i lived in australia for ~10 weeks (3 travelling and having fun, 7 working in melbourne), and it was tons of fun. nothing but good things to say, except for Sydney which is basically a boring american city transplanted to the other side of the world. some of the people i went with went to new zealand after living in melbourne with me for 7 weeks or so and they said they liked australia much better and new zealand was kinda boring. granted, they went in winter and spent a few days in cairns before that, but they said that there's just a lot of places to go hiking or do other outdoorsy stuff, not much else. another group of people went to thailand after cairns and they loved it there. they said everything was super cheap once you're there and, if you can handle the totally different culture, it's a nice place to visit. i still vote for taking a tour around australia, everyone is super nice, there's tons of stuff to do, and the scenary is amazing, not like anything you'll see here. plus scuba diving is funrjmhotrod said:I've been to (eastern) Australia and it's nothing like the Crocodile Dundee version that most Americans are used to. But as was mentioned, the people are very nice there. Plus, you can check Australia off your list of places to visit in your lifetime (if it's on there). New Zealand might actually be more interesting.