Travel to Australia with travel insurance from Essential Travel

click here for a single trip travel insurance quotation

Information on Australia

Australia is a massive country with much to offer visitors. It could take you months to travel across it’s vast interior and see everything it has to offer visitors, but one thing is for sure – the best way to see everything is by campervan. Australia’s beautiful cities are cosmopolitan while remaining pedestrian-friendly and the rest of the nation is striking and untamed wilderness with quirky but charming towns scattered in between.

Sydney, in New South Wales, is one of the worlds most pristine big cities, and is famed for its picture-postcard harbour, with highlights including the world-renowned Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House. Other sights worth exploring in the city include the breathtaking Botanical Gardens, busy Circular Quay and the Rocks Precinct. Chinatown is also good for an afternoon’s exploration and Darling Harbour is the newest centre for entertainment. Beach-lovers can head to Manly, Bondi and Coogee beaches, while the excellent aquarium and Olympic village are other drawcards.

To the north of Sydney, in the state of Queensland, Brisbane is a modern and pleasant city on the meandering Brisbane River, at one time very industrial but now rising in fame for its tourism. Queenslands sunny and lively Gold Coast includes resort towns like Surfer’s Paradise; while the Sunshine Coast, north of ‘Brissie’, is home to various resort towns including slightly more upmarket Noosa Heads. Even farther north, the Capricorn Coast includes the Great Barrier Reef and beautiful Whitsunday Islands. Cairns and Townsville are both extremely popular with scuba divers.

Wealthy from its gold rush days, Melbourne (Victoria) is home to belle époque buildings, old trams and tree-lined boulevards. Highlights of this grand city include a beautiful botanical garden, Chinatown, several good museums, an excellent aquarium, and the nearby St Kilda seaside suburb. Victoria is home to the famous Great Ocean Road, with its photogenic Twelve Apostles rock formations.

Other cities in Australia worth visiting include Perth, in Western Australia, which is a vibrant and relatively new city with a very relaxed atmosphere. Adelaide, in South Australia, is a pleasant, unhurried city, full of colonial architecture and green parklands. Darwin is an interesting town in the Northern Territory, although most people come to this state to see the remarkable Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Alice Springs with its strong Aboriginal character, but that’s a full twelve hour drive to the south – located in the centre of the great Outback.

Detached from the mainland, Tasmania is a spectacular wilderness, often resembling the English countryside. Major sights here include historic Port Arthur, the sweeping beauty of Wineglass Bay, and a few stunning national parks. Canberra, the capital of the country, is located geographically in New South Wales, but has its own small administrative area called the Australian Capital Territory.

' '
' '

back to city guides