One of the best decisions we made when booking our trip to Australia was flying with Qantas. For starters, the iconic Australian airline lets you do a stop over for a few days (at no extra charge) and check two bags! (Plus they had some of the most affordable rates on the market). Each seat offers a personal entertainment screen with tons of new release films as well as television channels so the flight flew by. I feel like we were fed every five minutes and the staff was so accommodating and friendly, it was a great way to start our trip.
During our trip to Australia we went from Brisbane to Cairns, which is like going from the bottom of the Great Barrier Reef, to the top. Besides visiting some of the islands off the city of Cairns to snorkel the reef, we want to explore some of the neighboring towns of the city. One of our favorite stops was Palm Cove, only 20minutes north out of the city. Easily one of our North Queensland destinations, we stayed at the 
Cairns – While the stingers may prevent you from being able to go into the ocean (especially during the summer months), there is a lagoon roped off on the pier that allows swimming. The marina on the pier houses countless boats and ferries to take guests to the Great Barrier Reef. We visited both island off Cairns, Green Island and Fitzroy Island and enjoyed the snorkeling around the Great Barrier Reef. Both islands are small and don’t require cars like many we visited off of Brisbane.
As most of you know I’ve been in Australia for the past week. I’ll be going to four parts of the continent – Brisbane, Cairns, Melbourne and Sydney doing a week in each. A full recap of Brisbane and the surrounding areas is coming soon but I wanted to highlight one of the major gems of Queensland, 