Australia is five trips wide. Start with the coast you land on.
Which reef boat gets past the crowds off Cairns. What the Great Ocean Road costs out of Melbourne. Whether the Whitsundays are worth a second flight. Every tour you can book in Australia, reviewed.
The opera house, the southern road, the Whitsundays, the reef.
Four days that anchor a first Australian trip. Prices are per head, and the order below runs cheapest to dearest.
01The first morningOpera House Guided Tour with Entrance TicketInside the shells with a guide, rather than photographed from the ferry wharf. It is the cheapest thing on this list by a distance.- 02The southern roadGreat Ocean Road Reverse Itinerary Boutique Tour – Max 11 GuestsTwelve Apostles and Loch Ard Gorge, run in reverse and capped at eleven people, so you meet the coast ahead of the coach traffic.
03The Whitsundays dayOcean Rafting: Whitehaven Beach, Snorkelling & Hill Inlet LookoutWhitehaven, the Hill Inlet lookout, then snorkelling off the fringing reef. This is the photograph that talks everyone else into coming.
04The reef dayGreat Barrier Reef Cruise by Premium CatamaranA full day out of Cairns on a premium catamaran, which is the difference between a reef trip and a boat ride.
Australia keeps its best hours offshore.
Outer reef off Cairns and Port Douglas, the Whitsundays under sail, and a harbour in Sydney that runs boats past the opera house all day. Three kinds of water, three very different prices.
Sydney, Melbourne, Cairns: three different countries, one passport.
The harbour city, the laneway city, the reef city, the river city, the west coast, the wine capital, the island and the top end. Eight bases, and the day out each one is really for.
Australia’s wildlife list reads like a hoax until you see it.
Humpbacks breaching off the heads between May and November, little penguins coming ashore at dusk on Phillip Island, quokkas that live nowhere else, and koalas that sleep through the entire visit. These are the trips that put you in front of them.
Australia’s busiest days out, in order.
See all the reviews →If you only have room for one big day on the whole trip, it is almost certainly somewhere on this list.
1
Opera House Guided Tour with Entrance Ticket
Tour Sydney Opera House beyond the sails, with theatrical spaces, rare photo spots, sharp storytelling, and 300 stairs in one hour.
From · $33
Read our review →
2
All Inclusive Blue Mountain,Scenic World,Lunch,Koalas,ferry
from $204
3
Great Ocean Road, 12 Apostles, Wildlife Tour
from $94
4
Ocean Rafting: Whitehaven Beach, Snorkelling & Hill Inlet Lookout
from $149
5
Laid back, Yarra Valley Wine Tour: Wine, Cider, Gin, Beer + Choc
from $93
6
Blue Mountains Full-Day Trip
from $148
7
Great Ocean Road Reverse Itinerary Boutique Tour – Max 11 Guests
from $106
8
Penguin Parade, & Wildlife Encounters Eco Tour from Melbourne
from $118
Three days you cannot have on any other continent.
Beaches and wine countries exist everywhere. A monolith the size of a suburb, a nightly penguin commute and an island made entirely of sand do not.
Uluru
The rock is nine kilometres around and changes colour by the hour, which is why every tour is timed to sunrise or sunset rather than the middle of the day. It sits on Anangu land, the climb has been closed since 2019, and the walks around the base are the point. Kata Tjuta is about an hour west and usually shares the ticket.
- 1Day Trip to Uluru with BBQ Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 761 reviews
- 2Ayers Rock Day Trip from Alice Springs Including BBQ Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 639 reviews
- 3Field of Light Sunrise Tour with Hot Drinks★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 572 reviews
The Penguin Parade
Little penguins are the smallest species there is, and every evening a few hundred of them come out of the surf on Summerland Beach and walk up to burrows in the dunes. It happens at dusk, so the start time moves through the year and the tours move with it. Cameras stay off. Melbourne is roughly two hours away.
- 1Penguin Parade, & Wildlife Encounters Eco Tour from Melbourne★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,774 reviews
- 2Penguin Parade, Koalas & Kangaroos★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,932 reviews
- 3Penguin Parade and Koalas Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,287 reviews
K’gari
K’gari is the largest sand island on the planet and there is no sealed road on any of it. Everything runs on four-wheel drive along the beach at low tide, past rainforest growing straight out of sand and a perched lake sitting well above sea level. The barge goes from Hervey Bay or Rainbow Beach.
- 1K’gari (Fraser Island) All Inclusive Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,477 reviews
- 2K’gari, Fraser Island Full-Day Coach Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 2,328 reviews
- 3Remote K’gari Tour by Boat with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,229 reviews
Australia has a reputation for being expensive. Its day trips argue with it.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs per head. A good number of the best ones land under the price of dinner in Sydney.
City walks, harbour ferries, tower entries, zoo tickets and the short hops out of town.
The full-day standards: the Great Ocean Road, the Blue Mountains, wine country and most reef boats.
Outer-reef sailing days, scenic flights over the reef and the rock, and the runs into the centre.
Four things Australia will not hold for you.
Most of this country can be sorted from a pub table the night before. These four run on tides, on dusk, on passenger caps and on a calendar that takes no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Ocean Rafting: Whitehaven Beach, Snorkelling & Hill Inlet LookoutThe sandbars at Hill Inlet are only readable around low tide, so the good departures are set by the tide chart rather than by the morning.
- 02Penguin Parade, & Wildlife Encounters Eco Tour from MelbourneThe penguins come ashore at dusk and the viewing has a fixed capacity. There is one crossing a night and it books out through summer.
- 03Day Trip to Uluru with BBQ DinnerSunrise and sunset are the two hours the rock is worth being there for, and the coaches that run them fill up well ahead in the cooler months.
- 04K’gari (Fraser Island) All Inclusive Day TourThe barge and the beach are both tidal, so day tours run to a timetable the ocean sets and there are only so many seats on each.
When the top end is under water, the south is at its best.
Northern Australia runs on two seasons rather than four. From November to April the tropics take the wet and the box jellyfish arrive, so reef swimming needs a stinger suit. That is exactly when Tasmania, the Victorian coast and the South Australian wine country are at their peak. The country is big enough that half of it is always in season.
By place · coast, centre and island
By kind of day · reef, road, vineyard or wildlife
Sydney to Cairns, and the six stops worth breaking it for.
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