DOWN UNDER? STUDY YOUR MAP!

It's summer Down Under, a great escape from the cold. A huge number of people who want to travel Down Under are, sadly, clueless about how much time they'll need to "do" both Australia and New Zealand. This posting will help you get started with good planning, but what you need most is a map. A good map. With distance scales on it. "We're going Down Under!" say our dearly naive traveling friends. "We're going to visit New Zealand, from Aukland to Queenstown and all points in between. And then we're going to Australia, and we'll visit Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Ayers Rock and the Great Barrier Reef. We're allocating two, maybe three weeks, to do it all. Any suggestions?" Yes, I have a suggestion. Don't do it. Unless you're willing to pay for and experience nothing more than an exhausting siege of vertigo. Australia in three to four weeks? Okay. New Zealand in two to three weeks? Okay also. But the whole area in 15 to 21 days? Save your time and your money. These are wonderful places to visit, and you won't do them, or yourself, justice unless you allow plenty of time. (Consider as an alternate plan separate trips to New Zealand and Australia.) A Fool-The-Eyes Ad Part of this problem is due to an advertisement I've seen countless times in Sunday Travel Sections and various magazines. It's an ad for "Down Under" and it shows New Zealand snuggled up real close to Australia, and it looks to be almost the same size. That gives an unmistakeable impression that it's take just a hop, skip and a jump to cover both nations. The real maps say otherwise. Aukland, in northernmost New Zealand, is over 2,000 miles from Australia's main cities, Sydney and Melbourne. You're looking at a five hour flight across the Tasman Sea, plus another three to six hours getting to and from airports, going through security, waiting to board, collecting baggage, emplaning and deplaning, and so on. That's in both directions! In other words, it's a full travel day---you'll wake up in the morning and go to sleep in the evening having done nothing but travelling. And, by the way, figure that same three to six hours to and from your hotel bed to your airline seat, and vice versa, on all your flights. That also holds in the U.S.A., which is why if I can drive to any destination in three to four hours, I will do so instead of flying in today's crowded, demanding and uncomfortable airline environment, which is made all the worse by the inanity of security routines and the people who run them. Australia is as large as the United States, geographically. Sydney to Perth is like New York to San Francisco. Singapore is closer to Perth than Sydney is. Melbourne to Cairns (for the Great Barrier Reef) is like going from New York to Miami, plus another hour or two to drive from the Cairns airport to Port Douglas where you board catamarans for the reef. So, call it New York to Miami, followed by a drive to Key West. Package Deals vs. Do-it-Yourself Sure, there are package deals of two and three weeks that hold out the promise of seeing everything Down Under. But after the first 48 hours everything will be a blur. A sleepy blur. A dizzy blur. Los Angeles to Sydney is a 14-15 hour flight, and crossing the International Date Line does weird things to your body clock. And that's just the first day! Besides, you don't really need a package. (A good travel agent, yes. A "hurry-back-on-the-bus" package tour, no.) Everyone speaks English. You can read all the ads and the signs and the schedules and the menus. Everyone is extraordinarly friendly. You want to mingle and dawdle and stroll and give in to your curiosity at the slightest whim. You don't want to be herded. And a well-planned self-guided trip can be in the same price range as a package tour. So, please go Down Under. The sooner you go, the longer you'll have lovely memories. But do it when you have done ample planning and have ample time. We'll visit a lot of the Down Under delights in future posts. Meanwhile, study that map. This article supplements Chapter 3, pages 88-106 in Personal Finance. Access the textbook by clicking on the box in the right column.