Australia is five flights wide. These are the days worth booking.
Which reef boat gets you past the day-trip pontoons. What the Whitehaven run costs once the tide is in it. Whether the Blue Mountains beat the Hunter Valley on a single spare day out of Sydney. Reviews of every tour you can book in Australia.
The reef, the road, the Whitsundays, the harbour at dawn.
Four bookings a first Australian trip is usually built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01Reef dayGreat Barrier Reef Snorkeling and Diving Cruise from CairnsOut to the outer reef from Cairns with snorkel and dive gear aboard. The day nobody comes home regretting.
02Coast roadGreat Ocean Road Small-Group Eco Tour from MelbourneTwelve Apostles, Loch Ard Gorge and the koala stretch in a small group, back in Melbourne after dark.
03Whitsundays dayOcean Rafting: Whitehaven Beach, Snorkelling & Hill Inlet LookoutWhitehaven by rigid inflatable, Hill Inlet from the lookout, a snorkel stop on the way back in.
04Harbour dawnHarbour Sunrise Kayak TourPaddling under the Harbour Bridge at first light, before the ferries take the water back.
Outer reef, inner reef, or a beach only a boat reaches. Pick the water.
Most of what people fly to Australia for happens off a jetty. Three kinds of water day, what it costs to get aboard each one, and which coast it belongs to.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · Great Barrier Reef Snorkeling and Diving Cruise from Cairns
Days on the reefOuter-reef moorings, gear aboard, a marine guide in the water with you.
Fins-on morningsShallow coral and turtle grass, fins on inside an hour of the dock.
Sunset decksThe last hour of light from the deck, dinner usually included.
Anything with a deckHarbour cruises, island ferries, jet boats and tall ships.
All 464 boat days on the site →
Six places to start from, and the day out that defines each one.
A harbour city arranged around its own water, the reef town at the top of Queensland, a coast road cut into cliffs, seventy-four islands with one silica beach, an island state with its own weather, and the road out to the Twelve Apostles.
The animals are why half of these tours exist.
A koala asleep in the fork of a manna gum, little penguins crossing a Phillip Island beach at dusk, a saltwater crocodile holding station in a Top End river. The ones worth the money go to the animal rather than bringing the animal to a fence.
Australia’s most booked days out.
The whole Australian catalogue →This is where Australian demand piles up: reef boats out of Cairns, the coast road west of Melbourne, and one building on a harbour.
1
Opera House Guided Tour with Entrance Ticket
Spend one hour inside Sydney Opera House with a live guide in English, French, Spanish, or German. You’ll visit foyers and theater spaces, hear the dramatic story of Jørn Utzon’s design, and may see a rehearsal or set work in progress. Comfortable shoes matter: the route includes about 300 stairs.
From · $33
Read our review →
2
Great Ocean Road Small-Group Eco Tour from Melbourne
from $106
3
Ocean Rafting: Whitehaven Beach, Snorkelling & Hill Inlet Lookout
from $149
4
Laid back, Yarra Valley Wine Tour: Wine, Cider, Gin, Beer + Choc
from $93
5
Blue Mountains Full-Day Trip
from $148
6
Great Ocean Road Reverse Itinerary Boutique Tour – Max 11 Guests
from $106
7
Penguin Parade, & Wildlife Encounters Eco Tour from Melbourne
from $118
8
Great Barrier Reef Snorkeling and Diving Cruise from Cairns
from $190
Sydney: the harbour before ten, the beaches after lunch.
The whole Sydney list →
The city is arranged around one stretch of water, so the good days start on it: a paddle under the bridge, a ferry to the zoo, a walk through the Opera House foyers. Then Bondi and the cliff path south when the heat comes off.
- 1Opera House Guided Tour with Entrance Ticketfrom $33
- 2BridgeClimb Sydneyfrom $213
- 3Sydney Tower Eye: Entry with Observation Deckfrom $22
Inside the Opera House, not just around it
The guided walk goes through the foyers and into one of the halls, the only way to see the interiors on a day with nothing scheduled. Take an early slot, while the harbour light is still coming through the glass.
Ferry, cruise or kayak
A sightseeing cruise gives you the postcard angle for the price of lunch. The sunrise kayak gives you the bridge with nobody under it. Both beat the road along the foreshore.
The Rocks, on foot
The lanes behind Circular Quay are the oldest streets in the country and they are hostile to a map. A guide is how you find the cut-through stairs, the plague history and the pubs that predate the bridge.
Three days that exist only on this continent.
Coral, rainforest and white sand exist in plenty of places. A reef with its own weather forecast, silica so fine it squeaks underfoot, and a forest that was already ancient when the Amazon started do not.
The outer reef, ninety minutes past the cays
The reef runs more than two thousand kilometres up the Queensland coast, and the part worth a day is the outer edge, ninety minutes past the inshore cays. Boats moor at a fixed pontoon or drift two or three sites, and the difference between a good operator and a cheap one is the number of guides in the water and how long you get at each stop.
- 1Great Barrier Reef Snorkeling and Diving Cruise from Cairns★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 3,714 reviews
- 2Passions of Paradise Great Barrier Reef Cruise by Catamaran★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,564 reviews
- 3Outer Edges of The Great Barrier Reef Scenic Flight★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 2,376 reviews
Whitehaven Beach and Hill Inlet
Whitehaven is silica sand, not shell, so it stays cool on a forty-degree day and squeaks when you walk on it. The swirl everyone photographs is at Hill Inlet, at the northern end, and it only reads that way on a falling tide. Departures are built around that tide, which is why the timetable looks arbitrary and is not.
- 1Ocean Rafting: Whitehaven Beach, Snorkelling & Hill Inlet Lookout★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,777 reviews
- 2Whitsundays Guided Jet Ski Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,348 reviews
- 3Whitehaven Full-Day Eco-Cruise with Buffet★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 2,644 reviews
The Daintree
The Daintree is the oldest continuously surviving rainforest on earth and it runs straight down into the reef at Cape Tribulation, the only place the two meet. Cross the Daintree River on the cable ferry, walk the Mossman Gorge boardwalks with a Kuku Yalanji guide, and watch for a Ulysses butterfly, which is the blue you cannot quite believe.
- 1Daintree Rainforest, Mossman Gorge Small-Group from Port Douglas★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,326 reviews
- 2Cape Tribulation, Mossman Gorge, and Daintree Rainforest Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,961 reviews
- 3All Inclusive Waterfalls and Rainforest Tour from Cairns★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 741 reviews
What an Australian day out really sets you back.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what you pay. A good number of the best Australian days land under the price of dinner in Sydney.
City walks, ferry passes, wildlife park entry and the short river cruises.
The full-day standards: reef boats out of Cairns, the coast road, cellar doors in the Hunter and the Barossa.
Scenic flights over the reef, seaplanes, private guides and the once-a-trip splurges.
Four Australian bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be arranged the night before from a pub table. These four run on tides, animal calendars and hard ticket caps that take no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01BridgeClimb SydneyClimb slots are capped and the dawn and twilight ones go first. Summer weekends close out weeks ahead.
- 02Penguin Parade, & Wildlife Encounters Eco Tour from MelbourneThe penguins come ashore at dusk and the viewing stands are numbered. You book the date; the sun decides the time.
- 03Ocean Rafting: Whitehaven Beach, Snorkelling & Hill Inlet LookoutBoats to Whitehaven run on the tide at Hill Inlet, so the good departures are fixed and there are only a few of them each day.
- 04Whale Watching Adventure CruiseHumpbacks pass the coast roughly May to November and nobody sails outside it. Hervey Bay and Sydney both fill in the peak weeks.
North of Cairns, November to May decides the day for you.
The Top End and tropical Queensland run on two seasons rather than four. In the wet the tracks into Kakadu close and the afternoon builds a storm; from about November the box jellyfish are in the shallows, so swimming moves into a stinger suit or out to the reef pontoons. Either way the answer is the same: get on a boat that supplies the gear, or go up into the tablelands where the waterfalls are finally running.
The Hunter, the Barossa, the Yarra and Margaret River, all an hour from a city.
Australian wine country sits close to the capitals, which is why a tasting day here is a day trip and a holiday somewhere else. Somebody else drives, which leaves you one decision: shiraz in the Barossa, pinot in the Yarra, or chardonnay down in Margaret River.
South of the tropics the country changes its mind.
Cold water, cool-climate wine, a coast road with cliffs on one side, and an island state that keeps its own weather. The south is where Australia stops being a postcard about heat and starts being a place you need a jumper for.
Every day out in Tasmania →
By place - capitals and coast
By kind of day - reef, bush, cellar or road
Sydney, the mountains, Byron, the Whitsundays, Cairns: the run almost everybody does first.
Blue Mountains
Byron Bay
DaintreeJust reviewed, from the reef down to Tasmania.
More of this week’s arrivals →
2 Hour Surf Lesson At The Spit, Main Beach (Ages 14+)
Read our review →
Surf Lesson on the Gold Coasts locals Favourite beach (Ages 14+)
Read our review →
Hot Air Balloon Flights Geelong (The Great Ocean) + Breakfast
Read our review →
Scuba Dive The Beautiful Rottnest Island for Certified divers
Read our review →
Rottnest Island All-Inclusive Grand Island Tour from Fremantle
Read our review →
Rottnest Island Bayseeker Day Trip from Fremantle
Read our review →
Fremantle to Rottnest Island Roundtrip Ferry Ticket
Read our review →