New Zealand/Australia Trip

We used Trafalgar pre pandemic. It was our first ever overseas tour and was fantastic. Melbourne, Carnes, Sydney, Queenstown/Milford Sound, Rotorua, Auckland, and some other places in between.

I have been planning my own trip with help from folks on the forum and from a facebook group that also has an extensive website, New Zealand Travel Tips. If you are not on Facebook, its worth getting on it just to follow this group, its that good! The developer of this group is Sarah Chant, and you can book time with her through the Facebook group or I imagine the website. There are links to many discounts through this website, as well.

Also, you will find a lot of posts discussing New Zealand travel if you search this forum.

I've not been to Australia, but I planned my own trip to New Zealand for 3 weeks. It was quite a while ago but I can't imagine it's any harder now to plan your own. I used a couple of guidebooks (Lonely Planet & AAA) but made extensive use of New Zealand's own tourism website which was invaluable for planning where I wanted to stay, how long I needed for what I wanted to see/do, and finding one day tours to places that weren't convenient for one (I was traveling solo). I ended up renting cars on both islands with a flight between them. I did use booking.com for finding places to stay but most of the time booked directly with the lodging. It really wasn't difficult to plan on your own, but I do realize some people prefer to have someone do the planning for them or to just join an escorted tour.

Though I haven't been to Australia I have looked at their website also for ideas on planning my own trip there (if and/or when it might happen).

I spent the month of November in Australia and New Zealand with a tour by OAT. I found it to be outstanding.

Thank you for these suggestions. Really appreciate your input.

We're leaving next Sat on a Globus Journeys small group tour "Highlights of the South Pacific". I really like the looks of the itinerary.

EDITED: This was a wonderful tour. I will be doing trip reports in the Beyond Europe Forum sometime in the next few days.

I am preparing for 2025 - and I second what jules said!

@Jules Can you share the FB Thanks

Can you share the FB Thanks

I'm not Jules, but here's the FB group page:

https://www.facebook.com/nztraveltips

Here's the website: https://nztraveltips.com/?fbclid=IwAR3f1VVTPFkRNllLS7WcrEwirBS2uLJP2PTBU35ZxKu8mosdqKqCINfa8IA

Thanks for providing the links, Nancy. Honestly, using the NZTT facebook group is almost like having a bunch of travel agents as your friends. The group includes many locals, frequent travelers and the moderators pipe in a lot. Information has run the gamut of where to find bathrooms (apparently pretty much everywhere), best hikes, travel itineraries, routes for car travel, accommodations, sunscreen, bug repellent, restaurants, rental cars, take out food, etc.

Thank You Nancy

Sorry for getting your name wrong.

Is there any similarly valuable FB group for Australia too?

Unlikely - a single travel group for Australia would be as useful as single travel group for the USA few will have been everywhere. NZ is not very big - thanks to Covid (which that FB grew out of) many of us have been everywhere in NZ (well except the Chathams - I considered it but...) For Australia tips you're better off looking at state specific sites/groups/forums I've travelled to an awful lot Australia but plenty of Australians haven't been to Perth, Tasmania , or even north of Cairns

Is there any similarly valuable FB group for Australia too?

There is this one but I'm not sure it's as helpful as the NZ one. There are a couple more but they are private groups and you have to join to see the posts (I didn't want to join, but you might). Just search on FB for 'australia travel tips' to find them.

EDIT: No need to be sorry, it was Jules who posted about the NZ group on FB, I just butted in to give you the link.😀

We have been to Australia twice and New Zealand once.

Our first trip was only to Australia and started with a cruise "over the top" of Australia from Perth to Sydney. Included were several ports in Australia as well as two days in Bali. It was a great way to see a lot of the country and the two days in Bali were super.

We arrived in Perth three days early to spend some time there and we stayed five days in Sydney after the cruise.

The second trip to Australia we did several days in Melbourne (the area, including a two day tour of The Great Ocean Road and the Philip Island Penguins). Also, we did a day trip to the nearby wine country. Then we returned to Sydney to pick up a cruise of NZ, but the cruise was cancelled for problems with the ship. So we picked up a Trafalgar tour of the north island for several days that was wonderful, but it was a bit expensive. Then back to Sydney and a few days later we got on a ship for a Transpacific cruise to Seattle, which was wonderful.

In my opinion, you can do Australia on your own picking up day tours or short multi-day tours from Sydney and Melbourne. Also, visiting Carins to see the Great Barrier Reef. If you want to see Perth, Darwin and more of the country, consider a cruise like we did.

Travel between cities in Australia is best done by air. The distances between cities is signifigant and there is not good rail service between (except for the three day intercontinental trip from Perth to Sydney).

You could do NZ on our own, or take a cruise that goes to both islands. Also, you could rent a car and go on your own.

Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions. These have been very helpful.