The Ultimate East Coast of Australia Guide: The Where, When, and How.

There’s two ways that you can do the East Coast of Australia. The first is to start in Cairns and end in Sydney, working your way down the coast and the second is to start in Sydney and work your way up to Cairns. I’m going to suggest the latter but I’m going to suggest it with a pro tip. START IN MELBOURNE!!! Technically this isn’t apart of the “east coast” itinerary BUT it is hands down one of the best cities in the world and offers access to do the Great Ocean Road if that is something that you are interested in.

Either way you choose your route, you are going to find travelers doing a similar route to you and while I enjoyed going up the coast, the time of year that you are going should play a factor into whether you are going up or down the coast. For example, if you are going in their summer season, that is wet season in Queensland so starting there is peak wet season. If you start south and work your way north, you can cut into the end of wet season and hopefully see some better days. Melbourne and Sydney (but specifically Melbourne) can also both get chilly. Australia is not the beautiful sunny paradise year-round that you think it might be so if you want it to be warm the whole time you’re there, check out their seasons and choose which way you want to go with that in mind. With all of that being said, this guide will specifically be following the route of starting in Melbourne and ending in Sydney so if you are going the other way, just flip it around ✨🦘🐨.

So, where the heck do I go along the East Coast?

The DL:

Click on each place to learn more about where I stayed, highlights of the place, and recommended time to stay there! The order of this list is the order that I visited them in and goes perfectly up the coast.