Great Barrier Reef travel guide

If you’d love to visit Australia, Great Barrier Reef and all, we’ve created this Great Barrier Reef guide with all the essential information you need for a visit to remember, from how to get there to where to stay, and how to experience this fascinating underwater treasure.

The Great Barrier Reef is located in the Coral Sea on Australia’s north-eastern coast, just off Queensland. There’s a channel around 100 miles wide separating the reef from the coast of the mainland itself, although the majority of visitors begin their trip in and around Cairns or the Whitsunday Islands.

The reef doesn’t have a single location because of its sheer size.

The great Barrier Reef stretches for more than 2,300km along the eastern coast, running from the tip of Cape York Peninsula in the north all the way down to Bundaberg in the south – in total, it’s made up of more than 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands. A large part of the reef is protected by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

Tidal channel, Great Barrier Reef

It’s not a short journey to get to the Great Barrier Reef, although the destination is well worth the effort.

The closest airports to the Great Barrier Reef are Cairns airport in Queensland, which has an international terminal, and Hamilton Island Airport in the Whitsundays.

There are no direct flights from the UK to Cairns – the only direct flight from the UK to Australia travels from London Heathrow to Perth, which has connecting domestic flights to Cairns. The flight to Perth takes just under 17 hours, with the internal flight to Cairns taking just over four hours.

Many travellers start their Australia holiday in either Sydney or Melbourne with a stopover along the route, and continue on to Cairns from there. Flights from the UK take around 23 hours to either city, depending on the route and length of stopover.

You can also get international flights directly to Cairns from Bali, Japan, Singapore and New Zealand, among other destinations in Asia and Australasia, which take around four to seven hours depending on the route.

There are also direct flights to Hamilton Island from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, which take around two to three hours.

The Great Barrier Reef itself is around 100 miles off Australia’s east coast, with various islands, reefs and outer reefs which can be visited.

From Cairns, you can take a boat trip or helicopter ride out to the Great Barrier Reef, with trips taking from around 30 minutes to the closest islands up to around 90 minutes to reach the outer reefs. Some journeys make also take longer if you’re travelling by sailing catamaran rather than the powered versions. By helicopter, the flight can be as little as 25 minutes.

There are also boat trips from Port Douglas, around an hour north of Cairns, which take around 60-90 minutes to reach the inner reef, although trips to the outer reefs are also available.

From Hamilton Island, you’re likely to be visiting the outer reefs and fringing reefs around some of the islands. It takes around two hours by fast catamaran to reach Reefworld, a moored pontoon over the Great Barrier Reef, which is the location for most boat trips. A helicopter flight takes around 30 minutes to the same destination.

You’re not short of ways to experience the Great Barrier Reef, depending on your own preferences and skills.

For many visitors, the experience starts with a journey out to the reef aboard a catamaran. Some of the best have marine naturalists on board to help you learn more about the corals and marine life you’re about to see on the reef, as well as plenty of space to relax in the sunshine on the way.

Different trips will take you to various locations on the Great Barrier Reef, although there’s usually better visibility, healthier coral and more varied marine life on the outer reefs. Less confident swimmers may prefer the calmer waters of the inner reefs though.

Certified scuba divers can dive down to the reef

Once you arrive at the reef itself, there’s another choice of ways to enjoy this undersea world, including snorkelling, with some tours offering guided snorkelling to help you discover the reef, as well as the chance to pull on a mask and explore at your own pace.

Certified scuba divers can also dive down to the reef, with a choice of different dive types including wall dives, swim throughs and drift dives. Many boat operators will also offer introductory dives alongside an instructor if you’re not qualified.

If you want an alternative to getting in the water yourself, there’s also a chance to view the reef from a semi-submersible tour as well as from glass-bottomed boats travelling above the reef. You can even see the reef from an underwater observatory, viewing areas with huge glass windows created under some of the floating pontoons.

The final option is to enjoy a view of the reef from high above on a helicopter tour. While you won’t get the close-up views of the fish swimming past the corals, it gives you a real understanding of just how vast the reef system is, and with crystal clear water, there’s a good chance of seeing larger creatures; look out for humpback whales, dolphins, sharks, manta rays and sea turtles as you fly overhead.

If you visualise a coral reef, with its array of weird and wonderful shapes and a rainbow of colours, fish of all sizes flitting through the water and shimmering in their shoals, you’re almost certainly close to picturing the Great Barrier Reef.

In fact, the reef is so biodiverse that it’s likely to exceed even your most enthusiastic imaginings. There’s such an astonishingly rich variety of marine life, that it’s hard to list everything you might spot.

At the largest end, 30 separate whale and dolphin species have been spotted, including the humpback whale, along with big populations of dugongs. You could also spy one of six species of sea turtle which come to the reef to breed; green, leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles, as well as hawksbill, flatback and olive ridley turtles.

Six species of sea turtle live in the Great Barrier Reef

There are more than 1,500 fish species living here too, around 10% of the world’s total, including colourful clownfish, angelfish, butterfly fish, damselfish, parrotfish, sergeant majors, not to mention stingray and sharks – most commonly white tip and black tip reef sharks, which aren’t a threat to humans.

If you’re hoping to spot one of the area’s elusive sea snakes, there are 17 species to be found on the reef, most commonly at the southern end.

More than 1,500 fish species live in the Great Barrier Reef, including clownfish

At the very smallest end, you can find nearly 5,000 different types of mollusc, including giant clams and cone snails, plus pipefish and nine species of seahorse. And there are at least 600 coral species alone, with both hard and soft corals across the reef, ranging from the petal shapes of flowerpot coral to honeycomb coral, mushroom coral and sea fronds.

As a visit to the Great Barrier Reef is so popular, it pays to plan your trip well in advance, but you can visit as part of an escorted tour or independently, including tailormade tours or booking as part of a stay at a nearby hotel.

Cairns is usually the easiest place to stay, with nearby Port Douglas as an alternative option, as you’ll find a wide choice of hotels and boat trips if you’re planning to visit independently, plus a wider range of flights compared to Hamilton Island.

If you’re looking to plan an independent trip for your Australia Great Barrier Reef experience, there are some lovely hotels in Cairns to choose from.

For five-star luxury, Shangri-La The Marina is set right on the waterfront and a great location to find a boat tour to the Great Barrier Reef, while the Pacific Hotel Cairns has a similarly central location. There’s self-catering accommodation as well, including the boutique studios and apartments at The Reef Retreat Palm Cove.

Or for a truly unforgettable stay, how about the luxury treetop accommodation at Thala Beach Nature Reserve, closer to Port Douglas, with guest bungalows and suites hidden within the canopy of a eucalyptus forest.

In the Whitsundays, luxury island retreat Qualia makes for an idyllic escape, while Palm Bungalows are ideal if you prefer to be in the heart of things, with a shuttle to the marina as well.

If you’d like someone else to plan this part of your Australia holiday, but don’t want to join a group tour, there are independent tours available too. This four-day Port Douglas itinerary includes a day at the Great Barrier Reef, as well as a visit to the rainforest at Daintree, or the slightly longer Port Douglas, Reef and Rainforest In Style trip also features a tour with a local Aboriginal guide.

Alternatively, this Cairns Classic Reef, Rail and Rainforest Experience features a day trip to the Great Barrier Reef too, as well as time to explore the rainforest and Cape Tribulation, while the Palm Cove In Style break features a relaxed stay just outside Cairns, with a tour to the reef.

Or for a break in the Whitsunday Islands, you could enjoy a reef cruise and helicopter flight over heart reef as part of a short break on Hamilton Island. If you can’t get enough of being out on the water, there’s also a Whitsundays cruise from Airlie Beach with plenty of chances to snorkel.

It’s easy to include the Great Barrier Reef as part of a longer Australia tour as well, including tailormade options – Iconic Australia visits some of the country’s biggest highlights, while the longer Australia Encompassed includes trips to Perth and Melbourne as well. If you’ve got your heart set on seeing the Whitsundays, how about an East Coast self-drive holiday from Brisbane to Cairns with several stops to let you explore the islands along the way and pick up boat tours to the Great Barrier Reef.

If you’re travelling solo in Australia or like the idea of joining a larger group, you’ll be spoiled for choice. Make the most of your time in the country with a 23-day Best of Australia escorted tour or a 29-day Grand Antipodean Odyssey, which also includes New Zealand. Or try a small group tour taking you from Sydney to Cairns, stopping at the Gold Coast and the Whitsundays on the way.

Looking to explore the reef for yourself? See all our independent and escorted tours to Australia