I had my wish list drafted early this year which included 3 travel plans to be realised in this year. Europe travel is already a past success. I had an immaculate Europe sightseeing tour last month. I’ve also visited Singapore‘s first ever casino, the Resort World. Currently I’m researching for my 3rd travel plan of this year which is a holidays to Beijing. I should be heading to Beijing in October later this year. So what would be my next travel plan?

I love Sunshine Coast!

Planning for my next year wish list, I’m now searching tours planners such as Qantas holidays for some travel ideas. What does this mean? I’m planning to travel to either Australia or New Zealand next year! I would love to visit them in Autumn next March! If you have been following my travel stories, you should know how much I love Australia. One of my favourite travel destinations so far is Gold Coast of Queensland, Australia. I love the city, the weather, the people and everything there. I wish I could fly back there again one day. Besides, I’m wishing I could visit the other major city of Australia in the South East, Melbourne. I think I’m going to love Melbourne as well.

I love the city, the people and the environment in Gold Coast

Since I’m flying to Melbourne, by hope, I could travel further down to have a Holidays in New Zealand! To me, New Zealand is a special country full of grasslands, greenery, mountains and what else, sheep. Indeed sheep population of over 10 Million is far more than its 4.3Million people. I love natural landscapes so much that I believe I will also fall in love with this country. With huge craving over natural sunlight in photography, I just can’t wait to shoot those New Zealand’s natural landscape under Autumn sunlight!

So I have to work extra hard this year to make my life easier next year. Then I would have more time in Traveling and photographing! Ciao.  – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog

Apart from being a South East Asian and an Australasian tourists destination, with a totally different culture, weather and religion, Phuket and Gold Coast do have something in common. Both of them have beautiful long, white sandy beaches, beautiful sunshine, and friendly people. Also they are both very popular destinations among travelers around the world.

Why travelers around the world, including Australians love to visit Phuket while Thai and South East Asians love the beaches and sun in Gold Coast? Here are the top 5 travel experience travelers can have either in Phuket or Gold Coast and tourists should travel to these 2 hot tourists spot with 2 different approaches to have 2 separate travel experience:

1. Phuket is best for singles while Gold Coast is best for family. You can stay up late until even next morning in Phuket for endless and lively night life. Bars, dance clubs and restaurants are open until late at night especially in Patong Beach. If  you feel hungry in the middle of the night, you can always find something to fill. On the other hand, Gold Coast’s lifestyle is more relax and ‘healthier’. Most shops and restaurants close very early at night. Nightlife in Gold Coast is very limited. However, if you visit if your family, there are so many themes park for family and your children in Gold Coast. Being the Theme parks capital city of Australia, your family would love to visit either Warner Bros’ Movie World, Sea World,
2. Gold Coast is best to drive around while Phuket is best to hike a Tuk-tuk. Perhaps it’s just my perception, I feel much safer and easier to drive in Gold Coast than in Phuket. Motorways are more systematic and motorists are more behaved (though not necessary at weekend night) in Gold Coast. The best part of driving in Gold Coast is to be able to drive up to the Hinterland and soak with the beautiful mountain scenes and vineyards. On the other hand, Phuket’s taxi or Tuk-tuk are so convenient that you better don’t risk yourself driving through all the trunk roads;
3. Phuket’s food is cheap while Gold Coast’s wine is cheap. Quite a straight forward calculation. Aussie Dollars is much stronger than Thai Baht. Living standard in Australia is much higher. Thailand holidays is famous of its cheap but fantastic local cuisine. However, if you are a wine drinker, drink a lot of Australian wine in Gold Coast where they are cheaper than a Coke in Phuket!
4. Gold Coast is best to stay higher. Phuket is best to stay lower. Why? Gold Coast has many high rise apartment along its 57Km long beaches. Staying higher at one of those apartment can have a wider and better view over the vibrant city. There isn’t many high rise apartment in Phuket and their best accommodation type is beach resort (perhaps it would be better for a city which experienced Tsunami attack before);
5. Gold Coast is cool and windy while Phuket is hot and stuffy. My favorite time to visit Gold Coast is in March or Autumn when the weather is cool in the region of 18°C but still have plenty of beautiful sunlight. What about Phuket? Gosh. When I was there in October last year, it was really hot at day and stuffy at night. Without any wind blow, it felt even warmer than in Malaysia!

So be prepare when you travel to one of these 2 popular beach destinations in the world. They should be explored differently in different approach and travel experience you are going to have in both places are simply unforgettable. Good travel! – Travel Feeder, your ultimate travel photo blog

Little compliment from Schmap, my travel photo of Gold Coast has been included in the 9th Edition of Schmap Brisbane Guide!

Schmap is a leading publisher of digital travel guides for 200 destinations throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. More than 90 million Schmap Guides have been downloaded since first release in March 2006. This phenomenally popular series can also be browsed online, with versions optimized for iPhone and Nokia users.

This photo was shot on my honeymoon travel to Gold Coast 4 years ago. We posed at the middle of the entrance arch of Surfers Paradise, the main beach of Gold Coast. Well, it’s just a snapshot of the scene. Perhaps more interesting in the photo are the beautiful sunshine and those surrounding visitors.

This photo was shot using my aged Nikon 4100 digital point n shoot compact camera only, not even prosumer or DSLR. But it still can convey perfectly the summer feel of Gold Coast with the perfect natural sun lighting of the scene. It proved again the fact that the most important element for great photo is the lighting rather than the camera or the photographer. – Travel Feeder.

I heard recently one of my fellow photo traveler, Mei Teng saying that she is travelling to Australia this week and asked about what she should do there. I suddenly felt so excited. Not because I’m going there as well. It’s because it reminds me of my previous travel to Gold Coast Australia. That trip had given me great memories which is still fresh in my mind even after all these years… (or maybe it was my honeymoon trip with my wife? Perhaps)

For me, our trip to Gold Coast Australia was one of those vacation travel that I would consider as a perfect travel! Though there were both high’s and low’s emotionally, and good and bad incidences happened during the trip, all these experiences had further enriched my memories of the vacation as well as the travel destination.

Most importantly, we couldn’t have these experiences if we were travelling there by full-packaged tour. That’s why I always emphasise about self-travelling. By self-travelling only I could experience those fun things and in-depth exploration of that travel destination. By self-travel only that I could here list out the Top 5 Things To Do when you are in Gold Coast, Australia for vacation travel, and here there are:

1. Rent a car. First thing you should do before doing anything else in Gold Coast is to rent a car! Australia is a big country. All its travel sites are scattered with a distance. To travel around Gold Coast most economically, you need to rent a car. It is even cheaper if you travel there in a group of 4; One fun thing of driving a car is that we could drop-by wherever we like when we see something interesting. We did drop-by just to pop into a bakery for some cheese cakes! (Can you do that if you were to travel with a package?) One of my friends even drove over 1000KM to the southern city of Sydney! Isn’t it fun to drive?
2. Shoot photos. You know this is always my first and foremost thing to do whenever I travel. Other than those “standard” scenic view to capture, travelers should also shoot something ‘local’, be it people or even cars. All these are great subject for travel photography. I would try some blind shots as well (off course not under the escalator! ). Remember: Many of the places you are visiting today, if not all, will not be visited again tomorrow, or could be only once in a lifetime. So, shoot more photos now rather to regret when you have left the travel destination!
3. Eat whatever local eats. One of the top 5 things to do on all travel, trying out local foods in Australia is definitely fun. Go to the backlane and follow what the local people are eating, and drinking. Fudge is one of the local famous candy that should be tried. I love the macademia nuts also. You can find full varieties of fudge and macademia nuts in Gold Coast. For group travellers, visiting the local supermarket to buy cheap vegetables to cook in the aprtment is also a fun thing to do. I bought some wine instead for our after dinner! Otherwise, visiting local vineyards and try various brands of winds sounds promising especially for travelers from the tropical countries like Malaysia. Either good or bad to your appetite is not important. At least we could try whatever we like which is not possible if you were following tour guides in packaged travel!
4. Explore the weekly market. Exceptionally fun and interesting, visit one of their weekly day market which open only twice a week from morning until afternoon. You could find many types of local foods and products over there, with a bargain! If you are hunting for souvenirs, go nowhere else. There are craftmen and artisit selling handicrafts, painting and arts as well. For food hunter, try out their ginger beer before you get exhausted. So, plan your schedule wise to allocate at least 1 whole morning on either Wednesday or Saturday, to visit the local day market;
5. For fun only, visit their casino at Gold Coast. Specifically for Malaysian and Singaporean, visiting Gold Coast largest casino, the Conrad Jupiter, which shall open up your eyes. You will soon realise how entertaining should a casino be, apart from what we see in the “Las Vegas” drama series. To try out your luck overseas, you may bet on the table for as low as AUD1.00 ! Free flow of F&B sure will be a good idea for me, the budget traveler!

Anyway, whatever things you do on your travel, no matter whether it turns out great or worst, it will be part of your travel experience and it will stay fresh forever in your memories. By the time your children grown up, they will certainly love to listen to all your stories, one day. As Travel Feeder’s Motto: Maximize Our Travel Enjoyment, Minimize Our Budget and Enrich Our Limited Holidays. These top 5 things to do in Gold Coast is only part of my travel experience.

What about your top 5 things to do there? – Travel Feeder.

Still remember the travel photo quiz above that was posted some times ago? Yes. Here is the answer. This photo was taken on top of Mt. Tamborine, part of the Gold Coast Hinterland Australia! Though I visited there quite a few years ago, the memory still remained fresh on the sweet experience of the travel. Perhaps we travelled to Gold Coast by self-travel style, the enjoyment we had experienced could never be compared by those who has been there by packaged travel.

The Hinterland of Gold Coast covers the inland suburbs areas of highlands stretching across Gold Coast, sunshine Coast to Brisbane, rain forest featuring the famous skywalks on trees, greeneries  with ranges of tea farms and vineyards, villages with handicraft shops,, boutiques, restaurants, coffee and tea houses, wineries and off course resorts and B&B.

Gold Coast Hinterland is so interesting to travellers because with only 1/2 hour drive from Surfers Paradise, travellers could experience a totally different aspect of Gold Coast. From beaches of Gold Coast to highlands of Hinterland, from city to village lifestyle and also from hot and sunny to cool and breezy weather.

The first stop we went was Mt. Tamborine, which is 584m above sea water level and it is the famous spot for parachutting. The photo supposed to be a perfect shot without my brother in-law… One top of the mountain one could oversee the breathtaking farms and even Gold Coast beaches at far end!

There are many popular travelers’ attractions in town of Mt. Tamborine such as handicrafts, arts, boutiques and also highland tea. Since we were on our own and had planned to spend one whole day in Hinterland, we decided to park our car along the main road and walked from one end to the other for souvenirs!

We had our morning tea at one of the “externally-look-great” tea house and had a few scones (though we couldn’t have our 1st cigarrette there as smoking already been banned in the public area in Australia)

As a newly married couple at that time a few years ago, sweet smile is always guaranteed on her face…

Right after that, we shop from 1 to another to look for great handicrafts. I found these ceramic tile paintings to be great for my souvenir to my brother!

Let’s take a picture of these expensive artworks since we could own them….

Nice to see, fun to hold, once broken, consider sold!

I love this photo of the clock shop exterior. Those colours and lighting are simply awesome!

My wife loved these antique clocks, I loved her boobs instead! (Oops! Sorry mdm…)

Aiya! We should have tried this coffee shop instead for my morning coffee… I found that I prefered coffee than tea.

Both of these sisters love long than short… witnessed this…

Just in time for the wine tasting session…

One of the famous products from Hinterland is wine. Mount Tamborine winery is one of them.

Pretending to be an expert, I was selecting one of the Shiraz but…

After lunch at one of the restaurant, we drove further in and up to Canungra area to visit one of the vineyard.

Thought it was quite near to Canungra, we drove further to look for the heritage rainforest site in Lamington National Park, the O’Reilly. But it was not the case if you see the map of O’Reilly. It almost drive me crazy to reach there… and our car’s petrol gauge didn’t look great either.

The only thing I wanted to explore here was this skywalk, a hanging bridge on top of the giant rainforest trees which could only take the load of 6 people…

One could further climb up to the top of the trees, it wasn’t me…

There were name tags on each of every wooden planks of the skybridge. Are they the donors or the builders? I have no clue…

Not many foreigners go there which I think because of its distance from Gold Coast (I found out this only when we spent so much petrol to reach there and it’s already too late. We still needed the same amount of petrol to drive back to Gold Coast)

A little bit of a consolation, we found some lorikeets around…

After a long distance drive and before another long distance drive home, we had a cup of coffee and few sticks of cigarrettes. The sun already started to fall.

Click here to view lightbox of these photos in flikcr

O’Reilly is best to stay for a night to admire the serenity and cool environment but not for day visit. It is just too far away from town, almost 2 hours drive! (maybe there is another shortcut route that we didn’t know…). When we reached Gold Coast’s Surfers’ Paradise, it was already at night, and our petrol gauge lit! Nevertheless, it was still a great day tour with full of funs and experience. For those of you who wants to know how we planned our trip to Gold Coast, read my Trip to Gold Coast. The best way to not missing any part of my travel stories is to subscribe Travel Feeder’s RSS feed for free update. – Travel Feeder.