As noted in previous posts we are looking forward to traveling around Australia for 4.5 months (in our own SUV). However, Australia is expensive (at least in our minds). I am looking at National Park passes as one way to reduce the cost of travel. We had planned to stay in hostels and inexpensive hotels – anything else we should be looking at? (We are in our mid 60’s and tent camping we hope is a thing of the past.) Restaurant food is also expensive and we do plan on fixing most of our breakfasts and lunches – again anything else we should be looking at? Our in-car refrigerator will hold beer (beer before food). Any thoughts on ways to reduce our entertainment cost including the occasional bottle of wine, a night out, a movie, and maybe even a theater production? Any cost saving tricks for us to know about will be welcomed.
The $AU dollar is low to $US so good time to travel here, not sure what yo mean by 'expensive' not everything is dearer then USA; also prices here vary greatly from place to place, e.g. Sydney prob has the most expensive accommodation - doesn't mean all accom. in Oz is expensive. So its all relative hard to know what you have been comparing against to make generic statements that Aust is expensive, may not be as you think.National Park passes allow you to enter, and sometimes stay overnite in National Parks so not sure how that reduces the cost of travel? In fact it would be an additional cost, not a cost saving. Wine can be bought from $4 to $4000 a bottle, Aldi and bottle shops like Dan Murphy's are usually cheaper than buying in restaurant; movies often have pensioner days (esp. outside city CBDs) where tkts are about $10; theatre productions again outside city CBDs often cheaper. Travelling outside school holidays usually cheaper regarding accommodation but as you'll be here 4 plus months hard to miss altogether. If your car is petrol, not diesel, use E10 petrol its cheaper. On the car have you looked in to bringing in your own car as far as customs etc, its a very precise process; esp as you'll have a left-hand drive car. Is it cheaper to ship car here and back plus pay for petrol here compared to using public transport here? Guess it depends where your going. Do you have some plan where you want to go in Oz?
Oh, prices are expensive to us Australians, as well.
Tickets: try Halftix in cities.
Movies: not sure why you would want to go to them here when you can see them at home, and they are more expensive here.
Entertainment: buskers ...The Mercantile at The Rocks in Sydney has a free and decent band on weekends.
Pubs: they always have water and glasses on the bar for people to use - you don't have to drink alcohol. You could conceivably visit a pub and only have two drinks all night, meet people, maybe hear a band for free. If you get away from the touristy areas and stick to traditional pubs the prices are reasonable. Cheaper still are RSLs/Clubs which you will find in smaller towns or suburbs out of the city.
Transport: in Sydney do your long day trips on a Sunday when the maximum cost is $2.50. Also, if you are here long enough to get an Opal card, take 8 short $2.10 trips (one hour apart from each other) and the rest are free for the week. So you could have a week's travel anywhere in Sydney/Blue Mountains/South Coast/Newcastle for $16.80 per person.
Meals: Fish and chips are a cheap meal out - take them to a nearby park and have them. Pubs generally have good value meals.
Coffee - every 7Eleven has $1 coffee/tea (it's not great, but it's got caffeine in it)
Accommodation: YHA has a good level of hostel for you - it attracts a lot of locals and an older crowd.
Mostly good advice above, but the questions at the end are all answered by the surrounding posts. OP has explained elsewhere their detail itinerary and why they're importing the vehicle.
- Your car is almost certainly diesel. If not, e10 is cheaper, but has a lower octane rating, so is less efficient, and on longer drives will not be cheaper. However, in many states now it's hard to buy fuel that is not e10
- Fuel prices here are cheap by European standards, but more expensive than the US. Currently around $A1.20 per litre ($A4.56 a US gallon, or $US3.30 a US Gallon). Note, everything here is metric - speeds, groceries, petrol etc)
- Fuel is very expensive in remote, and outback areas, so, if possible, always fill up in the city.
- Despite their name, national parks are rarely national, most are run by the individual states, so a park pass is needed for each state. You will not need one unless spending a lot of time in them, and often during midweek, out of season, no one is collecting fees anyway.
- These passes do NOT allow you to camp, or cover the cost of this, in most cases this is a separate booking and fee. However, if you find a basic camping site in a national park they will usually be very cheap, and empty, out of peak holiday season.
- Another option is private camping grounds and van parks, which all have cabins you can rent, or ground you can camp on.
- Beware of tolls roads, which can be pricey, and for the most part are not necessary. However, it is hard to cross major cities like Melbourne. Sydney and Brisbane without paying tolls, and as toll booths have now been scrapped you have to either have a tag, or establish an online short term account. This is pricey, and charges a fee on top of the toll, so try to organise a toll pass before you arrive. They are interchangeable so work with all toll companies in all states.
- Peak holiday season here is January and Easter. There also school holidays in mid July, and late September early October, but prices are not much different at this time. However, peak season in Cairns, Darwin etc is July, due to the better weather.
- Investigate the cost of day and week passes for things like Sydney public transport.
You, can free camp almost anywhere in north Australia, well not Queensland, but the NT and north WA, so save heaps by camping out , and cooking your own food on an open fire, get showers at caravan parks and road houses , for a few dollars. This alone will save you thousands
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Australia will be a bit cheaper now our dollar has dropped. Tourism should pick up. However the obvious things are to prepare as many meals as possible. Breakfast is the obvious one, costs a lot at a cafe, but cheap to buy some cereal and bread.
YHA website is good for booking hostels. As a traveller heading into his middle ages of 40+ :-) I tend to stay in hostels and guesthouses with cheap private rooms. YHA is one site, but look at places like hostelworld and hostelbookers also. Often the reviews will indicate if its a younger party hostel or not.
if you love fresh ground coffee, see if you can buy a hand grinder somewhere, especially for your long trip. You can buy fresh roasted coffee beans in Australia really easily at local markets and cafes (many will grind for you as well, but i like my beans freshly grounded) then also a stovetop coffee maker is good, the cheaper ones work fine (expensive is just shinier metal!)
Fees for NP's are often hard to avoid. Just ask if there is a state wide pass available or google "NP parks <state>" for each state in Australia. Many are free, but Tas and NT which have some of the best parks tend to have fees as do the better parks in NSW and other states.
I'm surprised you would suggest that somebody break the law. That is just a scumbag act (the breaking of the law and not paying what you owe for what you use). If you don't want to pay a toll, drive around it, it is always possible.
there are worse things that happen on this earth than not paying road tolls..
frankly i'm shocked and surprised at your pearl clutching reaction, is it really that big of an issue to you?
Well, not quite pearl clutching (I don't think pearl clutchers use the word scumbag) and yes there are. There are also worse things than beating someone unconscious with a traffic cone but that doesn't justify it so not sure the point you are making.
Oh yeah, and TT says don't promote law breaking.
Gcn2234 you are correct that with today’s strong U.S. dollar it is cheaper to travel in Australia today than yesterday. I freely have admitted I have never been to Australia and therefore don’t know the cost of living. However, I know my brother has been lucky enough to visit twice. Before his first trip he went to a local wine store in Tucson, AZ and bought 3 or 4 different Australian wines in the $10 to $15 U.S. range– and then was blown away to buy the same bottles in Australia for 25+% more. Thanks for the idea to search for E10 gasoline. (Current U.S. price in Texas is $1.74/gal or $2.41A/gal or $0.635A/L – if I did the math correctly. Read the average price in Australia is $0.89A/L or 40% higher.) As previously noted in other posts we are bringing our own car because this is our first stop on a potential 5-year drive around the world trip.
Julie_l, thanks for the heads up on the Opal card. Tentatively we plan to be in Sydney for a week or so before picking up our SUV and therefore will be using public transportation. Like you thoughts on 7/11 coffee. Agree with you it isn’t the best but very drinkable in the U.S. Have not googled YHA yet but will in the coming weeks.
Harry_ramsden, I had already googled National Parks and discovered each Australian state has its own national park entrance fee. But with the number of parks we want to visit buying at least one or two cards look to make economical sense. We will carry a tent but am pass the age of camping or at least wanting to camp when other options are available. We don’t want to drive more than 5 hours a day – almost impossible in a country the size of Australia (have 14 5+ hour days on the current itinerary). We want to see not drive by Australia so using a slower non-toll road will happen.
Justin23, am going to take a coffee maker. Just haven’t decided what is the easiest way to make coffee on the road.
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