HOLIDAY AT HOME
HOLIDAY AT HOME - Luxury Travel Magazine
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Seven reasons to holiday at home this summer | ||||||||
| Passports, visas, vaccinations, travelling abroad often brings as much hassle as happiness, particularly when you’re dealing with queues at customs and immigration, foreign currencies, long tedious flights, jet lag and phrase books. As you plan your holiday for this summer, think about avoiding all of that for a smoother, less expensive alternative in your own backyard. Here are seven reasons to holiday at home this summer: 1. Domestic flights are shorter, cheaper, and require less time spent at airports (including up to hours dealing with customs) than international ones. Virgin Australia and Qantas and Jetstar offer business class seats on many flights to and from major Australian capital cities, plus holiday hot spots from east to west like the Gold Coast, Hamilton and Hayman Island, Uluru and Broome. Prices vary, from low, for example A$838 for a business class return trip from Melbourne to Adelaide with Virgin Australia to A$6,416 for a business class return trip from Sydney to Broome (via Perth) with Qantas. 2. Australia’s summer climate varies from averages in the low 20s in Hobart, to around 30 degrees in Perth, Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide, to near 40 degrees in Central Australia. So if you love the summer heat, head to the tropical north or west to beaches, but if you shy away from it, you can head down to more temperate regions like Victoria or Tasmania and enjoy a much more moderate summer. 3. Right now there’s great value for money to be found at Australia’s luxury properties. See our current issue for our cover story: “Luxe for less at 12 of Australia’s most luxurious villas, resorts & lodges” 4. There are experiences to be had on our own shores that rival anything available overseas. Some of the best diving in the world takes place among the Whitsundays and on the Great Barrier Reef, and you can swim with whale sharks on Ningaloo Reef. Take a joy-flight over the Flinders Ranges in South Australia or trek the Larapinta Trail in the Northern Territory. You can explore rainforests, cruise the harbours, drive the Great Ocean Road and climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge, all mere hours away from home. 5. Australia is blessed with some stunning natural locations, from white sand beaches in the Whitsundays to the red centre and the natural wonder that is Uluru. There’s Cable Beach in northern Western Australia, Kakadu National Park, famous for its wetlands and Indigenous rock art, the battered cliffs of Kangaroo Island and of course the Great Barrier Reef. 6. Gourmands need look no further than Sydney and Melbourne for fantastic food offerings. Australian contenders featuring on the S.Pellegrino World’s 100 Best Restaurants include: Quay (The Rocks, NSW) Attica (Ripponlea, VIC), Tetsuya’s (Sydney, NSW) and Marque (Surry Hills, NSW). If its wine you’re after, stop in at NSW’s Hunter Valley, known for its semillon, or Victoria’s Yarra Valley, famous for reds like pinot noir and merlot, and the Mornington Peninsula region. Or head to South Australia, home to the Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale and Fleurieu Peninsula, and west to Western Australia for Margaret River. Tasmania’s climate lends itself to the production of great cooler climate wines like pinot noirs. 7. Both Queensland and Victoria were severely affected by disastrous floods at the beginning of the year. The local tourism industries were hard hit, the destruction caused in Queensland by Cyclone Yasi adding to the damage. Holidaying at home this summer will support these recovering industries and the national tourism industry as a whole. | ||||||||
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