Australia Family Holidays

Sydney with Kids and New South Wales Family Holidays

Experience the in-your-face capital of New South Wales, with its fabulous food and beaches, blessed weather, big art and electric fashion. Go to Bondi Beach for the day and hit the surf, or follow the iconic 6km Bondi to Coogee Coast walk past rockpools, ocean pools such as the famous Icebergs and cool geological formations.

Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House

If you have a head for heights, climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and make sure to get up close to the Sydney Opera House – it’s more breathtaking and intricate in real life than any photograph can convey.

Manly

Take a ferry across the harbour to Manly 20 minutes north of the city, with a renovated quay full of noodle canteens, sushi bars and ice-cream parlours. Manly’s pine-lined beach has an enchanting walk to a bushland park that backs on to a more secluded beach, the Fairy Bower.

Sydney Art Gallery

Take kids to the Sydney Art Gallery, divided into Australian (including Aboriginal), Asian and Western (international) art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Luna Park

Spend a few hours at Luna Park, a pleasing retro Harbourside amusement park dating from 1935, modelled on the one at New York’s Coney Island.

The Rocks

Wander around The Rocks, where the first Europeans settled in the 18th century. Very pretty, it’s full of heritage attractions, quirky shops selling everything from vintage clothes to hand-made puppets, galleries and museums, parks, and restaurants, pubs and cafés with outdoor space.

Premier State

Discover the rest of the ‘Premier State’ with its pristine beaches and funky seaside towns. Highlights include gorgeous Byron Bay on the North Coast, packed with trendy restaurants and cafés and opulent resorts and boutiques, all reaping the dollar in Buddha tourism. Its Sunday markets are like mini carnivals, with music and great food, anything New Age under the sun, and great people-watching.

Pebbly Beach

Feed wild eastern grey kangaroos by hand at Pebbly Beach on the South Coast, all along which are beaches backed by national parks and camping and caravan facilities. It’s much less commercial than the North – a place to let it all hang out, abounding with dolphins, seals and migrating whales. Spectacular Jervis Bay, three hours south of Sydney, claims to have the whitest sand on Earth.

Skiing

Inland of the South Coast, ski, snowboard and toboggan the slopes of the Snowy Mountains. Thredbo and Perisher Blue are the most popular resorts, catering to families and beginner skiers. 

In the low season, when the snow is long gone, Lake Jindabyne is beautiful for swimming, and you can take scenic horse-riding trails along the trail. Explore, too, the Yarangobilly Caves, with its thermal wading pool for children.

Hunter Valley Wine Region

Discover 120-plus vineyards and lots of lots of family-friendly accommodation in the Hunter Valley Wine Region about two hours from Sydney. The fertile volcanic soils of NSW also produce macadamia nuts, bananas and coffee.

The Outback

Venture out into the Outback, rich in Australian colonial history and the beauty of Australia’s unique bush — ghostly gums and rambling rivers, red soil roads and tiny wildflowers. 

Actually covering 70% of Australia, the Outback includes the western part of NSW. Mungo National Park nearly 1000km west of Sydney has remains of human inhabitation carbon-dated at 40,000 years old – a time of giant kangaroos and buffalo-sized wombats.

Stones sharpened into tools can still be seen lying in the red soil, and rock and sand formations known as the Wall of China stretch for more than 30km.

Queensland Family Holidays

Venture to this vast north-east state more than seven times the size of the UK, covering more than 25% of Australia’s total expanse. It has one of the world’s best conservation zoos (Australia Zoo), rainforest, the Great Barrier Reef, and pristine, child-friendly sub-tropical and tropical beaches. 

Gold Coast

Check out Queensland’s Gold Coast, Australians’ favourite family holiday destination, with 70km of beaches and theme parks including Warner Bros. Movie World and Dreamworld. The Gold Coast Hinterland just inland is gorgeous and ecologically diverse, with swimmable rock pools such as Natural Bridge in Springbrook National Park, rainforest walks, quaint cafés serving Devonshire (cream) tea, and boutiques full of local pottery and crystals.  

Brisbane

Discover Brisbane with its artificial beach, Botanical Gardens and boat trips along the ‘Brizzie’ River, and use the city as a launch-pad for places such as North Stradbroke Island (‘Straddie’), a sand island a ferry-ride away, where you can scuba-dive, beachcomb and listen to the hum of the bush.

Noosa

Go surfing at Noosa, the short-break playground of Brisbanites. Its beach is cornered by pristine national parks, and local surrounding towns such as Eumundi with its eclectic Saturday market, and Maleny with tis gourmet food producers, retain a hippy-like atmosphere, backdropped by the gorgeous Glass House Mountains. Along the spectacular Blackall Range Tourist Drive you can stop for short rainforest walks, waterfalls and to have your photo taken in front of the infamous Big Pineapple Complex.

Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef

Head up to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef. Many Cairns hotels and resorts offer free accommodation for young kids, and most have pools with paddling sections. If you base yourself near the Cairns Esplanade, you’ll also have access to the popular sheltered swimming lagoon, as well as BBQ facilities, great playgrounds, a skate-park and a seafront big wheel.

Skyforest Rainforest Cableway

Just outside Cairns, ride the Skyforest Rainforest Cableway over and through UNESCO-listed rainforest for gorgeous views of the Barron Gorge and waterfall and to amble around the ‘Village in the Rainforest’ with its markets, cafés and wildlife attractions.

Port Douglas

From Cairns or the Coral Sea town of Port Douglas to the north of it, head out to the Reef - there are many options, from short boat rides to the multi-day excursions, from simple snorkelling to epic dives. Sightings include bright fish, sharks, green sea turtles and humpback whales. 

Yorkeys Knob

Travel up the coast from Cairns to pretty, quiet beaches with family resorts, such as Yorkeys Knob, where you can learn kite-surfing, and Trinity Beach with its own sheltered cove and dolphins and turtles to spot.

Daintree Rainforest

Venture into the Daintree Rainforest, to spot cassowaries and crocodiles, outlandish species of mangroves, and walk remote boardwalks and ridge trails. You can also sign up for Aboriginal activities her including walks through the Mossman Gorge with a Kuku Yalanji guide.

Melbourne with Kids and Victoria Family Holidays

Explore Australia’s smallest mainland state, in the south-east corner – sophisticated yet unspoiled, with a dramatic coastline, lush ski-fields, country towns rich in gold-mine history, a passion for great produce, famous wineries, and an arty capital.

Melbourne

Discover Melbourne, where highlights include the Aboriginal art at the National Gallery of Victoria, including the Ian Potter Centre, the famous street art of Hosier Lane, and the free hop-on-hop-off heritage tram around the main sights.

Port Phillip Island

Visit the penguins 90 minutes from the city on Port Phillip Island, and spend the day at the beach, tour the Koala Conservation Centre, and take a boat-trip to see the thousands of fur seals on Seal Rocks.  

Great Ocean Road

Set forth along the Great Ocean Road, one of the best drives in the country. Winding along the western coast of Victoria, it’s where city surfers escape to catch the famous right-handers of Bells Beach and beyond. Local surfing schools cater to most ages and abilities.

Great Victorian Bathing Trail

Take the kids to the family-friendly thermal springs of the Great Victorian Bathing Trail.

Skiing in Victoria

Ski! Victoria has eight alpine resorts, among them Mont Buller.

Perth with Kids and Family Holidays in Western Australia

Discover the country's largest state with its isolated mining towns, cattle stations, wildflowers and canyons, coral reefs and 12,500km of deserted beaches. Come for whale-watching, spearfishing, snorkelling, seaside camping, lashings of fresh air and awesome landscapes.

Central Perth

Spend time in cutting-edge Perth, one of the most cosmopolitan and interesting cities in the country. Australia’s fourth-largest, it’s also the world’s most isolated city. An old gold-rush city, it has a flourishing café, restaurant and shopping scene, well-preserved buildings with wrought-ironwork, giant skyscrapers, and beaches. 

Cottosloe Beach

Cottosloe Beach 15 minutes from the centre draws young crowds and families for bodyboarding, surfing and snorkelling. Woodman Point about 20km south of the centre is good for swimming, snorkelling, scuba-diving, sailing and fishing. You can book surfing lessons at these and many other local beaches.

Fremantle

Enjoy Perth’s low-key, bohemian sister Fremantle – still a working harbour, with a lovely renovated dock and cafés and galleries lining its streets. Come for the the maritime museum, the festivals, the watersports and the haunting Fremantle Prison, with spooky night-time candlelight tours and also tours of its 1km labyrinth of tunnels (wearing a hardhat and harness).

Margaret River

Tour the Margaret River region as a whole, with its top surfing, some of the best wineries in Australia and gourmet food. Make sure to visit Tall Timber Country to the southeast, with towns set amidst the remnants of giant karri trees. 

Rottnest Island

Sail out to Rottnest Island just off the coast near Perth, renowned for its snorkelling, diving, surfing, fishing, boating and swimming in crystal bays, as well as the resident quokkas, an extremely cute marsupial. Take a picnic for a perfect day out.

Aquarium of Western Australia

Talk to the fish at the Aquarium of Western Australia at Hillarys north of Perth. Snorkellers or qualified divers book a face-to-face shark experience. 

Broome

Explore Broome and the Kimberly Region. Broome, founded as a pearling town, has the world’s oldest surviving outdoor cinema, Sun Pictures, plus 22km Cable Beach, voted one of the world’s top five beaches by TripAdvisor readers. Kimberly is a nature-lovers’ mecca where the journey is part of the destination – many places are hard to access, with rugged roads and aeons between landmarks. Among highlights are the 350-million-year-old bungle bungle rocks in Purnululu National Park, the phenomenal Mitchell Falls, and the eastern shores of Roebuck Bay, where a full moon reflected on exposed mudflats creates the ‘Staircase to Heaven’ phenomenon.

Golden Quest Discovery Trail

Take the Golden Quest Discovery Trail – a self-drive six-day adventure through the Goldfields, spanning around 965km and tracing the gold-producing history of Western Australia. You take in gold-rush towns with balconied pubs and 1800s architecture, feel the eerie still of ghost towns, pass through desert studded with tiny wildflowers, and see Lake Ballard – a million-year-old salt lake and the site of Antony Gormley’s Inside Australia sculptures: casts of the bodies of 51 local residents set over 10km2 of the salt plains.

Coral Coast

Explore the Coral Coast, including 250km Ningaloo Reef with 200-plus types of coral, plus marine life including sea turtles, rainbow tribes of fish, and – between March and June – 18m, 15-ton whale sharks. Some parts of the reef are so close to the shore they can be explored by snorkelling straight off the beach. 

There’s also the Shark Bay World Heritage Area, home to the friendly bottlenose dolphins of Monkey Mia, who’ve been making daily visits to the shallow shores since the 1960s. And the The Pinnacles in Nambung National Park are limestone deposits from a sea that receded c.30,000 years ago. 

Northern Territory Family Holidays

Venture into this vast central and northern-central region to walk on the red soil of a vast camel-studded desert, guided through a timeless landscape by a living representative of the oldest continuing culture on Earth. 

Uluru (Ayers Rock)

Make a trip to Uluru (Ayers Rock) – a once-in-a-lifetime must-do. Walk the base and feel mundane reality slip away with every hypnotic step – this sacred land to indigenous Australians and if you stay quiet you can feel something deep and true and as old as the beginning of time. At night, artist Bruce Munro’s Field of Light illuminates the desert here with gentle undulations of colour waves.

Kings Canyon

Visit the rock formation of Kings Canyon with its vertical walls and gullies exploding with vegetation, in the Watarrka National Park, an ancient ecosystem with fossils etched in seabeds dating back millions of years. The canyon is home to the Garden of Eden – a lush waterhole at the base of the 300-million-year-old rock formation, great for a refreshing swim. There are lots of walks with varying degrees of length and difficulty, one culminating at the waterhole.

Kata Tjuta

See the Kata Tjuta, otherwise known as The Olgas – 36 rock domes more than 500 million years old, emergeing from the land like the elusive gifts of mysterious forces. Ask us about two- or three-day package tours to Uluru, Kings Canyon and Kata Tjuta, which are often put together because of their relative proximity and great natural beauty.

Darwin

Discover Darwin – closer to Asia than Sydney, and host to Mindil Beach Night Markets every Thursday and Sunday night in the dry season, filled with the joyous aromas of Thai spices and the rich colours of Papua New Guinean textiles. You can use Darwin as a base to explore the Katherine Gorge in Nitmiluk National Park, brimming with Aboriginal culture, ancient rocks, wildlife and unique flora. Options here include a two-hour cruise through the gorge and overnight treks with camping beneath the stars. 

Kakadu National Park

Venture into the Kakadu National Park, home to a third of Australia’s bird species and World Heritage listed for both its natural and cultural values –the traditional owners of the land are the Mirrar.

Tasmania Family Holidays

Discover Australia’s southernmost state, 240km south of the mainland, accessible by overnight ferry or plane. This is a great place for those looking for adventure and wildlife, with wild wombats and wallabies.

Don't miss the ethical Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary, Freycinet National Park with its kayaking and paddlboarding, the zip-lining adventures, the seafood and the wine tastings – a brilliant combination.