Best Time To Visit Sydney and Australia
 

Planning a trip next year to Australia. Not sure when best time of year to visit. Do not like hot weather, prefer more Fall or Spring weather. Of course, would be even better to go when have least amount of rainfall.

Any recommendations on best time of year to visit? I live in USA in the NYC area and I know the seasons are opposite of ours,, I think???

Thanks!

I just returned from Australia. I was there from March 13-27. It was very hot and muggy in Brisbane and Gold Coast the first week of our trip. Much nicer and dryer in Sydney the second week.

April & May are usually very pleasant in most places.

I live just north of Sydney. Basically Sydney is a 12 months a year town with temperatures similar to Los Angeles. A typical summer day in Sydney is 18°C minimum to 26° maximum. But unlike LA, the summer (Dec to Feb) is the wettest time of the year. That doesn't matter because the rain is not generally miserable and drizzly, but mostly showers or thunderstorms. Sydney in summer is a great place to be.

Winter in Sydney is great also. Too cold to swim, but is frost free with mostly nice clear winter days and an average of 9°C minimum to 17° maximum. There are many winter days where shirt sleeves are possible. Autumn and Spring are sort of in between seasons - nothing much different, just cooler than summer and warmer than winter.

If you intend to go to North Queensland and the Barrier Reef, stay away from summer. It is far to hot and humid and the water has stingers that make swimming impossible, except in hotel pools. Also summer is the wet season and like other wet season tropics, it rains every day.

Central Australia (Ayers Rock and Alice Springs) is impossibly hot in the summer - sort of like 40°C every day. A bit like Phoenix, AZ.

So it depends on what you want to do and where you are intending to spend most of your time.

Also don't underestimate how much travelling in Australia costs at present. With a weak US dollar and a very strong Aussie dollar, it now costs over US$1.06 to buy an Aussie dollar. Two years ago an Aussie dollar would have only cost you 71 US cents. That means in terms of US dollars, it costs 50% more to live and travel in Australia than it did two years ago.

All the best. Brian.

My preferences would be April or November.

$1.09+ this morning and rising fast! And be warned, Australia is MUCH more expensive than the USA, owing to our basic wage being about 3 times higher. Expect to sleep in a dump for $80 per night, and pay up to $20 for a basic meal.

July & August are the only times to visit North Queensland, so a smart strategy would be to start south and head north as winter comes on. May is lovely south of Queensland.

A thought; for something truly different from most visitors expectations of Australia, try to spend a mid to late September few days in Canberra. They have a Floriade by the lake that is truly spectacular (and free), literally millions of tulips, daffodils and other flowers, and as a bonus you will see large mobs (up to 100) of Kangaroos grazing in the outer suburbs - wild Kangaroos, not captive. Ask any local when you get to Canberra and they will tell you where to see heaps of Roos close by.