Minimum number of days for a trip from Massachusetts to Australia
 

Our daughter is studying in Canberra and would love for us to visit. It is very hard to take time off from work. Realistically, what are the minimum number of days we should plan to spend for the trip?

How long is a piece of string? No, I don' t know either!

If you leave home on the morning of day 1, leave LAX at night on day 1, you'll get to (say) Sydney on the morning of day 3 (as you lose a day coming this way) and be in Canberra sometime on day 3. Going back, you'll get to LAX before you left SYD and hopefully make it back home by the end of that day. The issue is - is it worth the time and effort (and money) to just come for a few days? Have you been to Oz before? Are you likely to come back again any time soon? What do you want to see here or is it just strictly to see your daughter?

Taking a week off would give you a few days with your daughter - but that's about it. Two weeks and you can have a bit of a whirlwind around Canberra / Sydney / Melbourne / Cairns (for the Great Barrier Reef) but you'll be exhausted by the end of it. Three weeks and you can see some of what Oz has to offer without killing yourself in the process. Only you can decide those trade-offs.

It would be worth thinking about going the other way, if you have the time. Fly to Europe, down through Asia (with some stops on the way) and then back to LAX and home. That obviously takes even more time but really makes the trip worth the effort.

Having lived in Australia (Canberra, actually) for several years and having traveled to/from Australia from the East Coast many times on vacation, I can't imagine spending the time and money to get there and staying less than two weeks. If you were able to arrange for 2 weeks of vacation time, you could, for example, leave Boston on a Friday evening (6pm) and be in Canberra on Sunday morning at 8:30 am. Then on return, you could leave Canberra (or Sydney) on Sunday morning and be back in Boston by late Sunday evening. This would maximize your time in Australia, giving you 14 actual days on the ground. But, realistically, it might be better to return on Saturday to give you at least one day to recover.

Say you have 13 days on the ground. In that amount of time, you could visit your daughter in Canberra (3-4 days), visit Sydney (4 -5 days), and visit a 3rd location, such as Cairns/Port Douglas (4 - 5 days). I've actually done this combo in two weeks and it was great.

I agree that 2 weeks is the minimum to make it worthwhile, and 3 destinations the maximum you should attempt. Will your daughter be free to travel with you? I'd say to heck with a day to recover on the return. Unless you are a pilot or a neurosurgeon, your employer can put up with a jet lagged traveller for a day or two. But do think about a strategy for dealing with jet lag on your arrival in Australia. With a big time difference (10 hours?) it can rob you of precious days.

Having done this trip many many times, absolute minimum 2 weeks, preferably 3. We used to "bank" our vacation and try to take up to 4 or 5 weeks.
Also, look at your costs - you have a big upfront amount in your airfare, add in your budget for the rest of the trip and work out your estimated cost per day. The longer your trip the lower your daily cost (but of course the total cost will be higher).

Ditto Wallaby's answer!