Gold Coast
The Gold Coast is the most family-shaped stretch of the east coast, with four theme parks in one drive, patrolled beaches and a World Heritage rainforest behind them. Snapper Rocks and Kirra are point breaks surfers travel for.
Gold Coast in a nutshell
Gold Coast: what to expect
366,000+ stops in Australia are planned on Stippl, and this is the shape they make.
The Gold Coast is fifty-seven kilometres of surf beach with a skyline behind it, and Surfers Paradise is not the whole of it. Burleigh, Currumbin and Coolangatta down the southern end are a materially different place, and Burleigh Heads gives you a short national-park walk to a view back up the entire strip. Snapper Rocks and Kirra are serious point breaks. The Oceanway runs thirty-six kilometres of continuous beachfront path, and the Gondwana rainforest at Springbrook, Natural Bridge and Lamington is forty-five minutes inland.
The Gold Coast, Brisbane and Byron Bay are one cluster rather than three destinations. All three sit inside two hundred kilometres and each is among the others' strongest partners, which is why the strip reads as a single leg of an east-coast trip in the plans rather than as somewhere you fly to.
The strip takes 2 nights, four if the theme parks or the hinterland are on your list. The four majors cluster inland at Oxenford and Coomera and want a full day each, and Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary is the wildlife stop worth the ticket. The tram runs the beach strip and Brisbane is an hour north. Come March to May or September to November, and look up schoolies before you book anything in November.
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Families
Theme parks, wildlife sanctuaries, patrolled beaches and Broadbeach's playgrounds make this the most family-shaped destination on the east coast.
Surfers
Burleigh, Snapper Rocks and Kirra are serious point breaks; Surfers Paradise is for lessons.
Nightlife travellers
Surfers Paradise is built for it, for better and worse, and most people give the coast 2 nights.
Walkers and rainforest people
The hinterland is 45 minutes away and is genuinely good, with Springbrook and Lamington the two names.
Theme-park visitors
Four majors sit within a short drive of each other, which nowhere else in the country can say.
Maybe not for you: travellers who dislike high-rise resort towns, since Surfers Paradise is exactly that; and anyone arriving during the November schoolies fortnight without knowing what it is, because the whole strip changes character.
The best time to visit Gold Coast
Summer
December to February
Hot, humid and the wettest months, with school holidays on the beach, bluebottles in the water and the theme parks at their fullest. The surf still works and the sea is at its warmest.
Autumn
March to May
Warm water, working swell on the point breaks and the crowds thinning after Easter. For surfing and swimming together this is the best of the year.
Winter
June to August
Dry, mild and the quietest stretch, with whales passing the headlands from June and the surf still running. Nothing here closes; the beds are simply cheaper.
Spring
September to November
The driest month in September, warming water and then schoolies in late November, when Surfers Paradise belongs to the school leavers for a fortnight.
- January is the month most travellers plan Australia for on Stippl, and the Gold Coast is planned about 101 days ahead. Only 10.6% of Gold Coast plans are made inside a fortnight; January and Easter are the weeks that justify the lead.
- Schoolies takes over Surfers Paradise for a fortnight from late November. The school leavers fill the high-rises and the strip, the police presence triples and the family trade moves to Burleigh and Coolangatta; either avoid the fortnight or stay south of it.
- The whales pass offshore from June to November and can be seen from the headlands. Burleigh Head and Point Danger are the free vantage points; the boat tours out of Main Beach get closer but a winter morning on the point often does the job.
- Bluebottles come ashore in summer on a northeasterly wind. The lifeguards fly a sign when they are in; check the flags before you swim in January and February, and rinse a sting with hot water rather than vinegar.
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Things to do on the Gold Coast
Photo by Rohi Bernard Codillo via PexelsSurfing, or learning to
Take a lesson at Surfers Paradise, about €40 for two hours with the board, or watch the real point breaks at Burleigh and Snapper Rocks from the sand. Mornings before the onshore wind.
Burleigh Heads
Walk the short national-park loop around the headland for the view back up the whole strip, the coast's best-loved bit of coastline, free. Whales pass from June to November, and the Sunday morning market is at the foot.
The theme parks
Give a full day each to the four majors clustered inland, about €70 a park or a multi-park pass. Weekdays in term time have no queues.
Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary
Spend a morning at the most-recommended wildlife stop on the coast, about €35, with the lorikeet feeding at eight and four. Fifteen minutes south of Surfers.
The hinterland
Drive an hour inland to Springbrook, Natural Bridge and Lamington for the waterfalls, the Gondwana rainforest and the glow-worm colony at Natural Bridge after dark. Free, and the night walk needs no torch.
The Oceanway
Walk or ride any part of the thirty-six kilometres of continuous beachfront path, free, with bikes for hire along it. The Burleigh to Coolangatta stretch is the pretty one.
The neighbourhoods of Gold Coast
Surfers Paradise
Towers, clubs, night markets
The core: two kilometres of beach below the towers, the clubs and the night markets, with hotels of every grade. For nightlife and first visits; not for a family in schoolies week.
Everything at the door, and the loudest nights on the coast.
Broadbeach
Family-focused, playgrounds, the mall
Playgrounds, barbecues, the Kurrawa strip and Pacific Fair, with patrolled water and family apartments. For families who want the beach and the shops without Surfers.
Calm water and the playgrounds, and a mall for the wet days.
Main Beach
Mellower, cafés, the Oceanway
Mellower than Surfers next door, with Tedder Avenue's cafés and the start of the coastal path, and the older apartment towers. For a calmer base near the action.
The action a walk away and the cafés, and an older strip.
Burleigh Heads
Headland, point break, café strip
The headland, the national park, the coast's best point break and the café strip up the hill, with apartments and a few boutique stays. For surfers and for a local feel.
The best surf and the best coffee, and a bus to Surfers.
Currumbin
Sanctuary, rock pools, quieter
The wildlife sanctuary, the rock pools and quieter sand at the southern end, with holiday apartments and the creek. For families and for the calm end of the coast.
Quiet and the sanctuary, and half an hour to the centre.
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Where to stay in Gold Coast
Stay in Broadbeach for a first visit if you are a family, in a self-catering apartment with the patrolled beach and the shops on foot; Surfers Paradise has the towers and the party hostels. Most people give the Gold Coast 2 nights on Stippl. Book far ahead for the November schoolies fortnight or avoid it on purpose.
Surfers Paradise
Tower hotels of every grade, €100 to €300, and party hostels from €25 a bed.
Broadbeach
Family apartment-hotels with pools and kitchens, €150 to €300, cheaper by the week.
Main Beach
Older apartment towers and a few upscale hotels, €140 to €280, on the coastal path.
Burleigh Heads
Apartments and a few boutique stays up the hill, €130 to €260, with the point break below.
Currumbin
Holiday apartments by the creek and the rock pools, €120 to €240, at the calm southern end.
What to eat in Gold Coast
the coast's consensus breakfast destination
food stalls running several evenings a week
the smaller, smarter café alternative to the main strip
independent bakery-cafés, each named by a single publisher
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Gold Coast customs and what not to do
Surf is the real identity
Beneath the towers the point breaks have their own etiquette and the locals enforce it; Snapper, Kirra and Burleigh are not learner waves, and the learners go to the beach breaks.
Schoolies is a fortnight
In late November school leavers descend on Surfers Paradise for two weeks; it is heavily policed and supervised, and it is not a good week to be a family there.
This is Yugambeh country
The Yugambeh people are the traditional owners and the Jellurgal centre at Burleigh runs the cultural walks; the mountain behind the beach is a story site, so take the guided walk.
No drinking in public
Queensland bans alcohol in public places outside licensed venues, and the beach and the esplanade are public places; the police patrol Surfers for it.
Do
- Swim between the flags; this coast is patrolled and the flags are the whole point
- Go south for the surf and the coffee
- Check whether your November trip overlaps schoolies
- Take the Jellurgal walk at Burleigh
Don't
- Judge the Gold Coast by Surfers Paradise alone
- Assume the tropical stinger rules apply here; they do not
- Drink alcohol in public places
- Paddle out at Snapper as a beginner
What a Gold Coast trip costs
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Fun facts about Gold Coast
The Gold Coast is 57 km of continuous surf beach. A 36 km path, the Oceanway, runs along it from South Stradbroke down to the New South Wales border.
Snapper Rocks and Kirra are among the best-known point breaks in the world. They sit at the coast's southern end, and the Superbank between them is one of the longest rideable waves anywhere.
Natural Bridge's cave holds a glow-worm colony. The rock arch in Springbrook National Park is best seen after dark, when the ceiling lights up above the waterfall.
Gold Coast Airport sits on a state border. Its runway crosses into New South Wales, so in summer the two ends of it are in different time zones.
The hinterland is Gondwana rainforest, 45 minutes from the high-rises. Lamington and Springbrook are World Heritage listed, and the contrast with Surfers Paradise is the whole point of the coast.
The 2018 Commonwealth Games built the light rail. The tram line and the venues the city still runs on were the Games' legacy, and the tram is how the strip is crossed without a car.
Local tips for Gold Coast
The tram and the flat fare
The G:link tram runs the strip from Helensvale to Broadbeach for about €0.30 a ride, tapped with a bank card, and the buses fill in the rest. Nothing on the coast needs a car.
The airport straddles a border
Coolangatta airport sits on the Queensland and New South Wales line, and in summer that is two time zones: Queensland has no daylight saving. Check which clock the flight runs on.
Bluebottles, not box jellyfish
The tropical stingers are far north; what the Gold Coast gets is bluebottles, stranding on summer onshore north-easterlies. Hot water on the sting, and the lifeguards fly a sign.
How long to stay
Most people give the Gold Coast 2 nights on Stippl: a beach day, a theme park or the hinterland, and Burleigh at sunset. A quarter stay one.
Swim between the flags
Lifeguards patrol Surfers, Broadbeach, Coolangatta and Rainbow Bay, and the shore dumps here drive learners' boards into their heads. Swim where the flags are and surf where the school says.
Schoolies is late November
School leavers take over Surfers Paradise for a fortnight, supervised and loud. Whether that is a reason to come or to stay away depends on who you are; nobody should arrive not knowing.
Gold Coast questions, answered
Pick your stretch of it before anything else. Trips that include the Gold Coast run 42 days on Stippl, so it is one stop on a long run, and the difference between Surfers Paradise and Burleigh Heads is far bigger than the distance suggests. Put two nights into Stippl.
Two to four days. Stops in Gold Coast planned on Stippl come to 2 nights, which is a beach day and a hinterland day, or a beach day and a theme park. Longer only if the theme parks are the reason you came in the first place.
It is what 24.2% of Gold Coast stops planned on Stippl come to, usually a break on the drive between Brisbane and Byron Bay. That gets you a swim and a sunset. Two nights lets you get out of Surfers Paradise, which is rather the point of coming.
Somewhere else, if you have the choice. Burleigh Heads, Currumbin and Coolangatta are the places to base: the same beach, fewer towers, better food, and the point breaks the surfers came for. Surfers is where the nightlife and the cheap high-rise apartments are, and it knows it.
Not the tropical ones. Box jellyfish and Irukandji are a Far North Queensland problem, several hours' flying north of here. What the Gold Coast gets is bluebottles in summer, which are painful rather than dangerous and are treated with hot water rather than vinegar. Swim between the flags.
Late November, for about a fortnight, centred on Surfers Paradise, when school leavers arrive in enormous numbers to mark the end of exams. It is well policed and it is not dangerous, and it is also not a fortnight in which to book a quiet beach holiday. The southern beaches are unaffected.
Every guide is written by the Stippl editors and checked against the trips our travellers actually plan. Spotted something out of date? Let us know.
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