Australian Holidays and Popular Destinations…

On Monday I wrote about Things To Do During the Long Summer Holidays. That article was about a long weekend away, but what do Australians do when they want the biggie, the two week (or more) summer holiday.

Well, I’ve written about those sort of Australian holidays before as well, but this is the article I wrote for Australia and New Zealand magazine. It appeared in their October issue, so it’s no longer available to buy on the shelves.

But no worries, you can read it here……

Aussie Holidays.

When you live on the other side of the world, the preferred sport is rugby and holidays become a different ball game too. When you live in England, a short plane trip could see you arriving in France, Spain, Germany or any number of European countries…..

France

Corfu

Tenerife

Travel the same distance by airplane in Australia and you will arrive in, well, Australia.

Australians do go abroad, of course. Three popular destinations for Australians escaping the country are New Zealand, Bali and Thailand.

Thailand

Not surprising, given how close they are to Oz. But as we have not yet been living in Australia for four years, this country still offers some fantastic holiday opportunities for us to explore. And that’s exactly what we did recently when we flew to Tasmania.

Our mission: to reintroduce our seven-year-old daughter Elizabeth to snow, which she hadn’t seen since she was 10 months old. Mission accomplished on Mt Wellington.

Elizabeth's snowman

Tasmania reminded me of my favourite place in England, the Lake District. Tassie, as it is known, has lakes, caves, waterfalls and rolling hills, but with the added advantage of being an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean and Tasman Sea.

Water is literally everywhere! Although we were there right in the middle of winter, it was nowhere near as cold as it would have been in an English winter. And summers, apparently, are much better than those in the UK.

Like most people, I came to Australia for hot and sunny, so Tasmania did not even enter my thinking. I still like my life in shorts too much to change my mind about that, but for those of you who aren’t so interested in the heat, maybe you should think about Tassie. It really is a land with no traffic jams.

During our time here in Australia, we’ve flitted about to quite a few of this country’s hotspots; Alice Springs, Uluru, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart to name a few. But whilst we’ve been jumping on jets, or burning up miles of tarmac, many Australians holiday in a way that we would find quite unusual.

They will drive an hour or two north or, maybe, an hour or two in some other direction. Then they have arrived. That’s it! They’re on holiday!

When I first heard it, I thought it was strange. Then I thought about it. I live in Brisbane and within a couple of hours drive, either north or south, I could be in any number of great locations in the Sunshine Coast or the Gold Coast.

If I lived in Sydney, I could be in the Central Coast or maybe the Blue Mountains. From Melbourne I could travel along the Great Ocean Road, or visit historic Ballarat and relax in the peaceful surroundings of nearby Daylesford. All of these destinations are within a couple of hours drive, and not an airplane in sight.

I could go on, but I’m sure you get the idea. Australia may be a top holiday destination for the whole world, but it is also still a favourite for vacationing Australians. And for those who want to go further, there’s always New Zealand, Bali, Thailand and the rest of the world. It just takes a little longer to get there.