Gold Coast (Australia)

In my opinion, the Gold Coast is quite a special place in Australia. Indeed, contrary to other towns, the buildings here are found all along the coast (a bit like the American style of Miami I find), there are many luxury shops...

By contrast the cool Australian and surfing spirit is, of course, always apparent.During your stay in the neighbourhood, I think it's a place to see, just to observe the diversity of towns in Australia.

Surfers must go to Surfers Paradise which, as its name suggests, is a paradise for surfers... the waves are just huge! Moreover, many internationally renowned surf competitions are organised in this town.

Regular bar and nightclub lovers will not be disappointed, the town is full of them. And for staying in certain youth hostels, admission is free!

Palm Beach, Miami, Surfer Paradise: on the Gold Coast, the names of the cities seem to have an American accent. Shopping centres, restaurants, bars, big theme parks, the Gold Coastis a paradise for party animals and shopaholics. Everything here is over the top and glittery: a place where everything is organised for you to have a good time and spend your money! If you love to party, you've come to the right place.

Love it or leave it. Personally, as a nature lover, I did not like this overrated place at all, and it certainly did not correspond to my expectations for my trip to Australia. Some will tell you that a visit to the Gold Coast is essential and that it must be seen. Certainly, it is inevitably part of Australia, but I would suggest that you avoid it if, like me, you prefer to discover the wide-open spaces and seek a little bit of authenticity during your trip to Australia. This country is so huge and varied and there are so many more interesting things to see! Therefore, I didn't linger in this disfigured part of Australia. I found a place in a campsite in Palm Beach, at a distance from the bustle of Surfer Paradise and I did a little surfing. Palm Beach is still a nice beach to surf at. I visited Surfer Paradise purely out of curiosity, even if I had been warned! With a name like that you'd is expected to find a magnificent area with plenty of surf spots, a little like Cape Byron, which was indeed the case when it was founded in 1936. Well, today, it is quite the contrary of a surfing paradise! With the expansion of tourism, particularly under the Asian influence of the 1950s, Surfer Paradise has become a sort of Australian Dubai or Las Vegas: huge skyscrapers, Ferris wheel, shopping centres - everything is concrete right to the edge of the beach! It also seems that the delinquency rate (mainly theft) has grown there, even if I was fortunate not to have suffered from it. What a disappointment to see the beaches spoiled by all those buildings! The only thing that I liked about Surfer Paradise was the night market (Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday at the Beachfront market) where there are 120 stalls of fairly original products.

Finally, if you absolutely want to surf the Gold Coast, I advise you to go to the cities of Burleigh Head and Coolangatta, which are quieter and less urbanised than Surfer Paradise, but it is still a far cry from the peace of the small surfing towns like Agnes Water to the north, or Cape Byron in the south.