Note from the Editor:
This article was kindly written for the SDC by member @Doctor Alan.

As we’ve gotten older, my wife and I have developed a certain dislike for flying when we decide on holiday destinations. There’s the hassle of getting to the airport in good time, the hassle of queuing up several times once there and the ‘sardiniation’ (my word – it means ‘being treated like a sardine!) to which we’re subjected when travelling ‘economy’.

Of course, we realise that if you’re travelling within Australia, it’s a lot cheaper to travel by plane and hire a car than to drive yourself and stay in hotels on the way, but money isn’t everything when it comes to enjoying a holiday. As tedious as it sometimes is, in a way, it’s more relaxing to simply pack your bags and drive!

Australia’s a huge country, and there are loads of places to stop at and have a look around that you’d never see if you’re travelling at 35,000 feet up. This is why I advocate for seniors at least – the Great Aussie Road Trip.



Where to go:
Of course, your destination, unless it’s a round trip, is dependent upon several different factors: The time you want to set aside, the money you can safely afford, what you hope to achieve for your holiday and when you want to travel.

If you have a pet or two, you’d have to decide whether they’d be OK in kennels, for example, or you’d like them with you. It could be that you’d rather they didn’t have to stay with other people, and that would affect the duration of your holiday.

If you’ve decided on a road trip, you probably have quite a healthy budget anyway.



The ‘time you set aside’ varies depending upon your circumstances and your age, of course. I must admit, from our home in Queensland, a trip to Sydney that we used to cover with only one stop at Port Macquarie, we find is far more comfortable with two or even three stops on the way. Travelling more than two hours seems to be quite tiring. Teenagers would cover the 800km or so quite easily in one hop, often sharing the driving with a partner while they slept in the passenger seat. To me, that’s not enjoyable. You really do have to stop and ‘smell the roses!’

The ‘money you can safely afford’ for the trip includes the number of stopovers you want to make. When we were younger, we drove from Brighton to Blackpool after seeing a ‘Wednesday Play’ about a group of miners from Newcastle who made the trip. We were newly married and found it fun to pull off the road and sleep in the car in somebody’s orchard. (I even took a spanner and removed the steering wheel to give us more room!). We used to simply pack the car and stop when we felt like it, in those days. We’d see a sign saying: “Bed and Breakfast”, and if it looked good, we’d stop for the night. As we got older, we found that the bed configuration became important, so we’d often stop at several places to check that aspect out before settling on one we preferred. We found we had to have either a king-sized bed or two singles as a minimum.



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