
- Far too many hotels still think it’s acceptable to offer International Roast coffee.
- It doesn’t matter which Apple Store you visit.
- It’s entirely possible to not switch on the TV in your hotel room. (Over May, I stayed in 11 hotels and used just one television. I blame The Chaser.)
- You’re just as likely to get dud 3G in metropolitan Sydney as in Far North Queensland.
- Travel doesn’t have to mean a lack of exercise. I managed 10,000 steps pretty much every day.
- Despite that, nobody wants to see my underwear. Quite possibly they don’t want to see yours either.
- Qantas never has enough ginger beer on its domestic flights. If you like ginger beer, you’ll need a seat near the front.
- Worst hotel of the trip: the Astor Metropole in Brisbane. No desk and no towel rack.
- Google Maps can’t always be trusted. (It’s slightly confused about where the Astor Metropole is for starters.)
- Best hotel of the trip: the All Seasons Oasis in Alice Springs. Space, desk and a secure laundry room.
- You can get nausea on a boat that’s not moving.
- There’ll always be one thing you should have packed right from the start (in my case, it was the sink plug.)
- There’ll always be one thing you don’t need (in my case, surprisingly, it was the Skype headset).
- You really can meet friendly, genuine people online.
- Sydney train station gates have an annoying habit of swallowing your tickets, thereby depriving you of a physical receipt.
- Don’t trust airport shuttle buses, especially in Alice Springs.
- It doesn’t matter where you are in Australia: the “use your own bag” option on Woolworths’ self-service checkouts is a bug-ridden disaster area.
- A packed-to-the-brim carry-on bag gets a lot less appealing when the wheels (literally) fall off.
- Your devices will always stop working at a highly inconvenient moment.
- Travel broadens the mind. Unfortunately, no matter how much of a cheapskate you are, it narrows the wallet.
Throughout May 2009, Lifehacker Australia editor Angus Kidman travelled throughout Australia with just one carry-on bag for the Hand Luggage Only project.
How weird- I stayed at the Astor Metropole last month and I had a writing desk (put my Wind on it) and a towel rack. My complaint is that it’s near the top of a steep hill. On the plus side though it’s near the train station and importantly the station that has a train that goes to the airport.