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Australia Travel / Brisbane Travel / Queensland Travel / Drinking Travel / Food Travel / Travel Tips / → All Tags

Don't Forget About Brisbane, Or 'Bris-Vegas' As It's Called

Most tourists to Australia visit the more popular cities, like Sydney and Melbourne or the iconic tourist spots like The Great Barrier Reef or Ayers Rock. However, the nation's third largest city is finally getting it's moment in the spotlight.

You may recall our previous stories about Brisbane that involve either devastating floods or the Royal visit, but now we're going to tell you about the hot spots of the River City.

Situated on the east coast just over an hour's flight north of Sydney, the state of Queensland mostly specializes in rugby, the freshest produce and surfing. Brisbane, or "Bris-Vegas" to locals, is the state capital and boasts more than just beaches, pineapples and sport. The city is flourishing as a laid-back alternative to Sydney and a warmer choice over Melbourne.

Brisbane has near perfect weather year-round, with Queenslanders often selling their state with "Queensland weather: beautiful one day, perfect the next." Since the seasons are flipped from the Northern Hemisphere, this could be an ideal winter get-away. But be cautious since Summer is traditionally the wet season; it is sub-tropical after all.

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Queensland Travel / Australia Travel / Disaster Travel / Weather / Travel Deals / Qantas / Airfare Sales / → All Tags

Make Lemons Into Lemonade: This is the Time to Visit Flood-Free Areas of Queensland, Australia

Flooding has really hampered tourism in Queensland, Australia. But not the actual floods. Although it was one of the continent's worst natural disasters, none of the main tourism spots—including Cairns, Port Douglas, the Whitsundays, the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast—were affected by the floods, which occurred more than 620 miles away.

And while tourism officials tried to let travelers know they were open for business, tourists canceled trips Down Under en masse. That means now's the time to book that trip to Australia you've been meaning to take.

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Volunteer Travel / Disaster Travel / Australia Travel / Queensland Travel / Voluntourism / → All Tags

Queensland Looking for Voluntourists to Help with Flood Relief

In the wake of the devastating floods that have impacted dozens of communities in Australia, including the city of Brisbane, the country's third largest city, Queensland has put out a call for voluntourists who would be willing to help with the clean up.

So far, there has been a great response from volunteers around the world, but it will take months before Queensland is back on its feet. If you're game to go Down Under and lend a hand, here's how to get involved:

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Social Media / Flight Deals / Virgin Blue / Australia Travel / Foursquare / Travel Deals / Queensland Travel / → All Tags

Foursquare's First Badge for Australia Includes $50 Trip Discount

Remember when, last year, Brit Ben Southall went down under to work the Best Job in the World? Well, Ben is gone now but that doesn't mean Tourism Queensland is laying back and taking break. Nope. They've just partnered up with Foursquare to attract tourists via a new badge and a flight discount.

The "Shine Seeker" badge can be earned when a Foursquare user follows Queensland on foursquare and then checks into five of the 100 recommended spots (that have pretty great tips) on their page. Users who unlock the badge before December 31, 2010 are then automatically entered in a contest to win one of two trips to Cairns.

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Disasters / Great Barrier Reef / Australia Travel / Queensland Travel / Environment / Green Travel / → All Tags

Tanker Collides Into Great Barrier Reef, Risks Environmental Catastrophe

Environmental and tourism authorities in Queensland went into full emergency mode over the weekend, when a giant Chinese tanker collided with the Barrier Reef and began leaking fuel into the surrounding pristine waters. Though it now seems like the worst-case disasters are going to be avoided—the Shen Neng 1 doesn't look like it's going to break in half, which was the initial fear—there's still a two-mile slick floating above one of the world's most important and delicate ecosystems.

The clean up began almost immediately, with planes dispatched to spray chemical dispersants into the water. The tanker was using a particularly cheap and viscous kind of fuel, increasing the danger it poses to the marine life below. Tug boats were sent to carefully stabilize the ship and get it out of the area, and they're hoping to start on that in the next few hours. In the meantime, the tanker is disabled and continues to grind against the reef, risking more breaches and an all-out catastrophe.

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Queensland Will Let You Act Out The Movie Stunts Of Your Dreams

When we're on vacation, being set alight or jumping off tall buildings is not exactly high on our list of must-dos. But everybody's different, and if you've dreamed of performing stunts like you see in the movies, then on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, you can find just the right place to spend a day.

The Movie Stunt Experience is a day out that still has the thrills and spills of a typical Gold Coast theme park, but you're the one doing the spilling. If you book the A$299 ($275) full day program, experienced stunt people will first teach you and then let you try film fighting choreography, flying on a wire, commando-style abseiling, falling from a pretty great height and, perhaps scariest of all, being set on fire. So far, every tourist has come out alive. See if you can break the record.

Related Stories:
· Movie Stunt Experience [Official Site]
· Move Over Lara, This Is My Scene [The Age]
· Queensland Travel Guide [Jaunted]

iPhone Travel Apps / Australia Travel / Queensland Travel / Technology / → All Tags

Queensland Jumps On The iPhone App Bandwagon

Non-breaking news for everyone: iPhone applications are the new black, and especially so for tourism offices seeking to keep their visitor numbers up during the recession. The newest office to jump on the iPhone bandwagon is the Queensland state of Australia, one of our favorite vacation destination and one with which we'll now be navigating via handheld device.

The free application can be downloaded at their website, and includes all the tools you'll need to not get lost in the Outback:

It displays accommodation, events, attractions and information etc, no matter where you are. Click through to a detailed view of the operator: there's descriptive content and an active phone number, email and website link — so you can connect directly. Several top 10 lists of the most popular Queensland holiday products ... are regularly, automatically updated to show the most popular viewed products in Queensland.

There's also the typical tech options of an RSS feed to stay abreast of travel deals, and an e-newsletter for the same if you prefer to receive updates the old-fashioned way.

Related Stories:
· Queensland Holidays [Queensland Holidays]
· Queensland Travel Coverage [Jaunted]rr

[Image: Queensland Tourism]

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Virgin Blue Reckons Queensland's Gonna Be Big

Virgin Blue taketh away--the Aussie low cost carrier cut 28 flights from high frequency routes recently--but they also giveth. Jaunted tipster Tuddy let us know that Virgin Blue started flying five new routes this week.

Four of the routes are out of the northern Queensland city of Townsville, heading to other Queensland destinations Cairns, Rockhampton and the Gold Coast, as well as down to Aussie capital Canberra. They've also started flights on the Canberra to Hobart route.

These new routes are a big deal for Queensland tourism and especially for Townsville--overnight there are almost 70% more possibilities for flying out of town. We're wondering if Virgin Blue knows something we don't know and Queensland is about to become a despite-the-recession tourist hotspot. With route opening specials as low as A$46 ($33) it's very tempting to try it out ourselves.

Related Stories:
· Virgin Blue Launches New Townsville Flights [news.com.au]
· Virgin Blue Flying A Bit Less Often [Jaunted]
· Queensland Travel Guide [Jaunted]

[Photo: JamesDPhotography]

Laptop Travel / Queensland Travel / Facebook / Websites / Tourism Boards / Tourism Marketing / → All Tags

Queenslanders Not Backward in Going Forward With Facebook

You might not know about the cheesy 1980s marketing pitch for the north-eastern Australia state of Queensland: "Beautiful one day, perfect the next."

While tropical storms and embarrassing politicians might have spoiled this image of perfection, you can't say Queensland's not trying in the tourism game. They've even got an official Facebook page and we actually like it.

It's a lively page with people leaving messages on the "wall" (usually Queenslanders giving a really biased opinion), competitions to enter and useful info on festivals and events taking place around the state. And last time we checked, Queensland was the proud owner of 2,128 fans.

According to this Facebook page, Queensland's current logo is "Where else but Queensland?" A risky marketing strategy because actually, there are plenty of alternative answers to this rhetorical question. We'll be generous enough to leave it unanswered.

Related Stories:
· Queensland on Facebook [Official Site]
· Queensland Travel Guide [Jaunted]

Queensland Travel / Australia Travel / Lakes / Gross / → All Tags

Please Tourists, Don't Pee in the Lake

So, we're sure your momma told you not to pee in the swimming pool--but did she also tell you it's bad to pee in a lake? Down in Australia, the beautiful Basin Lake on Fraser Island off Queensland isn't doing well these days, and one of the causes is high levels of urine in the water.

The official word is that too many tourists are using the lake as a toilet and that's led the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service to consider closing one of the access tracks to reduce visitor numbers.

Right now 35,000 people visit the lake every year and since there's no in- or outflow from the lake, whatever goes in, stays in. Our alternative suggestion is to simply stick up a big notice advertising the current urine levels in the lake. We're fairly sure most people would skip the swim.

Related Stories:
· Sunscreen, Urine Damaging Fraser Island Lake [ABC]
· Queensland Travel Guide [Jaunted]

[Photo: John Brennan]

Qantas / Australia Travel / Queensland Travel / Airport Security / → All Tags

Unhappy Airline Travel: Qantas Delays Thanks to Wandering Passengers

Flying 'roo Qantas can't catch a break at the moment. Sure, there was brief excitement when their first A380 plane arrived in Sydney, but it didn't take long for everyone to find something to complain about again.

This time it was an airport evacuation of the Qantas terminal at Brisbane Monday afternoon, all because three Qantas passengers managed to wander into a secured area without being screened. Better safe than sorry, Qantas decided to evacuate the whole terminal and re-screen everybody.

As you'd expect, this took more than a couple of minutes, and twenty Qantas flights were delayed by up to an hour. And that means there are hundreds more anti-Qantas thoughts being thought today.

Related Stories:
· Brisbane Airport Evacuated After Security Breach [ABC]
· A380 Planes: Flying Kangaroo is Next in Line [Jaunted]
· Brisbane Travel Guide [Jaunted]

[Photo: tripletrouble]

Australia Travel / Whitsunday Islands / Queensland Travel / Active Travel / Photography / → All Tags

Hamilton Island: Way Better Than Kangaroos

Although V Australia still hasn't started service from the United States, it's never too early to start planning what to do when you finally arrive Down Under. In fact, you can continue the full Richard Branson experience by using Virgin Blue to fly to Hamilton Island from cities across the nation. The island destination is the largest inhabited island of the Whitsunday Islands off the eastern coast of Queensland.

Visitors can also get there by ferry. Upon arrival there's no need to swing by the car rental counter and decline the damage waiver, since mainland vehicles aren't allowed on the island. Golf carts, or buggies, are going to be your best bet.

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