Australia and New Zealand together: is it worth it?

The arithmetic, straight away

The cleanest comparison on our site is between two versions of the same tour. Highlights of Australia is 22 days at £8,049. Highlights of Australia with New Zealand is 40 days at £13,809.

So New Zealand adds 18 days and £5,760 — about £320 per day, which is slightly less than the Australian portion costs per day. You are not paying a premium for the add-on; you're paying the same daily rate for more holiday, having already absorbed the long-haul flights.

That is the core argument. The expensive part of this journey — getting to the far side of the world — is already spent by the time you reach Sydney. Auckland is a three-hour hop from there.

How different are they, really?

More different than people expect, and the differences are the point.

Australia is vast, hot, ancient and empty. Distances are enormous, the interior is desert, and the wildlife is genuinely unlike anywhere else. The headline experiences are geological and cultural: Uluru, Kakadu's rock art, the reef.

New Zealand is compact, green, temperate and mountainous — about the size of the UK with a tenth of the population. You can be on a glacier in the morning and a rainforest beach by evening. The headline experiences are alpine and coastal: Milford Sound, the Southern Alps, the fjords.

The two do not blur together. If anything the contrast sharpens both — the desert reads as more extreme after the fjords, and vice versa.

The time problem

This is the real obstacle, not the money. Doing both properly needs five to seven weeks, which rules it out for most people still working.

That's why the shorter combined itineraries exist. Highlights of Australia with New Zealand covers both countries in 40 days, and it's the one we'd point most people at — Australia's icons plus a complete two-island New Zealand circuit including the TranzAlpine, Milford Sound and the Bay of Islands.

At the other end, the 53-day grand tour adds Western Australia, Kangaroo Island, the Great Ocean Road and four nights in the Cook Islands. It's magnificent and it requires most of two months.

Or do New Zealand on its own

A legitimate alternative that gets overlooked: treat them as two separate trips. New Zealand alone rewards a fortnight far better than Australia does, simply because everything is closer together.

Our South Island Exploration spends 12 days working down the West Coast to Fox Glacier, through Wanaka and Te Anau to Milford Sound, then into the Catlins and across to Stewart Island — which almost no mainstream tour includes. It's the most interesting New Zealand itinerary we've found.

Our view

If you have the time, do both. The flights are the expensive, unpleasant part and you only pay that cost once. Adding New Zealand at the same daily rate as Australia, on a journey most people make once in their lives, is straightforwardly good value.

If you don't have the time, don't compress it. A rushed week in New Zealand tacked onto a full Australian tour will leave you feeling you've seen neither properly. Better to do Australia well in three weeks and come back for New Zealand another year.

Tours that cover this

• Highlights of Australia & New Zealand — Both countries, all the icons — 40 days, £13,809
• Wonders of Australia & New Zealand — The full circuit of both — 48 days, £15,559
• NZ South Island & Stewart Island — New Zealand alone, including Stewart Island — 16 days, £5,749

Read next

• Compare all 20 holidays
• Our South Island review
• Is the 53-day grand tour worth it?