I'm planning a trip - need advice

Hey Stevo. The best place to start is to buy a good guide to Australia - preferably two - like the Rough Guide or the Lonely Planet if you're looking to do it cheap as I think you are. If you go for about 6 months count on needing at least $10000 American plus airfare. That's not eating in restaurants and finding the cheapest hostels to stay in. To do it in any kind of comfort you will need $15000 to $20000 plus airfare. I remember something about being able to stay for 3 months in Aus legally - I stayed for 1 - so if you want to stay for longer than that you will need to figure out how (you can probably extend your visa for a price). A good guide book will tell you all about that.

Cheap transportation: buy a used car and then sell it at the end of your stay - and try to get back as much as you paid for it. Of course you can't do it through a dealer - you need to do it privately with an advert in the auto trading newspaper or on line. Scour the web. Public transport in Aus is not great outside the main cities and flights and car rentals aren't cheap, so that's your best route.

We enjoyed Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands, Cairns and Daintree area, Fraser Island and the Gold Coast in Queensland. Sydney's a must-see - it's expensive to stay downtown, you might want to consider the 'burbs. We stayed at Maroobra Beach in a little hotel walking distance to a great ocean beach for half of what we would have paid downtown. The Hunter River Valley is nice if you like vineyards and scenery. The Blue Mountain area west of Sydney is quite spectacular. If you're looking for nightlife though there's not much besides Sydney in New South Wales. Lots of nice beaches though up and down the coast from Sydney. The only other big city that we saw was Melbourne in Victoria which is worth seeing. The south coast both east and west of Melbourne has lots of interesting places and scenery.

The thing that really struck me was how empty Australia is once you get away from the coastline. Not just empty of people, but empty period. Few animals, trees, farms, houses, lakes, rocks, anything. It's great to see it but I think you'll find yourself staying near the coast most of the time. Distances are vast. If you do venture further west you might want to consider flying to Perth. It's a hell of a long, lonely road to drive and takes literally days. If you do drive it, have a cell phone, lots of water and try to have a companion.

Fascinating country ... I hope you do it. Reply to this

Similar problems with animal auto collisions in Canada. Do kangaroo eyes glow/reflect in the dark?? Deer do, but you have to watch out for moose on the highways as their eyes don't reflect. Reply to this