🇦🇺Cost of Travel in Australia (2026): Daily Budgets for 3 Cities
A harbour city where the commute is a ferry, a laneway city that takes coffee as seriously as sport, and the reef and rainforest meeting at the top. Expensive, very far away, and about as easy as long-haul gets.
Daily budgets in Australia
The cheapest city in Australia is Cairns, at $95–185 a day mid-range per person; the priciest is Sydney, at $110–215 — about 16% more for the same style of trip.
| City | Budget / day | Mid-range / day | Comfort / day | Cheap meal | Mid-range hotel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cairns | $55–110 | $95–185 | $170–330 | $9–15 | $85–160 |
| Melbourne | $60–120 | $100–195 | $180–350 | $10–16 | $95–185 |
| Sydney | $65–130 | $110–215 | $200–390 | $10–17 | $110–210 |
Per person in US dollars, flights not included. Mid-range is each guide's researched figure and includes a mid-range room; budget and comfort scale it by 0.6 and 1.8, so treat those as rough. How we work these out.
Plan a trip across Australia
Set the nights you'd spend in each city. Per person, before flights; each night counts one day of that city's daily budget.
Cities
🇦🇺Cairns
AustraliaA small tropical city that exists to get you onto the Great Barrier Reef and into the oldest rainforest on earth. Two World Heritage sites meet here, and almost nothing else in town competes.
🇦🇺Melbourne
AustraliaLaneways of street art and coffee roasters behind a grid of Victorian arcades, a tram network that's free in the centre, and a city that treats sport and brunch with equal seriousness. Australia's cultural capital, and it will tell you so.
🇦🇺Sydney
AustraliaA harbour city where the commute is a ferry and the beach is on the bus route. Expensive, outdoors-obsessed, and about as easy as long-haul travel gets for an English speaker.
Head to head
Two cities side by side — costs, best months and what you'd do in each.