Traveller

12/06/2026

Try out the new-look Traveller quiz!

Our new quiz format is faster, smoother and easier to play on your mobile.

We’ve also introduced several new features. For the first time, you’ll see how other players scored in real time and be able to share your result with friends and family on Facebook, X and WhatsApp. We have more exciting updates on the horizon too. (Subscription required)

Are you an expert traveller? Put your knowledge to the test with our new-look travel quiz.

10/06/2026

Our airline gave us less than an hour to make our connection. We missed it.

On a recent United Airlines flight from Canada to Sydney transferring at San Francisco, we were allocated a connecting time of 49 minutes. Consequently, we missed our long-haul flight to Sydney. The airline staff told us to find our own accommodation for the night and apply for a refund when we got home. I had contacted the airline and travel company before our holiday and was told that the transfer time was adequate.

My question to airlines and travel companies is, why are travellers given inadequate connection times when delays in the initial flights are common, thus leaving passengers (many of them elderly) stranded in a foreign city late at night?
- Traveller reader Chris Birrell, Mona Vale, NSW

Editor’s note: Our resident Tripologist, Michael Gebicki, recommends a minimum connection time of 60 minutes for a domestic flight and 90 for an international one. An airline allowing just 49 minutes for an international flight seems highly optimistic.

09/06/2026

Australians are flocking to ‘the world’s most important country’ in record numbers.

Australians are getting more interested in what seems to be currently – and was nearly always historically – the world’s most important nation: China. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show Australian visitor numbers have surged in the past few years to reach a record 716,000 in the 12 months to March this year, up 17 per cent on the previous year.

It is now our fourth-most visited country, overtaking Thailand, the UK and the US. The enthusiasm has been fuelled by a 30-day visa-free policy for tourists and competitive airfares thanks to the eight Chinese airlines connecting the two countries.

Most people’s vision of China is of thrusting megacities and a few extraordinary sights such as the Forbidden City and Terracotta Warriors. And it’s true – that vision turned into travel reality is satisfying enough.

It does, however, produce a limited look at a country that is constantly in the news and is far more varied than you may suppose. Smaller cities and fabulous cultural sights go overlooked, as do sumptuous mountain landscapes and national parks.

Entire provinces ought to be famous destinations on their own, with sights to rival France or Japan, yet most of us couldn’t name any. China has 22 mainland provinces, plus five autonomous regions and four humungous municipalities.
- Brian Johnston

05/06/2026

Three of the biggest travel rip-offs we keep paying for.
1. Airline seat selection
This used to be free, but then the airlines twigged that selecting your own seat is a desirable practice, and that people might pay a lot of money for it. So they began charging a lot of money for it. Now, depending on your ticket class, you might find yourself being charged about $100 – as I would have been recently by Turkish Airlines – to select your seat even during the online check-in process.

2. Hotel laundry
Five dollars to wash a pair of un**es? Something like $15 per shirt? Thirty dollars to wash a dress? Hotels charge outrageous fees to wash clothes. So much so that I can’t believe anyone – unless their company is paying for it – would ever use the service. Plenty of cheap-and-cheerful hostels charge for laundry per bag (at a reasonable rate), which is how everyone should do it.

3. Airport parking
Airports are a universe all of their own, with an economy that exists outside any you have previously known. For what other reason would you find yourself being charged about $8 for 15 minutes of parking, a rate that quickly skyrockets the longer you stay?

- Ben Groundwater

04/06/2026

Want the perfect family holiday in Bali? Follow these three steps.

03/06/2026

Boarding a Jetstar flight left me soaked to my underwear.

I enjoy Jetstar’s new planes, but a recent blip has dampened my enthusiasm. Leaving Brisbane, we passengers in row 19 and beyond were rained on as we clambered up the back stairs of our Jetstar flight. My jeans (including underwear) were wet, as was a cashmere jumper and, horror, my hair frizzed in the dry air. When I complained to the flight attendants as I exited, one chirpily said, “oh, it’s sunny in Melbourne, you can dry out.” I may choose cattle class, but in doing so, I don’t want to resemble a flustered sheep.
- Traveller reader Mary G. Clarke, Mount Gravatt, Qld

02/06/2026

Planning your next school holiday escape? There's a reason Fiji is the top choice for families.

01/06/2026

New garden designed by King Charles opens to the public at Windsor Castle.

Windsor Castle's historic East Terrace Garden has been renamed the Venus Garden and will open to the public this summer following a significant 18-month redesign driven by King Charles.

The new layout is shaped around the geometric, petal-like pattern formed by the orbit of the planet Venus over eight years.

Visitors will be able to walk among newly installed features, including avenues of ornamental pear trees, topiary yew shrubs, and wildflower meadows designed to boost local insect biodiversity.

The garden's perimeter also showcases a series of historic sculptures from the Royal Collection, most notably four 1630s bronze figures by Hubert Le Sueur, originally crafted for Charles I.

Access to the garden will be included with standard Windsor Castle admission from July 16 until September 13, 2026.

Video and photos: Royal Collection Trust

29/05/2026

Things Australia should adopt from Scandinavia ...

1. Dual bedding
We’re constantly being told how vital a good night’s sleep is for our physical and mental health. Many of us are sleep-deprived.

Scandinavian couples address one of the causes by each having their own doona. With two single doonas, you don’t have to wrestle with outsized bedding or have a tug-of-war over who’s hogging it.

Each person has bedding of suitable heaviness and warmth. Snuggling into your own doona is easier. And no, love isn’t dead. After a better night’s sleep, it might be more alive.

2. Acceptance of nudity
Scandinavians have an open-minded attitude to naked bodies and their imperfections. Nudity is considered natural, not something to be anxious about, and is widely accepted.

On television, we Australians accept endless violence but not total nudity, which is a sad indictment of priorities. Scandinavian television lets it all hang out. As a result, experts also say women’s bodies are less objectified and sexualised.

In short, we’d feel more comfortable in our own skins and promote better gender relations if only we took our kit off. Time to get unbuttoned.

3. Food in tubes
Okay, controversial. I’ll admit this is gross and unhealthy, but there’s something playful about squeezing food out of a tube.

In Australia our opportunities are limited. In Sweden especially, anything goes. You can buy tubes of jam, pate, mashed sardines, seasoned mackerel or cheese spreads. The latter come in flavours such as reindeer, mushroom, pear, chorizo, lobster or crayfish.

Kalles Kaviar, a paste made of salted cod roe, potato flakes and sugar, is perhaps the most popular food in Sweden. It’s the taste, like Vegemite for Aussies, that Swedes miss when overseas.

- Brian Johnston

28/05/2026

Australians make up nearly a quarter of all Bali visitors, but only a few do it the best way.