East Coast Australia with My Adventure Project (MAP)

By Emma Pitcher, University of Western Australia Perth, Australia

In my summer holidays in Australia, I decided to use MAP to travel the east coast. You’ll find that there are so many different options for travel agencies but I recommend that you consider budget, the itinerary, and reviews.

Some tours offer guided tours (you’re in a group with a tour guide the whole time), which is more expensive. This might be ideal if you are solo and particularly nervous about travelling alone.

Personally, I don’t consider a tour guide necessary which is one of the reasons I chose MAP. It has group tours that usually run cheaper than most “guided” options. The group tours have set starting dates with limited spaces so make sure you plan this well in advance. You can choose a package for how long you want the tour to be, where to start and end, and what to do.

Financially, MAP suited my budget better for a ~3 week adventure, and their itinerary appealed to me more. I wanted to go from Sydney to Cairns, but I knew I didn’t want to stop in Surfer’s Paradise or Mission Beach, nor did I want to do the 2 nights on a boat at Airlie. However, I wanted to join one of the group dates but I left the booking too late. Fortunately, you can still book through MAP, but just without the “group,” only with anyone you’re travelling with and at any time.

The benefits of this are you can edit your itinerary, by adding or removing days or activities, providing loads of freedom with planning. MAP was so helpful with organising everything and you have an agent you can contact 24/7 if you need help with any bookings. Additionally, cancellations in the plan were so easy with MAP so they help you out if something unexpected happens. In my case, as I went up north to Cairns, flooding occurred and so I had to suspend the last leg of my trip and MAP helped me get refunds on all the hostels and activities!

A popular travel plan includes travelling Sydney to Cairns, where you start in Sydney for New Years and then travel up north. This what I did, however, keep in mind that all the Greyhound buses will be busy as everyone does this.

After you plan your itinerary and pay, MAP provides a calendar to keep track of all your activities, and all the tickets for hostels, activities, and transport. I removed the days in Sydney as I was staying there with family.

Overall, I recommend you do as much as you can and want to. Loads of people do a similar route so you’ll meet a bunch of new people! Particular highlights for me were K’gari (Fraser) and while in Brisbane I visited Australia zoo. Things to note are that the overnight buses aren’t the best. Not terrible but I found that upon arrival I was always super tired so try not to overbook yourself. Also, try to avoid rainy season as it can get very wet up north and it coincides with stinger season. If I were to do this again, I’d fly into Cairns at an earlier date (e.g., at the start of the summer holidays) and travel down the coast.