[cb2]

I was in the travel agent today collecting some brochures and picked up Bali, Malaysia, Singapore, Fiji and the Gold Coast.

Yes lots I know as not sure where exactly to go and when.

Anyway was asking the travel agent for family friendly suggestions of ideal places to go that are on the cheaper side and when she gathered all the brochures she put the Gold Coast on top and said "this one is the cheapest"

I said "really??"

What do you think to those who have been to both an Asian destination and Gold Coast.

I thought Bali or the like would be cheaper it even mentioned yesterday in the Herald Sun that Bali is cheaper than camping!

[intd242]

Perhaps she is taking passports, travel insurance and a trip to the travel dr into account?

If you'd need to get a passport specifically to take the trip.

[jessie123]

Its really dependent on what sort of holiday you want. Where you would be flying/driving from if passports need to be purchased, level of accomodation etc

Plus of course which Asian country you would like to travel too.

I would never go through an agent you can book everything online and find great deals. No one is going to organise your holiday or get you the best price better than you.

[cb2]

Thanks for your replies intd242 and jessie123
jessie 123: I had never thought of booking myself online.
Have you done so? If you have do you have a certain company you book through to recommend?
Thanks

[spersephone]

Accidental double post - see below

This post has been edited by spersephone: 07/01/2013, 04:16 PM

[spersephone]

That article was ridiculously skewed. Of course it's going to cost around $6000 to take 20 people with you camping for 2 weeks. What a stupid rationalisation!

How about one family? And add in the cost of airfares to make the comparison fair?

We go away for three to four days at a time, camping (in a camper trailer) in a powered ensuite site. We try to avoid the peak periods and most popular spots, just going on the outskirts of a place we want to visit. It still costs us a bit, but if you compare it to a hotel it's far cheaper. And if you compare it to overseas travel, far far far cheaper.

And I'd like to add that if we ever manage to go overseas, another essential cost would be travel insurance. I hear too many horror stories from people who didn't budget for that.

[Mel from the Cre...]

For me overseas is cheaper. We usually holiday each year in Vietnam as it is significantly cheaper with better food and service than Australia. My parents have an apartment in FNQ that we can use but we have been there for holidays and it costs a bucket. With airfares, hire car and then occaisional restaurant (no hotel as we have the apartment) Queensland was way, way more expensive than Vietnam.
That said though I am pretty confident in negotiating my way around in Vietnam - I don't think that it would be appropriate for someone whose not used to travelling in Asia.
For me it is much better value the luxury hotel are only about $100US/night, the food is cheap and amazing, the coffee unbelievable and the service puts Australia to shame. Queensland is appalling for service.
Before we had our baby we would stay in cheapo places ($15-20/night) and have one big splash out in a gorgeous hotel at the end. The last few years we have stayed in slightly fancier places but it is still very affordable. I book everything myself and we travel on Jetstar, Scoot or Air Asia. The airfare is cheaper than flying to Cairns.
I'd never travel anywhere with out travel insurance.

[*LucyE*]

We go o/s and the sunshine and gold coasts are essentially in our 'backyard'. We do weekends away on the coast regularly but prefer to go o/s for 'proper' holidays.

There's a few reasons that we go o/s but mainly it is for the different culture and experiences. I would get bored spending 2 weeks on the Gold Coast but that's possibly because I have spent so much time there already.

It's cheaper to holiday there than o/s if you are looking at average 4-5 star accommodation because you save on airfares, foods a good quality, language isn't an issue and Medicare is available. Cheaper o/s accommodation is available because they don't have the same overheads as Australia and upper luxury isn't really available in Australia. I've found accommodation o/s to be more flexible with accommodating extra children too which also saves costs. We had 3 children under 6 at one stage and a resort on the GC would not allow us to stay in a king suite. They insisted on 2 double bedrooms which actually had a smaller floor space but they were the rules.

I prefer to book directly myself but I am comfortable with reading fine print. If you are not, it may be easier to use a travel agent.

[BVB09]

OS is by far cheaper than to travel within Australia.

[RunDMC]

Hi, we travel a lot OS and use a combination of web search and travel agent.
Some travel agents will match or better airfares you find on the web, you need to take a printed copy of the price you find. Webjet.com is a good airfare source, you sometimes find that going direct to the airline websites show some good deals. I usually then take the flight I find to the flight centre, get them to book it and buy the travel insurance at the same time
For accom, I first search booking.com or expedia.com then cross check hotels I find with tripadvisor.com which has traveller reviews and more importantly traveller photos, so you see the real thing not the glossy set up photos.
Last minute.com has very cheap package deals, again check the hotels with tripadvisor.com
The above is true for both Australia and overseas travel.The nice thing about an Asian holiday, is that you really feel like you have had a holiday and a different experience as well
I would second Vietnam as a destination, great people, lovely beaches, excellent fake products....