Trip motivation
In July 2022, we took a family trip to Sydney and Cairns, Australia. This was the first time any of us had traveled to Australia. Traveling internationally with kids can be daunting but with a little preparation and research and tips from other travelers, we had a successful trip!
This post covers our itinerary, planning process, and international logistics such as using the metro, converting money and getting a phone card.
Read all of our Australia posts at the following links:
Planning our Itinerary
I love planning trips, especially through well-traveled places where there’s a ton of information to read through and make plans for. Fodor’s Essential Australia book was a great resource. We borrowed it from a friend. We also asked advice from friends who had made a similar trip and used websites such as facebook groups and googling Sydney Itinerary for recommendations. We spent 2 nights in Sydney, 3 nights in Cairns and 1 night in Sydney again. We took a domestic Jetstar flight between the 2 destinations. Did you know that Australia is around the same size as the continental US? It took us 3 hours on a plane to go from city to rainforest and reefs and a whole different temperature.
In the cities, we used a combination of ubers, trains, walking, ferries, busses and walking. We packed inflatable car seats specifically for the option of being flexible with our plans.
Overview
When taking trips with kids, a key to enjoying the trip is really spending time on the planning process. That’s not to say that every minute is planned but we don’t want to waste time looking up times or directions and not having a plan. Several months before, I sketched out our plan in excel with a balance of activities, rest time, food, rest, and fun. We made sure to research how far areas were and tried to schedule several anchor points with a few optional activities so we didn’t overstuff our schedule.
Day 1: Late afternoon arrival, Uber to hotel to check in, walk to Circular Quay harbor to see the Opera House and eat dinner, buy drinks (and pull-ups!) and go to bed early.
Day 2: Hotel breakfast, Uber to Harbor, Ferry to Taronga Zoo, Bus back to hotel, Walk to Botanic Gardens and Opera House, Pub Dinner, and bed
Day 3: Uber and Ferry to Manly Beach. Walk along beach and stop at playgrounds. Explore a cave hike, back to hotel to check out and fly to Cairns. In Cairns, check-in and eat dinner and bed
Day 4: Big Day! Organized snorkel tour to Arincourt Reefs. A bus picked us up and transferred us to a boat that took us to a platform. On this platform, there were areas for snorkeling, a small submarine, lunch, and more.
Day 5: We took a bus to the Kuranda Skyrail. This cool gondola-style ride took us over a rainforest with stops in some overlooks and a village with restaurants, small zoo, and markets. In the evening, we spent some time at the AirBnb before packin gup
Day 6: Check-out of AirBnb, domestic flight back to Sydney. In Sydney, we explored Darling Harbor and relaxed in preparation for our flight home
Day 7: Fly home!
Transportation
In Sydney, we used CityMapper to give us transport recommendations. The location of our hotel made it so that it was often equivalent time to walk or train but we often thought it was worth it for tiny feet to uber with our inflatable car seats. When taking the train, we bought single tickets with child rates at the ticket machine and then tapped to pay our credit cards for the adult fares.
For the ferry, we used a similar method as the train where we bought single child tickets at the machine and tapped our cards to pay for adult fares.
In Cairns, we took a bus from our AirBnB to the skyrail terminal. This was a little tricky as the bus only took cash and it was a hail and ride (i.e. wave at them to stop)
we used the CityMapper app. It was fantastic at providing details on which train to take, which platform, what exit to leave the station, etc. In the stations and on the trains, we reminded kids that they need to stay close. As much as possible, Ellie’s hands and often Carter’s are super-glued to an adult from the time the train pulls in to doors close.
Be patient with the trains and yourself and hold onto your little one’s hands tight. Many stations are not accessible and there are lots of stairs. If you have little ones, it’s a good idea to use a carrier. If you do use a stroller, many have elevators but be prepared to fold it and carry up stairs.
Finally, we really relied on uber in both cities. UberX in Australia stated on their app that their cheapest option was only for 3 passengers and we were 4. For the first few days, we tried repeatedly to request the XL option but kept running into issues of canceling or 20 minute waits. We decided to just take our chances with the UberX even though we had more passengers and only had 1 of 6 drivers complain to us.
Other International Logistics
Passport: Before you fly internationally, check those expiration dates on your passports! Note that some countries require your passport to valid for 3-6 months after your flight
Phone/Internet Have you heard of an e-sim card? On our recent trip to Paris, we found out about this option for getting a data plan without having to physically put in a card. We decided to set us both up with our own sim cards so we could be separated from each other. This was great as the kids could be connected on long train and bus rides, we could always get reliable directions and search for schedules.
Language: English! A few fun word differences but no language barrier
Currency Exchange We stopped at an ATM at a gas station in Cairns and used our bank debit card to pull out the equivalent of $100 for some Australian dollars. We really didn’t need many throughout the week and used it only for the bus ride and some small stores.
More Australia Posts
Read all of our Australia posts at the following links:
