How to Travel Australia on a Budget
Australia can be super intimidating – especially if you’re on a budget! If you’re from North America or Europe the flights to Australia are extremely pricey. Add on accommodations, excursions, and food during your stay – it can be very overwhelming!
Yes Australia is definitely expensive.. but there’s ways to travel it while keeping your expenses as low as possible!
I didn’t do it extremely cheap, but I did try to keep my spending as low as possible while still enjoying and seeing everything I wanted to! Here’s how I did it!
If you’re similar to me, a lot of the things I like to do are outside of the city centers. For example – Visiting the 12 apostles outside Melbourne, hiking the Blue Mountains in Sydney, exploring Stradi Island outside Brisbane, visiting Millaa Millaa Falls outside Cairns, the list goes on!
If you were to do all of those activities through bus tours, the money you would spend would be ridiculous! Not to mention the time you waste having to wait around for the buses/plan your day around the bus times! However, if you rented a car for your time in Australia, you would be able to do all of those excursions plus anything else you wanted, whenever you want!
Yes, renting a car is pricey, especially if you’re starting in one city and dropping it off in another, but it’s the best and most efficient use of your time and money!
For the whole month we were there we spent $1000 to rent the car, which sounds like a lot but that’s for a whole month! I realize gas is on top of this (which is expensive) but it’s totally worth it! This $1000 included the extra fee to drop it off in another location. We started in Melbourne and drove all the way up to Cairns (42 hours total!!)
If you wanted to you could also find people in your hostel that want to go on the same day trip as you and ask them for a little gas money! This is an easy way to save a little money!
Now that I’ve covered how to get around ‘relatively’ cheap, let’s talk about accommodations!
Obviously the cheapest is hostels. Although in Aus it’s not as cheap as in Europe.. on average it’s about $25/35 a night. Now if you’re not a huge hostel person, there’s always private rooms that you can get for the night that are still cheaper than hotels! My friend and I did this a lot actually, which sometimes was cheaper split between us than if we each got a bed in the hostel!
We also stayed in a few Airbnb’s which can be another reasonable option! And if you want a little privacy and personal space for a change, it’s a nice option to get away from the hostel party scene for a night!
Here’s where I stayed on my trip! (These prices are for the room, not per person)
Melbourne: AirBnb ~$60/night
Canberra: Novotel ~$100/nt
Sydney: AirBnb ~$80/nt
Byron Bay: Aquarius ~$80/nt
Surfer’s Paradise: Surfer’s Paradise Backpackers Resort ~$70/nt
Brisbane: Brisbane Backpackers Resort ~$70/nt
Rainbow Beach: Fraser’s on Rainbow Beach~$60/nt
Airlie Beach: Base Backpackers ~$90/nt
Magnetic Island: Base Backpackers ~$60/nt
Cairns: Gilligan’s ~$70/nt
From the above list – I would 100% recommend staying at Aquarius in Byron and Gilligan’s in Cairns! Really awesome party scenes full of backpackers!
Now the other thing that you’ll spend lots of money on is the excursions. The main ones that we ‘splurged on’ were Fraser Island, sailing in the Whitsundays, and the Great Barrier Reef.
The Fraser Island Tour that we did was a 4 day 3 night trip through ‘Cool Dingos’. Accommodation and food was included for the whole stay!
The sailing trip we did from Airlie Beach around the Whitsundays was through a company called ‘Silent Night’. It was a 3 day 2 night sailing trip through all the little island with a few stops everyday. The highlight was the stop at Whitehaven Beach.
The Great Barrier Reef was through a company called ‘Passions for Paradise’. It’s a full day excursion with multiple stops for you to jump off and snorkel or dive! Food and drinks included!
My advice to you would be to scrape up as much money as you can to do these things – they’re the highlights of the trip so don’t miss out because they’re ‘too expensive’! Stay at a super cheap hostel one night to save a little money so you can afford one of these excursions!!
Hope this post helped a little bit to realize that Australia can be affordable if you want it to be!
Thanks for reading!
xo steens
