Australian Wine Tours

Working with our travel specialist to plan our trip was a pleasure; she shared additional recommendations throughout the process to ensure we finalized an exceptional itinerary that exceeded our wish list. The trip ran flawlessly, even though we visited multiple cities and locations.

Honestly hard to narrow down our favorite location, as each city or activity offered something different. Sydney is certainly very special, as was our Ghan train experience. But if we were to identify one highlight, it was our stay in Freycinet, Tasmania. The resort is spectacular, our villa spacious with incredible views across the bay and the staff amazing; nothing is too much trouble. The food at the resort is exceptional, each course with choices of Tasmanian wine.

We enjoyed all our experiences and activities throughout our trip, although strong winds when we took our helicopter flight out to a cay on the Great Barrier Reef meant we were unable to snorkel.

In summary, very impressed with Australia. Everything is clean, no graffiti (in any city we visited!) and everyone was so helpful and friendly. If we had one aspect we'd change, it would be to have added an additional day in Melbourne; it's a beautiful city with much to explore. Can't speak more highly of the team or our incredible trip.

We were pretty late in arranging this trip and Zicasso and our travel company did an exceptional job! We feel like we saw the best of Australia in our two-week trip. The private guides for our tours (Sydney, Blue Mountains, Daintree, Cape Tribulation, Zootastic) were wonderful, informative, engaging, and responsive to our requests and our nine-year-old's endless questions! We felt cared for and even a little spoiled. This certainly exceeded our expectations and was one of the best vacations ever!

Zicasso’s travel company did a phenomenal job with stays, tours, and activities. In particular, we loved our room at our hotel in Tasmania, our villa on Waiheke Island in NZ, and our room at our hotel in Melbourne. Our itinerary was well thought out and exposed us to exactly what we'd hope to see in Australia and New Zealand.

Zicasso’s travel specialist is marvelous. From our introductory FaceTime chat, I knew he was the right person to plan our Australian adventure. I shared a general timeline and a few preferences—personalized travel, small-group tours, and a focus on scenery, food, and local experiences. I even casually mentioned that, since I pack light, laundry options every 7 to 10 days would be a bonus.

Wow—did the travel specialist deliver.

Private city tours in Sydney, Adelaide, and Melbourne. A Blue Mountains excursion with a local resident. Wine tastings, a foodie walking tour in Melbourne, and fabulous centrally located hotels that made exploring on foot effortless. The Ghan train journey was an unforgettable highlight.

And yes—lodgings with on-site laundry right on cue around day 10 and day 20. Not bad for a “casual” request!

This trip was truly amazing and the travel specialist was an absolute pleasure to work with. Always responsive, thoughtful, and attentive, he made what could have been complex planning feel completely effortless—and perfectly tailored to my travel style.

Rave reviews all around.

Our family of five had an amazing two-week trip to Australia. We visited Sydney, Cairns, Uluru, and Melbourne, experiencing a great diversity of sights and activities. Zicasso's travel partner was great, working with us to create a custom itinerary. Our travel specialist was a great travel planner and the support was available throughout the trip whenever we needed it. Thank you for a wonderful experience!

Our trip included three couples from Massachusetts. We worked with Zicasso's travel agency to customize a trip to Australia. In general, the trip was excellent. Most of the travel logistics were perfect. All transfers were on time. All of the guides were on time, passionate about Australia, and were very good to excellent. All the hotels were also very good to excellent. The travel app was very helpful for keeping us updated on trip logistics. Most logistics worked out well. Most of the tours arranged were excellent. The fly nets the agency provided were a godsend in Uluru. Seeing Australia's unique wildlife, snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef, going to a footy game, walking around cities, meeting indigenous guides, and simply being in Australia is an experience we will never forget. The Great Ocean Road excursion in Melbourne was beautiful, but eight hours in a tour bus was very long. The geographic size of Australia is something visitors have to deal with.

I would have rated the trip five stars except for the following minor issues. We arranged travel between the US and Australia ourselves (not using the agency), which, in hindsight, was a mistake. Therefore, most of the travel headaches we experienced are not included in this review. The one miss they should have caught was informing us that a New Zealand ETA is needed for transiting through Auckland, New Zealand (even though we did not clear New Zealand customs). We were able to apply and get the ETA at the Houston airport just before boarding the plane, but the stress could easily have been avoided had we realized we needed this document before the trip began.

The instructions for where to meet for the backstage tour of the Sydney Opera House were a little off. We were told to meet the tour at 6.45am, downstairs by the information booth. This turned out to be the meeting place for the outside tour. By 6.55am, fighting jetlag and the early hour, we figured the meeting place for the backstage tour was upstairs and, luckily, we made it in time for our 7am tour, which was excellent.

The selection of wineries we visited in Adelaide wasn't ideal. Several did not ship their products to the US, which meant, for practical reasons, we could only purchase a bottle or two. Ideally, we should only visit wineries that ship wine to the States.

Communicating with the agency during the trip was more challenging than we expected. For some reason, we didn't always get their emails or text messages. It wasn't clear how often they checked up on us during our journey. Last year, we arranged a similar trip to Greece and the company we worked with provided us with a mobile phone for the duration of the trip to facilitate communications. They regularly called us to see how the trip was going. In our opinion, this capability and handholding would improve the service this agency provides.