The best beginner destinations blend culture and adventure with comfort and an infrastructure that’s set up for tourism. Here are our favorite spots that we found to be easy to navigate but also different enough from our own environment to provide an exciting international experience.
This 21 day trip started in Sydney, travelled up the east coast to Byron Bay, Whitsunday Islands, Cairns, and Port Douglas, then moved on to the Outback traveling through Alice Springs, Uluru, Coober Pedy, Port Augusta, Adelaide, Grampians National Park, Warrnambool, and Melbourne. That’s a whole lot to see in three weeks, but it’s a perfect introduction to Australia, and I felt like I got…
“To me, nature is sacred. Trees are my temples and forests are my cathedrals.” ~ Mikhail Gorbachev I wrote an entire blog entry on Pantheism, then shied away from posting it. Instead, I will end my journey through the east with some reflective thoughts and an overtly Pantheistic theme. For the last five years, I’ve lived in a vacation town with a beautiful, calm, and…
Hmmm … what to do with a 15 hour layover in Fiji.
Somewhere along the the way, I learned that everything in Australia is venomous and will lead to your painful death and/or dismemberment. This goes beyond the obvious snake or spider – or even a deadly shark or crocodile – it also includes pretty shell fish, trees, leaves…perhaps even tour managers and killer strawberries. Still, this country is pretty amazing and well worth visiting (cautiously)!
Our multi-day drive from wine country near Adelaide, into the Grampian Mountains, through rainforest, and along the Great Ocean Road was incredibly beautiful. The ride really illustrated the diversity of this island, country, and continent.
Coober Pedy is a quirky little opal mining town where people live underground to stay warm in winter and cool in summer. There are many stories here of people who came to Coober Pedy on holiday, fell in love with it, and never left. I am definitely not one of those people!
We drove through the Outback for several days. Although some of it was a bit monotonous, it was a cool experience, and Uluru and the Red Center were absolutely beautiful. I think winter was a good season to visit this region. It was warm in the day and a little chilly at night. There were also less flies and other insects than you would find…
I consider myself a fair swimmer. I was swimming before I was walking. As a child, I spent my summers at the pool, on the swim team, and in the ocean. Now, I don’t swim like I used to, but even as recently as last month, I was snorkeling, kayaking, and swimming laps in the Thai Islands. In short, I am no stranger to the…
This has been a wonderful trip up the east coast of Australia. We started in Sydney, then traveled north to Byron Bay, the Whitsunday Islands, Cairns, and finally, Port Douglas. It was a lot to see in just 10 days, but I feel like I got a good taste of Australia’s east coast. Even though it’s winter and we had a few rainy, cold days,…
