One Week Down Under: Iconic Australia Itinerary
What to expect on this itinerary
From watching the sunset in Uluru to cruising the Parramatta River, this handcrafted one-week Australian adventure will lead you on an exclusive journey to Australia’s icons in addition to incorporating tropical Queensland and Sydney’s most exclusive experiences. Australia is a land of icons and legends that can be mostly discovered in just about a week. Indulge in aboriginal encounters in an ancient forest, magnificent landscapes from the Great Barrier Reef to the red desert, and contemporary city wonder beside the beach.
Customizable Itinerary
Port Douglas – Rest and Relaxation
After landing at Cairns International Airport, you will be transferred to Port Douglas. While Cairns is a nice town, it does not actually have its own beach. Port Douglas is smaller, quieter, and draped along a brilliant stretch of sand. Today will be at your leisure. It is great to start slow, even if you only have a week. Once you have settled in to your accommodation, you can stroll barefooted along the Pacific, bask in the shade of towering trees, and check out a low-slung town that is dominated by cafe terraces and boutiques. There is so much to do during your one week in Australia, so take today to rest and ease into the atmosphere down under.
What's Included:
Port Douglas – Aboriginal Experiences
Port Douglas – The Great Barrier Reef
Uluru – Magnificent Uluru Sunset
Sydney – Parramatta Dinner Cruise
Sydney – Climbing Sydney Harbour Bridge
Sydney – Departure
Trip Highlights
- Uncover ancient secrets during a day of Aboriginal encounters near Port Douglas, where you will meet three different Aboriginal clans
- Embrace Sydney’s iconicity on a beautiful private tour through the old center and an evening show at Sydney Opera House
- Marvel at Uluru as sunset casts fresh colors across the world’s largest monolith
- Helicopter over the Great Barrier Reef and touch down to some incredible private snorkeling on untrammeled reefs
- Cruise through Sydney after dark on a sublime Parramatta dinner cruise
- Escape to the wilderness for a night with the Southern Sky at a remote red desert camp
- Lay back on Australia’s stunning beaches, including Bondi and Coogee in addition to a three-night waterfront stay in Port Douglas
Detailed Description
Australia is an enormous country. Tropical coastlines blur into a wild red center, indigenous forests meet with rolling mountains, and even the cities are defined by nature. Although it is massive, a superb travel infrastructure means that you can comfortably combine a full range of experiences in a short amount of time. This itinerary has been handcrafted to combine Australia’s icons and legends into one week of travel. Three nights in Port Douglas celebrate the country’s exotic allure, including beautiful Aboriginal encounters, the Great Barrier Reef, and a superb beachside lodge. Then, Uluru offers a dazzling 24-hour experience in the red desert wilderness before Sydney becomes an experience with a vibrant city energy.
To begin your journey, you will fly into Cairns and find nearby Port Douglas to be a perfect place to unwind after a long flight. Here, you can wander golden beaches, bask in the vibe down under, and gaze across the Pacific with your feet in the sand. On day two, you will meet three different Aboriginal clans, which will be a journey on land and water into the unique specialisms of these often misunderstood people. Exploring an indigenous forest with a local guide will help you understand bush survival before hunting and gathering along the coast shows you a different side to the culture. Afterward, an Aboriginal artist will help you record your day in true Aboriginal style by teaching you how to do a local form of art. Their artwork, which typically takes the form of paintings with dots and lines, reflects one way these people narrate their histories.
Afterward, you will fly directly to Uluru to explore the giant red rock at sunset. Here, you can walk around its sublime frame and gaze in disbelief at its size. Colors changes are remarkable out here, and the sense of wilderness will continue at your remote desert camp, where you will dine beneath the Southern Sky and embrace the solitude that Australia can create. After a morning with the fabulous domes of Kata Tjuta, Sydney will complete your seven-day journey. It is a magnificent place to be, and the city’s energy is impulsive and quick to impress. You can begin with a Parramatta dinner cruise before climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge the following morning. A night at the opera will follow a city walking tour, and then you can relax on the beaches, which are as iconic as a country and as unique as the city.
Starting Price
$2,900 per person (excluding international flights)
Your Zicasso trip is fully customizable, and this sample itinerary is a starting place for your travel plans. Actual costs are dynamic, and your selection of accommodations and activities, your season of travel, and other such variables will bring this budget guideline up or down. Throughout your planning experience with your Zicasso specialist, your itinerary is designed around your budget. You can book your trip when you are satisfied with every detail. Planning your trip with a Zicasso travel specialist is a free service.
What's Included
The starting price is based on travel during the low season for a minimum of two travelers staying in shared 3-star accommodations. Please inquire for a custom trip quote based on your travel preferences and travel dates.
Verified Traveler Reviews
Based on 87 reviews
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!
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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.
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Zicasso’s travel specialist was great to work with. She anticipated our needs and was quick to respond with information and to answer questions. She set up a great trip for us and we thoroughly enjoyed our visit to Australia. We had a couple of issues with the tours that were set up for us and they were quickly resolved, with great results.
On our visit to Kangaroo Island, the small-group tour subcontractor mishandled our connection on the island; their recovery was to send a personal guide to spend the day with us and also provide us with dinner! It ended up being one of our best tours. Many of our small groups were just my wife and myself, sometimes with one or two others.
We also had a very rainy and windy day the day we were supposed to go out to the Great Barrier Reef. It was a weekend and the travel specialist was on vacation. That said, the on-call person was amazing in rearranging one of our other small-group tours for that day and we were still able to go to the reef two days later.
All in all, I would highly recommend the travel specialist and her company. They were great up front and great during the trip.
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Zicasso’s travel specialist helped us plan a family trip of a lifetime! I will never forget this trip, in no small part thanks to the ease of planning and execution by our travel specialist and her team. We spent one week in Australia and two weeks in New Zealand. While we wanted to see a lot of places in this short amount of time, she made it happen. Thank you for a wonderful trip.
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What an absolute trip of a lifetime! Still can't believe I got to swim along the Great Barrier Reef and also see Milford Sound only weeks apart. Although I tried to pack a lot in, transfers were seamless, hotels were next level, and my wife and I were able to relax through the trip (which included two massages). Plus, all of our private tour guides were genuinely fun to hang out with.
Planning the trip with Zicasso's travel specialist was easy. He provided a lot of options and allowed us to tweak things to our hearts' delight. He also catered to our love for good food, spas, and wine to set up some memorable excursions.
Our travel company also uses an app that kept our itinerary, tickets, and phone numbers in one place with no worries. We literally just had to wake up, show up in the lobby of our hotel, and the rest of the day was taken care of.
Can't say enough great things! Australia and New Zealand may be a world away from the US, but they have the warmest and kindest people in the world, with some of the most spectacular landscapes to enjoy!
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This was our first trip to Australia. Zicasso’s travel agent took time to get to know our family and how we like to travel. She gathered our interests and preferences, and carefully curated an itinerary that showcased Sydney, Melbourne, and Cairns/Port Douglas, all within our budget.
This travel agent was very responsive before and during our trip, and monitored our activities to make sure we were happy. In fact, during our stay, one of our excursions (kayaking in Cairns) was canceled due to weather and she was right on top of it. She was able to book us immediately on another expedition (whale watching) of our choice. We appreciated her responsiveness.
Overall, our entire family was extremely happy with our travel agent's arrangements and had a memorable trip to Australia.
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