether to buy or rent or join a tour. Bikeroundoz.com is a good place to start planning your adventure.

 


Photo by Cape York Motorcucle Adventures

For a really remote adventure try Cape York, one of the world's last remaining wilderness areas. See the Cape York Motorcylce Adventures website for more info...

Around Australia with a caravan

Traveling with a caravan? Check out www.froggyswebs.com for some info and photos on caravanning

Around Australia by bicycle

This mode of traveling only appeals to a few, due to the enormous distances and the fact that Australian roads and drivers are not very bike-friendly. In outback areas you may find that sometimes there is more than 200 km. between road houses, temperatures are in the high thirties, cattle stations are unfenced and scrub bulls can be unpredictable and a fair bit of (head) wind can blow a well. On the east coast distances between towns are smaller but there are more cars and trucks to dodge. Nevertheless when you travel around Australia you are bound to see cyclists in the most remote areas battling on through heat and distance. Enough seem to do it to make it worthwile for Lonely Planet to publish a special travel guide for cyclists;

 

Around Australia by camel

camel safari outback australia
Photo courtesy of Austcamel.com.au

A few years ago a friend of mine was going around Oz and in Adelaide met a couple who was going around the country on camels. He decided to team up with them for the Nullarbor leg. By car this is a lenghty drive but on the camels it took them THREE MONTHS to get from Adelaide to Norseman!

This would be a bit too much for most people but you'll be pleased to know there are four day desert tours on camels that you can book online. More info....

Hitch-hiking around Australia

hitch hiking australia
Photo by Rob Lapaer of Rainforest Hideaway B&B, Cape Tribulation, N.Qld.

In the early 1990s hitch-hiking around Australia lost popularity when throughout 1992 and 1993 police kept finding bodies of European tourists in the Belanglo State Forest near Berrima, New South Wales. A total of seven bodies was dug up and Ivan Milat was arrested and charged with their murders and was locked away for probably the remainder of his life. After this the tradition of hitch-hiking has never recovered again, and it might even be illegal now, we'll do some research into this and let you know.

Around Australia by cargo ship

From Cairns you can go up the eastcoast to the top of Cape York and back on a cargo ship that supplies remote coastal communities, it departs once a week and takes about two days for each journey, can also be done as a one-way when you fly the other way. Popular with four wheel drivers that only drive the rough 1000 kms to the top once and then put the truck on the ship for the return journey. Sea Swift’s flagship vessel, the MV Trinity Bay, carries up to thirty eight passengers per week on it's voyage from Cairns to Cape York, including stops at Horn Island, Thursday Island and Bamaga. More info....

Around Australia by kayak

American Eric Stiller and Aussie Tony Brown attempted for three months to kayak the 10,000 miles around Australia in a 17-foot-long kayak. Their plan was to just' Keep Australia on your left' , which is also the title of the book they wrote on their experiences. When later interviewed Eric Stiller said: "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Around Australia by mail-plane

From Cairns you can join the postie in his plane for an awesome flight all over the remote Cape York peninsula. More info....

Around Australia by taxi

taxi in western australia

A taxi is not normally the most economical, or fun way, to go around Australia. In normal circumstances you'd have to call 131008 and then a trip right around the country would cost you at the going tariffs about $30 000,- if you didn't do too many side trips, but in Western Australia you can get a much better deal this year (2010).

In response to the succesful Queensland campaign featuring the Best Job In The World, WA has now come up with their way to promote the state to tourists; the Extraordinary Taxi Ride. If you go to this website you can apply to be one of the passengers on this amazing nine week adventure and explore Western Australia in a taxi.

Your taxi driver will be a real local character who loves his great state, knows his way around it and is up for showcasing some of WA's best kept secrets.

Around Australia by train


Photo by Rob Lapaer of Rainforest Hideaway B&B, Cape Tribulation, N.Qld.

Though trains are not the favourite mode of transport of the Aussies you can get around most of the country by train and now, after more than a hundred years of talking about it, they have even built a railway to Darwin! See our page on rail journeys for more info...

Around Australia by yacht

Hang around a sailing club and check the notice board or talk to the locals, often sailing boats will take on crew to help out with work and expenses, one such place is Cairns where many cruising yachts leave around May to get to Darwin in time for the June Darwin to Ambon race.

Around Australia on foot

This would not appeal to many people, especially those who can't convince their boss to give them at least a year's holidays but this is what Deborah De Williams is doing now ( march 2004), she is walking in a clockwise direction along Australia's National Highway 1 and returning to Melbourne on Friday 15th October 2004.
During her ‘Journey for Kids’ Deborah is raising money for Kids Help Line, Australia’s only 24 hour, free, confidential and anonymous telephone and online counselling. For more information click here.
Newsflash April 2004: after Deborah had battled cyclones and floods some youngsters in Halls Creek stole, amongst other things, her walkingshoes!

If you'd like to explore Sydney on foot see Walksydneystreets.net , the website of 90 year old Alan Waddell who has walked 2000 kms thorugh every street of 135 Sydney suburbs.


If this mode of transport appeals to you this might be the travel guide for you;

Maps of Australia

One thing that will help you find your way around Australia is a good map, you can buy your maps of Australia online at Ausmaps.com

 

 

You know any good ways to get around Australia? Then tell us!


 

 

 

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