Melbourne, Sydney, Uluru, Kakadu and the Great Barrier Reef in 22 fully-escorted days.
The trip in a nutshell
Three weeks, one country, and every single thing you picture when you think of Australia. This is the itinerary for travellers who want the icons without a two-month commitment — and at £7,249 it is comfortably the most accessible way onto this list.
You'll do Melbourne's laneways and Sydney's harbour, watch Uluru turn red at sunset and pale gold at sunrise, meet the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Alice Springs, eat a bush barbecue under the stars, cruise Yellow Water and Katherine Gorge, and sail out to the Great Barrier Reef from Cairns — before a relaxed finish in Brisbane.
Eighteen nights in 4-star hotels, all internal flights, all transfers, and a Travelsphere Holiday Director with you the whole way.
“Everything is arranged. Every flight, every transfer, every hotel, every big-ticket experience. All you have to do is turn up at the airport.”
Live availability on Travelsphere's site · low deposit · ABTA & ATOL protected
Our signature calculation
The brochure tells you what this trip costs to book. This is what it costs to take — the price plus every meal the package doesn't cover, per person.
A reasonable gap. Budget for the meals and there should be no nasty surprises.
Meals priced at mid-range Australian rates: breakfast £14, lunch £20, dinner £38. We don't count the 2 days you spend in the air. How we calculate it · See every trip ranked
vs £330/day on the brochure · +18%
The moments you'll remember
Sparkling wine as the rock changes colour, then a return at dawn — plus the domes of Kata Tjuta.
A full day on the reef with snorkelling and glass-bottomed boat viewing included.
The harbour city's icons and Melbourne's laneway culture, with free days in both.
Dinner and stargazing near Alice Springs, after visiting the Flying Doctor base and School of the Air.
Aboriginal painting galleries in Kakadu, layered over tens of thousands of years.
Two of the Top End's finest cruises — birdlife, crocodiles and sheer red sandstone.
Optional trips into the world's oldest rainforest, plus the Kuranda Railway and Skyrail.
South Bank, the Story Bridge and an optional day on North Stradbroke Island.
Every night of this itinerary is spent in a 4-star property — unusual at this price point.
Where you'll go
Every stop below is included — with all internal flights, transfers and ground travel arranged for you.
9 stops, coast to coast — all internal flights and coach travel included.
MelbourneSydneyUluruAlice SpringsDarwinKakaduKatherineCairnsBrisbane
Day by day
Tap any stage to open it. Meals included at each stage are marked in green.
Settle in for the long haul with a good film and a glass of something. You'll cross the world overnight and touch down in Melbourne, where a transfer to your hotel and a welcome drink with your Travelsphere Holiday Director eases you into Australian time.
You arrive here, which means the first full day is deliberately gentle: an orientation tour of the arcades, the river and the gardens, then time to sleep off the flight.
The free day that follows is a genuine fork in the road. Most people choose between the Great Ocean Road and the Phillip Island penguins — both are long days, and doing both would be punishing this early in the trip.
2 breakfastsThis itinerary gives Sydney more time than any other on the site, and it uses it well. Guided sightseeing covers Bondi Beach, Hyde Park, Mrs Macquarie's Chair and Darling Harbour on the first afternoon.
After that you have three days. Enough for the Opera House, the Blue Mountains, a harbour cruise, the Bondi-to-Coogee cliff walk and still an unhurried morning with a flat white in Surry Hills.
3 breakfastsYou fly in from Sydney and go almost straight to the sunset viewing area, which is the correct order of business. The rock changes colour for about forty minutes and photographs poorly; look at it instead.
Next morning you return for sunrise, then visit Kata Tjuta. Note that the climb has been closed since October 2019 at the request of the Anangu — you walk around Uluru rather than up it, which is a better experience anyway.
BreakfastA full day in the Red Centre's only real town. The Royal Flying Doctor Service base is genuinely moving — an airborne A&E covering 2.7 million square kilometres — and the School of the Air is the other half of the same story.
That evening, the included bush barbecue: dinner around a fire, a swag of Territory stories, and stargazing afterwards.
Breakfast, dinnerA staging post between Alice Springs and Kakadu, but a likeable one. Waterfront precinct, harbour cruises and a sunset that arrives with tropical suddenness.
BreakfastA short but concentrated visit to Australia's largest national park. Nourlangie Rock holds painting galleries layered over tens of thousands of years, with the most recent additions from the twentieth century.
The Yellow Water Lagoon cruise follows — jabiru, sea eagles, magpie geese, and crocodiles at very close quarters indeed.
2 breakfastsAfter the drama of Kakadu, Nitmiluk is a calmer pleasure: a cruise through sheer red gorges with the engine off for long stretches, so that all you hear is birdsong bouncing off sandstone.
BreakfastA staging post between Alice Springs and Kakadu, but a likeable one. Waterfront precinct, harbour cruises and a sunset that arrives with tropical suddenness.
BreakfastThe reef cruise is the day everyone books this trip for. A catamaran runs out to the outer reef with snorkelling gear, a glass-bottomed boat and a marine biologist on board.
Three further nights give you the Kuranda railway and Skyrail, the Daintree, or simply the Esplanade lagoon and an early night.
4 breakfasts, lunchYour final two nights in Australia, deliberately unhurried. South Bank, the Story Bridge, and the option of North Stradbroke Island if you want one more beach before the flight home.
2 breakfastsA morning at leisure, then the transfer to Brisbane Airport and the flight back. Twenty-two days, six internal flights, and a camera roll that will take weeks to sort.
BreakfastItinerary summarised from the operator's published programme and correct at the time of writing. Order of stages can vary by departure date — confirm the exact schedule for your date on the operator's site.
Photo tour
Photography from Wikimedia Commons contributors under Creative Commons licences — full credits here.
The detail
The most sensible escorted tour we list. Twenty-two days is short enough to take as annual leave, long enough to cover Melbourne, Sydney, Uluru, Kakadu, Katherine, the reef and Brisbane without sprinting — and every night is in a 4-star hotel, which is unusual at this price.
Before you fly
On a 22-day trip, parking is a serious line item — and a policy that caps single trips at 31 days would leave you uninsured for none of this one.
Not sure this is the one?
Here's how this compares with the other escorted tours we rate. See all 20 holidays →
| Tour | Days | Australia | New Zealand | Cook Islands | From (pp) | True Cost / day | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Highlights of Australia You're viewing this | 22 | ✓ | — | — | £7,249 | £388 | View |
| Highlights of Australia & New Zealand | 40 | ✓ | ✓ | — | £12,169 | £361 | View |
| Wonders of Australia & New Zealand | 48 | ✓ | ✓ | — | £13,929 | £348 | View |
| Highlights of Australia, NZ & Cook Islands | 45 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | £14,089 | £370 | View |
| Wonders of Australia, NZ & Cook Islands | 53 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | £15,849 | £358 | View |
Before you book
Travelsphere's escorted tours run in modest groups with a Holiday Director travelling throughout. The clientele is overwhelmingly British and skews towards retired and semi-retired travellers, which on a seven-week itinerary is largely a function of who has the time.
Nothing at all — included excursions are included, not compulsory. Plenty of people sit out a city tour to sleep, swim or wander on their own. Tell your Holiday Director so nobody holds the coach for you.
On escorted tours your case is generally collected from outside your room and delivered to the next hotel, so you are carrying hand luggage between stops. On itineraries with several one-night stays, this matters more than it sounds.
Departures run from October 2026 through to September 2028. Long-haul escorted tours of this length sell out early — the best-value departure dates and preferred room types typically go 9–12 months ahead, so it pays to secure your place sooner rather than later.
Return flights are included from your chosen UK airport. Regional departures are available on most dates, sometimes for a small supplement — you'll see the options for your date when you check availability.
Yes — this is a fully escorted small-group tour with a Travelsphere Holiday Director travelling with you throughout. They handle the logistics, the check-ins and the local know-how, so your job is simply to enjoy it. Groups are typically modest in size and overwhelmingly British.
British passport holders need an Australian ETA (Electronic Travel Authority) and an NZeTA for New Zealand where applicable — both are straightforward online applications. Your passport should have at least six months' validity remaining. Always check the latest FCDO and official government guidance before you travel.
Live availability, departure dates from your local airport and current offers are on the operator's booking page. Deposits are low, the balance isn't due until much later, and every booking is ABTA and ATOL protected.
Check dates & prices for Highlights of Australia →Keep looking
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