Hi everyone, Today I will tell you about the funny budget Melbourne trip that we did two weeks ago. This trip was my idea from last year due to the Covid time so I have to delay it until this year. The trip was quite perfect for me because everything followed our expectations with the cheap price.
How it happend!!!
Accidentally, on the boring day, I searched the Skyscanner for the cheap flight to Melbourne which showed under 100AU$ for two ways from Sydney to Melbourne. It is quite cheap for short-term travel. As a result I asked my boyfriend to check his free time and we booked the flight in one week. Honestly, It is quite a rush just 3 days and 2 nights to travel therefore we want to take advantage of all the time to avoid mistakes we can. As you know, All of the solo trips that lead to stupid actions because you do not know much about this place.
Time for Planning
😅 We have to follow two principles which are cheap and nice.
😆There are 2 things we care most about when we travel that are things to do and where to eat. -
😊I took long time to Google and Tripadvisor to absorb information as much as possible
Finally, I found a long list of things I have to do such as visiting Great Ocean Road or Phillip Island. Yeyyyyy. It is an amazing natural landscape but the big problem is they are too far from the city so if we want to visit there we need to hire a car and it takes more than 4 hours driving. All of them are impossible for us including money and time. So we absolutely agreed to visit all of the nice places around the city and Chinatown. Key points of this trip aimed to the food and historical destinations.
Money Checklist
✔️Flight ticket - 120$ /pp it is more expensive because we change the time flight to have more time in melbourne.
✔️SkyBus - around 60$ /pp for 2 ways.
✔️Airbnb - 200$ for 3 days
✔️Myki - public transport card in Melbourne - 16$ per day including 6$ for card and unlimited travel per day.
✔️Eating would be flexible depending on the budget.
So it reached 592 for the two of us just accommodation and transport. So all of things need to pay fee entrance that will be eliminated to the list-thing have to do,
Frist dayy - gooooooooo
After 6 days , finally we flew to Melbourne. Both of us were too excited so we arrived at the airport too early, like more than 2 hour check in time. One excuse from us is that the train in Sydney is really, really crazy from the flood for 4 weeks and the protection from the driver led to some trains having to be cancelled for a few hours. Fortunately our train still runs smoothly and has no effect from this issue.
🕑9:50 We arrived at Avalon airport and waited for the Skybus to go to the city.
🕟11:30 It took around 1 hour to visit the city and we arrived at Southern Cross station - one of the biggest Docklands, Melbourne .
🤔We are quite sure that we can understand how public transport works. Because We lived in Sydney for a few years. But our belief disappeared in a few seconds when we arrived at the station. I saw the free-zone on the tram station so we asked someone if we could take the tram and no need to tab on. But the girl said no, it made us so confused. As a result, We went to the convenience store next to the tram station to buy the card as a normal thing in Sydney. But the buyer said we don’t sell Myki in convenience stores and it was sold in the station which is so different to Sydney. Fortunately, My friend asked him if I could get the tram here without tapping on it and he said yes. Automatically, we smile and choose to believe him for no reason. And yeah, In the city zone, you can catch the tram to everywhere for free. That has never happened in Sydney. We come to Airbnb on time, check in smoothly and everything is fine.
Then Let’s goooo to eat!!!
When you travel to another place, Google will be your best friend. We searched for Indonesian food in Melbourne and filled for the big number of reviews and came.
🤑We thought that we are smart to take advantage of Google for a cheap trip but obviously the taste in there is just so-so and not like we expect. The meal cost for 42$ for the meal - 3 choices and one soup. (extra 5$ for the special dish this day)
🤑 Continue hunting for dessert places. It is ok but the cost is expensive again for Vietnamese dessert. - 19$ for two bestseller in there.
After two times wrong on food, we decided to go to the top 10 places we should visit in Melbourne around the CBD.
We walked around Melbourne CBD and also saw a lot of beautiful spots such as Chinatown, Flinder station, the State library and Melbourne Museum. They are really interesting and I will continue the next stormy stories of our trip from the next post.
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