AndyR

As me and misses have never been to Oz and plan on traveling round for 3-6 months when we come over on a WHV in May, pending our 175 approval, we've got a bit of brushing up to do on Oz!

A lot of people recommend getting the Australian Lonely Planet guide and taking that with you to Oz, so we had a look in Borders the other day and it looks quite good. However, there were also smaller Lonely Planet books for individual states like Queensland, NSW, Victoria etc.

Has anyone ever used these and if so would you recommend the individual state ones or the whole hog Ozzy book?

Thx!

Leedelta

Hi,

I used the main Oz one, purely because it took up less room in the backpack than a whole bunch of individual state guidebooks

There will be plenty of brochures and stuff when you get to Oz.

aussiedreamz

Just get the new one, make sure it's the 2009 edition should be out by now, we had every conceivable book known to man when we arrived (travelled around for 3 months) we never really used the books once you hit the road you just pull over when you fancy or when the fuel guage is near to zero. I feel those books can be a bit hit and miss sometimes, just buy a map as we discovered places that don't even get a mention in the books and are some of the most beautiful places we have ever visited.

divaboy

rough guide has been useful for me so far

Grayling

Weren't Lonely Planet caught out recently for having sections of their books written by people who had never visited the places they were writing about?....or was that the other one?

G

scotty9000

I'm thinking the lonely planet format is getting a bit dated. They are fat books but there is too much emphasis on places to stay & places to eat which we do not refer to much, and too little emphasis on things to see, do & experience.

Anyone know a better book for that kind of thing?

pompeyblonde

You'll find the individual state ones are usually chapters of the main book, so the main book is usually much better value, I always used them on my round the world trip, not always totally up to date, or reliable but overall invaluable.

AndyR

Thanks all. As we've never been to Oz I think we'll pickup the main Australia book. Even if it helps us a few times it'll be worth it.

Thx for your help!

moonpig

Lonely Planet Guide Australia allthe way!!! Far best the easiest and most helpful guide you'll find. Layout is very good and it's easily read. "Does what it says on the tin!"

Also buy a fold map of australia from WH Smiths. The one with the blue cover!

Hope this helps, have fun!

AndyR

Cool thanks, I'll take a look next time I go in.

CDM

We did something similar and we took the main one with us. If you are interested, I kept a daily journal and photo library of the trip as we went.

Good luck with your trip. Hope you enjoy Australia as much as we did :-)

- CDM

CDM

Just thought I'd add something about LP books. We spent the better part of 18 months travelling & backpacking around the world and I still have my considerable collection of phrase books, maps & guidebooks as testimony.

The thing to keep in mind with guidbooks such as the LP series, which are excellent books I should add, is that, depending on the size of town, they will only offer a glimpse of what's available. For somehwere like Melbourne, for example, you could write several dozen completely different guidebooks and still not cover everything. When chosing a place to stay or to eat, it's important to bare in mind that there are often very many more options than the guidebooks show. The fact that something is NOT in a guidebook should NOT prevent you from considering it. Similarly, I would aregue that just because it IS in the guidebook isn't necessarily a good reason to choose it. Oftentimes, a listing in a guidebook will give the proprieter license to increase prices. We found this to be the case on a number of occasions whilst travelling around Australia in particular.

The most important thing to use when making decisions on where to go, where to stay, what to eat, etc., is your gut instinct. After you've been on the road for a while, you'll develope this sixth sense and you'll start to go with your instinct more and more. Certainly take the guidebooks and use them as initial points of reference but don't rely on them.

I could carry on on this topic for many more pages so ask away (or PM me) if you want to know more.

- CDM

AndyR

Excellent thanks! Will have a good read tonight, nice design with iWeb btw

We're still not sure how long we will travel yet, main reason is to see a bit of Oz first and to also look at different areas/cities before we settle down. Without going before we want to have some fun first but also look at the areas as all the research on the web can only prepare us so far.

Time limit / money is the issue at the moment and will be the deciding factor how long we tour for, especially in this climate with not knowing how long it will take to get a job once we do settle.

CDM

I don't know how much you've already researched or whether you've already travelled before but I can tell you that of all the places we travelled through, Australia was the most expensive (with the exception of 2 nights in Tahiti and a few days in Dubai). We did take some internal flights whilst moving around and we rented a car on 3 separate occasions (once for up and down the East coast, once for visiting Uluru and once for travelling from Adelaide to Melbourne) so this obviously brought the daily average up a bit compared to other countries. Plus we did some diving, wild-water-rapid-rafting and other fun stuff along the way so that also ate into the budget.

I have a spreadsheet that we used whilst on the road to keep track of everywhere we went, how much accommodation was and where we spent money. If you're interested in specifics, let me know and I'll dig some out for you.

We went to Melbourne, Sydney, East Coast (Whitsundays up to Cairns), Uluru, Perth and drove from Adelaide back to Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road. We missed out on a trip to Darwin because it was the rainy season and many roads were apparently washed out. We're emmigrating to Melbourne because it's really nice there but also because we have family there.

Good luck with planning everything and I'll look out for your feedback on the journals ;-)

- CDM

AndyR

Research is just basic at the moment but we are planning on picking the pace up soon. Thanks for your help with this, will drop you a PM about the spreadsheet.

Thx!