We are visting Australia next March for 2 weeks. We will be spending time in Sydney and Port Douglas and have about 7 days for the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast. Do you think 3 days is enough for Sydney and 5 days in Port Douglas is enough time? We have also heard that Airlie Beach, Fraser Island, Surfers Paradise, Byron Bay and Coolangatta and nice. Please advise.

3 days in Sydney is OK if you just want to get a taste of the city centre, without day trips out to places like the Blue Mountains. 5 days is good for Port Douglas - 1 day on the Reef, a couple of days tourng the area (daintree, Cape Trib, atherton tableland, etc)and a couple of days lazing around the town. <BR>Airlie Beach is probably not worth it if your coming from Port Douglas - fairly similar experience. Surfers Paradise and Coolongatta are at each end of the Gold Coast (a 30km stretch of great beaches). Surfers is too built up and touristy. Coolongatta is a better option, but I think some of the places in the middle of the Gold Coast are better, like Broadbeach or Burleigh Heads. There are loads of comfortable self-contained high rise apartments overlooking the ocean. The Gold Coast is great for families with lots of theme parks and wildlife parks. Apart from the great beaches, the hinterland is superb, with great lookouts, National parks, waterfalls, walks, etc. <BR>Byron Bay is about an hour south of the Gold Coast - a laid back town with good beaches. A much quieter experience than the Gold Coast.

<BR>Yes -- the distance from Fraser Island on the north end of the Sunshine Coast to Byron Bay to the south of the Gold Coast is a very long way to attempt in a week. <BR> <BR>As much as I love the sunshine coast, since you are doing Port Douglas, I would skip trying to do anything north of Brisbane and just hit the road south. <BR> <BR>Surfers isn't really for me but you should see it (people either love it or hate it). As the poster above said, try to see the g.c. hinterland. O'Reiley's guesthouse in the binna burra rainforest is great. <BR> <BR>On our last trip, we travelled from Brisbane to Surfers, stayed the night, drove surfers to Binna Burra, stayed the night at O'Reiley's, drove to Byron Bay, stayed two nights, drove back to Brisbane stopping in C'gatta for lunch and some shopping. You could do something similar but you have even more time. We felt a bit rushed.

Marina, don't forget Qld will be wet in March.

the sunshine coast has less things to do than the gold coast. The Gold Coast has plenty of things to do like the 4 theme parks ie Dreamworld, Seaworld, Wet n Wild and Movieworld as well as a casino, animal parks, great beaches and niteclubs, shoppin etc. You can easily spend a week there! <BR>I think sydney deserves more than 3 days visit too, it's our biggest city!