grantravel's VirtualTourist Home Page

Hello fellow VTers, my name is Grant. I was born and bred on the Gold Coast and I still live here. The Gold Coast is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Queensland, Australia. Surfers Paradise is probably the most well known place to visit on the Gold Coast and is where most tourists head to when they come to my home town. If thats all people see when they come to the Gold Coast then they will be missing out on alot. Check out my Gold Coast page to see more.

My first trip to the European continent in 2005 was over in a blink of an eye but looking back we saw so much in that time. Now we have had a snapshot of Europe we can go back to the countries we most enjoyed and explore them more thoroughly. It has inspired us to look further to other destinations around the world also.

12th June to 27th July 2005 Our European trip consisted of 5 days in London; I day trip out to Stonehenge, Bath and Windsor Castle; 21 days seeing the sights of Europe with Contiki Tours (France, Monaco, Italy, Vatican City, Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Netherlands & Belgium) and 2 weeks in Croatia, spending some time in Zagreb and the rest of our time relaxing in Starigrad, a quaint little village on the Adriatic coast.

Starigrad will always be a special place for us now, as it is the location that I finally popped the question to Vanessa, my girlfriend of many years.

18th October to 4th November 2006 Last year we went to the US for our honeymoon. The trip consisted of staying in 4 major cities on the west coast. Our first stop off was Las Vegas, where we spent 6 days, which was awesome. We couldn't get ourselves to bed until 4am most nights, just too much to see and do, and it really comes to life at night! We saw one of our favourite bands "Placebo" on our 2nd night at The House Of Blues, went to the Cirque De Soleil show 'O' at The Bellagio, and went on a Chopper flight into the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and over the Vegas strip at night.

Then we flew to San Diego for 3 nights, which was alot of fun too, we went to the SD Zoo on the first day and Sea World the next. Saw some unbelievable sea animals, killer whales, manatees, walruses, white beluga whales, polar bears...and some cool shows too. We also went to the Gaslight District for dinner one night at a well known Spanish restaurant.

We caught the coastal train from San Diego to LA, what great views along the way! We stayed in Hollywood for 5 nights, while in LA we checked out Universal Studios, Disneyland, Venice Beach, Hollywood Hills and surrounding areas (on a tour bus to the celebrity homes). We also caught up with a friend of ours who drove us around for 2 of the days showing us a few local hangouts.

Then it was off to San Francisco for 4 nights. This was our favourite city of the whole trip. A beautiful city, with plenty of sights to see and city tours to go on, shopping and restaurants by the thousands. We checked out most of the well-known sights including a stopover at Alcatraz Island. We will definitely be going back there again one day.

When I get time, I will try to add photos and tips to all the places that we have been...but it's going to take a while.

Travel we have done in the past few years is to Melbourne (Victoria), Byron Bay, Sydney (New South Wales) and Adelaide (South Australia) staying for about a week at a time. Our favourite holiday getaway is to Melbourne, which we go to every year. Partly because my wife has family there to stay with, but also with so much to do there, it is impossible to be bored!

We have also been to closer destinations which we drove to. We went whale watching in Hervey Bay, which was awesome and stayed in Sunshine Coast, Beerwah, Brisbane and Byron Bay (NSW) many times for weekends away or music festivals. We love to go and see bands whenever we can.

When I was younger I travelled and stayed in many other towns in Queensland and NSW with my parents including Dalby, Toowoomba, Cunnamulla, Biloela, Rochhampton & Bundaberg (home of Bundaberg Rum), Yeppoon, Fraser Island & Great Keppel Island. My favourite annual Easter holiday was going camping in Lennox Head in Northern NSW, not far from Byron Bay.

We also travelled around New Zealand's South Island and I would love to go back there again oneday. We would like to check out the North Island next time.

5th August 2005 Vanessa and I had a trip to Cairns, a 2 hour plane trip to Northern Queensland. We then continued onto the beautiful and picturesque Port Douglas for our friends wedding where I was his best man. We will need to return to this beautiful part of Australia once again, as we didn't get to spend much time to explore and appreciate it.

Thanks for checking out my pages.

Happy travelling everyone!

Cheers, Grant