BEFORE YOU GO - PLANNING YOUR TRIP

At Travel Wheels campervans/station wagons we are passionate about Australia and the amazing holiday you will have exploring this fantastic country! This is a very useful section which gives you a lot of background information which will allow you to plan out your trip in advance so that you will get the most out of your time in Australia.

Remember we do not want you to have a driving holiday! At Travel Wheels we are here to help you plan out your fun filled holiday with plenty of advice on magical places to stay for free and lots of other brilliant stops to visit on route. We want your holiday to be special and for you to enjoy the journey as well.

You are always welcome to email, phone, Skype or fax us with any of your questions and we will be more than happy to answer them and give you plenty of free advice on how to have a magical holiday exploring this unique and fantastic country!

Let's start with the basics, first of all, Australia is a MASSIVE and I mean MASSIVE country! A lot of people from overseas when first visiting Australia find it hard to visualise the massive distances and fail to understand how long it takes to drive to some of these fantastic places that Australia has to offer.

Once you have booked with us, we do not just give you the keys and say see you in five weeks time! At Travel Wheels we want you to enjoy the journey as well, and the last thing we want is for you to worry about driving hundreds and hundreds of kms in a mad rush or spoiling your holiday by doing a totally unrealistic route as you were not given good advice!

REMEMBER IT'S A BIG COUNTRY!!!

	At Travel Wheels we always try our hardest to talk a lot of our customers out of doing such a mad idea of travelling thousands of kms in a real short time. We always give our customers plenty of free advice on great places to stop and fun things to do to on your journey. Remember we want you to have a great trip down under, not a marathon driving holiday!

SOME BASIC FACTS AND FIGURES ABOUT AUSTRALIA YOU MAY FIND HELPFUL

• Sixth largest country in the world - 7,600,000 square kilometres!
• Australia is the world's biggest Island nation.
• It's larger than Western Europe and roughly about the size of the USA!
• Population is approximately 20 million people - 92% are of European origin, 2% Aboriginal, and 6% percent Asian/Middle Eastern.
• Majority of the population lives within 20km of the coast with the greatest concentration living between Adelaide and Queensland.
• Unique ecology with amazing wildlife and incredible scenery
• Oldest surviving human culture for up to 70,000 years old!
• Currency is the Australian dollar
• Country Dialling Code to Call Australia is 0061
• The Australian Electrical System is 220-240V 50 Hz.
• Australia has six out of the top ten most deadly snakes in the world!
• For more information on snakes and spiders, and all things Australian, see the website for the Australian Museum - http://www.amonline.net.au
• Australian has three official time zones known as Eastern, Central and Western time.

Here is a Useful Guide to the Australian Seasons and Temperatures

NOTE - Average temperatures are in Degrees Celsius

Often people fail to fully comprehend the sheer size of this amazing country, so it's worth spending some time to have a look at this distance chart and grab a guide book or check out our travel section of the Travel Wheels website for more helpful hints and tips for your adventure down under.

Remember at Travel Wheels we want you to have a fantastic holiday with lots of fun and interesting things to do, and not a driving holiday!!!!!!!!

Our suggestion would be to set a daily limit and roughly plan your route ahead so that you are not spending the whole time driving.

We recommend driving say 200-300Kms MAX in a day and this will give you the time and the space to see interesting things, relax, and stop where you want to stop without always looking at the watch or the amount of kms you have travelled!

Distances between major cities are in Kilometres.

Remember it's not just about the sheer distances in Australia, it's also about all the fun things you can do between these vast distances! At Travel Wheels we want you to have an adventure, not a driving holiday, so the next chart below is the recommended MINIMUM days we at Travel Wheels would suggest to have a chilled out and fun packed holiday without it becoming a mad rush.

Ideally we would suggest you doubling or tripling the days between each location as there is so much to see (ask us and we will tell you lots of great places to stay), but this in our opinion is the minimum amount of days we would suggest travelling between each centre for an enjoyable holiday.

If you really only have a short amount of time, rather than rushing or trying to pack in too much in a short time and not actually enjoying your holiday, then we would suggest using one of our specially made FLYDRIVE DEALS.

WHY DRIVE BOTH WAYS, WHEN YOU CAN 'FLY DRIVE' AND HAVE TWICE THE FUN IN HALF THE TIME!

At Travel Wheels we realise not everyone has months to travel, so if you are only have a short amount of time, don't worry, we have specifically designed a number of fully flexible travel packages that allows you to visit lots of fantastic sites along your holiday destination without covering the same road twice!

Below is a list of the main benefits of using a FLY DRIVE PACKAGE, have a look at our FLY DRIVE section of the website for more details and itinerates on where to go and when is the best time to see the amazing sights and sounds of Australia.

• Brilliant way to save time, money and gives you total freedom!
• Uses Low Cost Airlines - flexible, cheap, and easy to book.
• Australia is the ideal destination for a fly-drive holiday.
• Jump on a plane and within hours you are having fun in the sun!
• All you do is simply fly to your first destination and then chill out!
• Relax for a few days and then pick up your campervan/station wagon.
• With FLYDRIVE you are not paying for a car or campervan rental when you don't actually need it!
• No Backtracking or using valuable days of your holiday covering the same road twice.

If you need any more advice, we are always here to help and feel free to email/call/Skype us and we will be more than happy to plan and advise you on a holiday of a lifetime with Travel Wheels.