Mousy

Hi

We have just received our visa and need to validate before July next year.

I would like to use our validation trip as part holiday and part recce. We are looking to go for 3 weeks either at Christmas time this year or Easter time next year, keeping in mind it is part holiday, (and we would like holiday weather), when would be the best time to go????

Where to go though - I am going cross-eyed with researching where to go to, we can't afford to try out different places so are trying to find out what would best suit us as a family and go there for our recce/holiday to have a look round some suburbs etc while we are there.

We are a family of 2 adults and two kids, 10 and 11. We'd quite like to live near the sea, have a warm climate year round, plenty of family friendly places to go to/visit. My hubby is an electrician and I work in Admin so somewhere where there are plenty of jobs. I have been looking at Adelaide and maybe's the Gold Coast or Sunshine Coast, does anyone have any advice about these places or any websites that are good at comparing one place to another so we can begin an elimination process whittling down our choice.

Any advice would be much appreciated and I know what suits one person will not suit another but any thoughts or suggestions are welcome.

Thanks in advance.

techieguy

Does Adelaide have a year round warm climate?

I think you will be looking at Brisbane / GC and northwards.....

Nikki.P

You are so right, unfortunately Adelaide does not have a year round warm climate......it;s bloody freezing in the winter months but 9 months out of 12 it's great Quite like the fact that you do get all of the seasons here though.

MANDS14

Hi Mousy,

We did exactly the same in March this year. We flew to Sydney, stayed there for a week and then flew to Melbourne for a week and then onto Adelaide. This gave a good idea about Australia in general and also allowed us to see a reasonable mix of city sizes and cultures. It has given us the confidence to go back which we are doing but to Perth this time due to hubby's job.

Adelaide was lovely, felt quite laid back with a lovely city centre and gorgeous parklands. We stayed in Glenelg, drove around: the hills, north as far as the docks and also south as far as Port Noarlunga. From our own personal experience we found it had a lovely easy going feel but not the amazing beaches we were looking for nor the excitement/buzz that you might sometimes look for once in a while. It was quite a contrast to Melbourne! We were only there for a week though so hard to judge fairly. We came away having loved staying there but didn't get that feeling of wow this is it for us. As you say though its a personal choice!

Don't have a choice now anyway due to hubby's job. Sometimes the more choice there is the harder it is!

Good luck anyway, a reccie is definitely a good way to go.