School holiday trips that book out last (and how to beat them)
The states stagger their terms, which is the lever nobody uses. How the staggering works, the trips that book out first, and the ones that never do.
Photo · Line Knipst · Pexels
Australian families travel in four fixed windows and pay a premium in all of them, and there is one lever almost nobody uses.
The states stagger their terms.
Which means in most breaks there is at least one week where your state is off and the eastern seaboard is not, and the fares and rates on the big routes are materially lower in it.
How the staggering works
Every state and territory publishes its own term calendar, and they do not match. The dates shift each year and the pattern holds: the breaks overlap without coinciding, particularly between the eastern states and Western Australia.
Check the calendars side by side before you book anything. Each state education department publishes its own, and the federal government links them all in one place.
What you are looking for: a week inside your own break when New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland are back at school. That is the cheap week, and on a Bali or a Gold Coast fare the difference is not marginal.
The four breaks, and what each is good for
The summer break, December to late January
The longest, the most expensive, and the one where the whole country moves at once.
Domestically: book by about August for the coast, and accept that the Queensland and New South Wales beach towns are at their annual peak.
Overseas it lines up with the northern winter, which makes three things genuinely good: Japan's ski season, Southeast Asia's dry season, and Europe's Christmas markets, which our ranked guide covers along with the trap that most German markets shut on 24 December.
The one to know: our Christmas destinations guide has the fortnight, and the first week of December is far cheaper than the third.
The autumn break, around April
The best-value break of the four, and the most under-used.
Domestically: the Northern Territory is coming out of the wet, the Red Centre is comfortable, and the Queensland coast has lost its humidity.
Overseas: this is when Japan's blossom has moved north and Nepal is at its best, which our April guide sets out. It also collides with Easter, which moves, and in 2027 Easter falls on 28 March, so the April break that year is unusually clear of it.
The winter break, late June to mid-July
The one that books out first, and by a distance.
Three things fill immediately: the Queensland coast, the ski fields, and Bali.
All three combine fixed capacity with the entire country wanting them in the same fortnight. Book six months out or pick a different week.
What works instead: the Northern Territory and the Kimberley are in the middle of their dry season and are at their best. Our July guide covers the wider picture, including that this is the dry season across southern Africa and Indonesia.
The spring break, late September into October
The most useful of the four for a long-haul trip.
It lines up with the best month in Japan, late October, and with a good one across Europe. Our October guide and September guide both make the case, and September has the warmest Mediterranean sea of the year.
Domestically: the Territory and the Kimberley at the end of their dry, and the Queensland coast before the humidity.
The trips that book out first
In order, on the routes that matter from Australia:
- Bali in any break. The most-booked international family destination and
the first to fill. Our Bali calendar and seven-day route have the detail, and the honest advice is to go east to Lombok or the Nusa islands if the south is full.
- The ski fields in July. Fixed lift capacity and one school break.
- The Queensland coast in the winter break. Whitsundays, Cairns, the Gold
Coast.
- Fiji in any break, and the cyclone season from 1 November is the
constraint on the summer one, which our Fijian calendar covers.
- Japan in the spring break, increasingly, because the autumn colour and
the school holiday now overlap.
The trips that never book out
New Zealand's South Island outside the ski season. Our road trip route and Queenstown guide cover it, and the NZ$100 visitor levy is the line most families forget.
Vietnam and Malaysia. Both are excellent value from Australia, both have short internal distances, and neither has an Australian school-holiday problem because not enough Australians go.
Tasmania in the autumn and spring breaks.
And the second week of any break, almost everywhere, because the first week is when everyone leaves.
The four levers, in order of how much they save
- Travel in the week your state is off and the eastern states are not. The
largest single saving available and it costs nothing.
- Fly midweek. Saturday departures at the start of a break are the peak of
the peak.
- Self-cater. Our
cheap family holidays guide has the arithmetic, and it is the biggest lever once the dates are fixed.
- Move less. Two weeks in one place with day trips beats three bases.
Before you book
Cheap family holidays has the four decisions that set the number, and the Australian calendar has the seasons the breaks sit in.
Winter sun destinations is written for both hemispheres and has the June-to-August answers, and Sydney with kids covers the domestic version.
The when to go hub collects the seasonal guides and the July month page rates the catalogue for the break that books out first. Prices are in each destination's own currency and the converter does the rest.
Term dates are set by each state and territory education department and change annually, and are linked from the federal education department and published in full by each state, for example New South Wales. Always check the current year rather than carrying dates forward. Here is how we research and re-check guides.
