Where to Do a Stopover on the Way to AUStrailia
 

We will be using UA miles to fly to Australia next year. We would love to do a stopover in an Asian city. Other than BKK we have not been to any big cities in Asia. This would be in January so prefer not to stop somewhere with freezing weather - 40's-50's would be fine. Thanks!

I think the airline you take will determine your stopover options. Places I'd consider include Taipei, Tokyo (might be too cold for you), Hong Kong, Singapore.

Yes, you may be correct, but I was hoping to pick a city and then work from there. Read several HK TRs over the years and that intrigues me. Never thought of looking into Taipei. Agree that Tokyo would be at the bottom of my list due to weather.

What about Singapore? We have stopped there often, there's plenty to do, and it's never cold. It's about 7 or 8 hours flying time to the east coast of Australia.

Wouldn't you be flying direct from LA or SF with United to Sydney or Melbourne? Its about the same flight time from US to Asia as it is to Australia so you are only really adding another 8 hours of travel if you go via Asia. You could probably fly the Pacific to OZ with a stopover in Hawaii or New Zealand - maybe Fiji. However if you really want to fly via Asia then my choice would be Hong Kong as you can then get the 40 minute train from HK to Shenzhen, China, getting a Visa on arrival for China when you get off the Train. Would give you an idea of China and you can stay for 3 nights in China as Shenzhen is in their "special Zones" which means you do not need a full and expensive Visa for your time there. Hong Kong has lots to see and do and also you can get the hydrofoil over to Macao ( old Portugese city ) and it rivals Las Vegas for the most and biggest Casinos. When I go to HK I stay at the Hotel Plaza 9 degrees https://au.hotels.com/ho326859/harbo....slKp6VqB0.0.7 which has a reception area built so that you think its on a slant and it looks like its on a slant, but isn't, in the form of the degree that planes used to have to fly into HK to the old airport there, which is where the hotel is now built. The reason I stay there, although its not in the tourist area, is that its a great hotel with rooms that are about twice the average in HK for a much cheaper price and they have shuttle busses to the tourist areas and to the main railway station at regular intervals which is free plus I like the staff there too and the services.

Depends also on where you plan to go in Australia. If you want to start in the Top End, then Bali would work well because it is very close to Darwin.

sartoric - will certainly look at Singapore, but when reseraching it for another trip, it fell by the wayside.

invenot-Yes, the "normal" route for Aust from the east coast is via the west coast. However flights for those ruotes are limited using miles. I also thought it would be a nice opportunity to see a city as a stopover. Thus I figured I'd explore that as a possibility. Thanks for all the ideas. HK sounds appealing.

FromDC - we're completely open as to where to start in Australia. Hadnt thought of Bali so will check into that to. (& do you live in DC? that' where I am)

I'm in the DC area too. On my last trip to Australia, we traveled by way of Singapore, Java, and Bali. Darwin is a quick hop from Bali.

Yup, I live in DC but am on sabbatical this year so we rented out our house until May. We went to Australia and New Zealand for almost 6 weeks in Oct/Nov, posted TR a few weeks ago.

I did lots of searching for flights, I used AA miles, almost impossible to get to Australia and NZ because Qantas offers very few biz class awards. My original reservations were to Denpasar (DC to LAX to Hong Kong to DPS) but luckily 2 seats popped up to Darwin (DC to LAX to Brisbane to Darwin) for good dates, supremely lucky. I kept checking different options because I wanted to get there a few days earlier, kept looking to go through KUL, SIN or DPS if I couldn't get any west coast to Australia seats.

Still, it's a long flight, even from KUL or SIN to Darwin, much longer if you are flying to somewhere other than Darwin in Australia or even from other points in Asia to Darwin. Good luck! PS Singapore would be great for a few days and plenty warm.

Hi fellow DC'ers! thanks for the info -- I will look for your TR, from DC. Did you think 6 weeks was enough for NZ and Aus?

While you could spend 6 weeks in each country and not run out of things to do, the amount of time you allotted will give you a good picture of both countries. For Australia pick 3 to 5 areas you want to visit rather than trying to see everything. Also if you are entering Australia from Asia, you can also look at flying into Perth in addition to Darwin or the eastern cities.

We stopped in Fiji and flew into Darwin (via Brisbane).

6 weeks not nearly enough for both places but it's difficult for us to be away for longer than that. Even if we eliminated NZ, I doubt it would have been enough for everything we wanted to see in Australia. We picked 4 places in Australia and even then I wish we'd had more time in each of those places. But there's no way I would have eliminated New Zealand either so we just had to prioritize. I originally wanted to fit in an Asia stopover but it would have been too much time and would rather have spent the extra time in OZ/NZ if we had it.

The flight from Denpasar to Darwin is under 3 hours. Just be aware that January/Februay is the wet season in the top end. It will be extremely hot and humid, but maybe you like that....