What is the best time of year to visit Australia? Is there a "low" season?

Yes there is a low season but its different in different areas.

Hi Delaine -

I'm an American living in Perth. Prior to moving here we visited Western Australia on three occasions, all during low season as we were trying to avoid the heat.

Generally speaking, high season in WA seems to run from December-March, although I had some difficulty booking accommodation for properties south of here for next week.

South of Perth, high season seems to concide with whale watching, which runs from July to October.

Australia is vast and low season means different things in different areas.

Perhaps if you let us know when you plan to visit where, you'll get more help.

Over in WA, down south you also have the wild flower season about August to October/November.

For Australia in general terms, if you look at where the Tropic of Capricorn is, it roughly runs through Rockhampton/Geraldton in WA and anything above there is best kept away from between about November and April, even October on up around Dawin.

Anywhere else in Australia can be visited without too great a concern on weather anytime, though it will be cooler to cold without snow/ice in the south from June/July to August, the more so the further south you are.

Airfares normally go up around November and stay that way through to end of January for both getting here and getting around (there being some sales at times, but usually sometime before flight dates) and accommodation demand/costs will peak about then too, especially between Xmas and NY in places like Sydney and other popular seaside venues.

My best time suggestion would be April/May as you miss peak summer heat, crowds, bugs, flies etc., np problems with accommodation and moderate enough everywhere including tropics.

Suggest you do a google search for Australian school holidays and avoid those periods if you want to avoid lots of traveling families. Dates may differ in different states.

We went right after Easter, late April into May. So it's early fall there, and it worked out very well weather-wise. We visited South Island NZ, and then Sydney.

Alice