Hello all,
I and my husband are both international students here in Australia. An opportunity has presented itself to my husband to visit the Gold Coast mid-December and we decided to make a trip out of it and go as a family (two adults, one 2-year-old child). We're on a budget, we check Ozbargain hundreds of times each day for deals that help us live a better life here. Now we want to plan this trip as cheaply as possible. Currently we've noticed that round trip tickets are at least 300$ per person, so we decided to go by car, thus saving money and seeing as much of Australia as possible. We have already spotted a deal for a 5-day stay in Carlton's Surfers Paradise apartments on Living Social (about 460$ - 30$ discount (using the BIG20 voucher - 12% cashback pending on CashRewards) and went for it. We are still to confirm availability of booking tomorrow morning, but I think it's a good deal!
Any advice on how to save on the road? We have a long trip and want to make the most out of it. We'll be looking out for vouchers for discounts on entertainment in the Gold Coast as well.
Adelaide to Gold Coast, and back, on a budget?
Comments
Not much advice on saving on the road. Petrol in smaller towns will be more expensive then cities/large towns. When you get onto the Pacific Highway (a much nicer drive than the New England highway) highway side petrol stations tend to be more expensive than if you go into the towns. I remember last summer the price of petrol at the Port Macquarie servo on the Pacific Highway was about 15c/litre more expensive than the price in Port Macquarie.
Packing your own food also will bring down the cost or you could just eat at one of the many McDonalds on the way.
With a child, expect the drive to take 3-4 days. Depending of what you've seen of Australia, I'd suggest Adelaide - Canberra, Canberra - Newcastle, Newcastle - Gold Coast. You might want to stop off in Sydney as well.
Don't be too cheap though, if you go through Sydney take the M7 and M2 through to the north of Sydney. It'll cost you a bit of money ($15 or so) but will save you hours. There is no toll booths and if you don't have an e-tag (which you wont being from Adelaide) you will be charged a fee for them to track down your details and sending you a bill. You can pre-register your car so that the fee is cheaper though.
Or there's usually a number you can call (or a website) within 3 days to pay the toll with cc.
Speed traps are vicious in NSW particularly on the coast hwy. I would go inland through Broken Hill.
We took an electric frypan once, and had big fry ups for brecky in motel rooms.
My tips would be thus:
Look into relocating a car/van?
http://www.drivenow.com.au/onewayrentals.jspc#/relocations/A…
https://www.transfercar.com.au/searchAccommadation: Air B&B - Fantastic wesbite & should be able to find something cheaper & better than the currentCarlton apartments.
Student concession train tickets ?
Thanks a lot everyone.. plans have changed drastically since my post. The Carlton apartments didn't have free rooms for us to book so we cancelled the deal. We found another apartment and we decided to go by plane to avoid a grumpy 2 yr old!
I got some deals at Gold Coast, if you want you can PM me