NEED HELP! Planning a trip to Asia/Austrailia on the cheap!

V_Chic_Chick

Staying in hostels (private rooms are available - if you want the flashpacker experience then go to Wake Up!, Bounce or somewhere similar; if you want to meet other backpackers and drink copious quantities of goon then go to Nomads Westend) and self catering is definitely the way forward.

The weather in Sydney in August will still be perfectly pleasant - a lot like a British summer - but cruddy by Australian standards! The north has its better weather at that time of year (dry season). However, there is a limit to how long Sydney can occupy you for! Don't miss the harbour (i.e. bridge and Opera House), and the Bondi - Coogee coastal walk though.

Beyond that - yes, AirAsia. I flew with it from London - Kuala Lumpur - Melbourne, and whilst it is a bit like Easyjet, so long as you take your own food and entertainment, it's fine (and let's face it, what you take will be far better than anything they provide!)

TakeThis

MrWillyWonka wrote: »

It isn't that prices have gone up a lot, it's that the exchange rate is half of what it was 5 years ago, effectively prices have doubled just because of the poor GBP-AUD. However the quality of Australian hostels are excellent but unfortunately unlike most of Asia almost all hostels in Australia now charge you (quite a lot) for internet usage. It was cheaper for us to buy a 3G dongle as we had our own netbook.


Back on topic, one thing to note is that getting a return flight isn't necessarily cheaper so you could get separate flights for different sections of the trip.

Not quite half. Was around AU$2.50 to the £ in those days. Now it's AU$1.58. It's of course a bit of both that contributes to higher prices for us.
When I was in Sydney ten years ago, I could get a nice little apartment for around AUD$100.(£40)
Now you'd be lucky to get a decent private room in a hostel for £80.

In fact the difference between a private room in a hostel and a full blown hotel isn't that much, so I just go the whole hog and go luxury these days.

Found a bargain with Fraser Suites Sydney for a One Bedroom Premier/Executive Suite on the previous trip.

claire16c

I was in Oz this year and we paid around £80 a night for a double room in a hostel. It was cheaper up north because of the weather paid around £50 there. Mainly down to the rubbish exchange rate - worst in 20 years they were reporting on the news ,apparently tourists were booking less trips, so the only good thing was that a lot of stuff was reduced in price like the harbour tours.

So we stayed in some hotels too as the hostels were so expensive. But they were useful as they have washing machines, internet cafes etc.

As the weather in Sydney wont be so good in August ( my friend was wearing gloves inside her house!) and infact even recently its been very rainy there, you could go up to queensland as its the perfect time to go there, still hot but the dry season.

But if you do go to asia, I can recommend Air Asia also, they had really good service when we used them and were super cheap.

I found some good deals for hotel rooms on wotif.com for Oz.