Great for lone backpackers (OzIntro)

Member Name: damsmi2002

Product:	OzIntro
Date:	16/02/09 (775 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun, helpful, great attitude, good range of activities

Disadvantages: Costly but works out at a fair price, after the week you are left to your own devices

If you are thinking of travelling to Australia for any length of time then OzIntro is something that you should definatly consider.

Essentially they are a travel company that specialise in people backpacking around Australia. They have just branched out into Thailand too, call ThaiIntro, and although I havent used them, I would imagine that the experience would be just as good.

Travelling to Australia can be a very daunting experience, espicially if you are going alone, even with a friend you can feel a million miles away from anybody you know. As I had never travelled further than Crete before, I felt that I wanted a bit of security and not feel as if I was just getting off a plane and being left to myself in the middle of a new country.

For this reason I began looking on the internet for companies which will assist travellers with this daunting epxerience, and found reviews hard to come by, however OzIntro seemed to come out on top on both price and quality.

I think it cost me about £400 to do the OzIntro and for that money I got what I thought was great value for money. It included the first weeks accomadation and various meals that they would provide, They sorted out my visa which was included in the price, an Australian bank account, Tax file number, medicare card, Australian sim card and an airport pick up including transport for the whole week.

There are also a lot of activities which they arranged such as; speed boat in Syndey harbour, visiting Taronga zoo, a trip to the Blue mountains, bowling, a pub crawl and a final night eating in Sydney tower.

Now a lot of reviews had said that this was quite overpriced as a lot of the things were free anyway, which in a way is true. The tax file number, bank account and sim card were free, however everything else was at a cost to them. It was nice that even though they are free, we could just turn up and everything was sorted and we didnt have to worry about the boring things and could just have fun! As we were doing the various activites we were pricing it up to see how much it would have come to and we worked it out to cost about £350 had we done everything by ourself, which obviosly didnt include transport, so for this reason we felt it was very good value for money.

As well as the activities it was also very easy to make firends as everybody else in the group was in a similar situation; travelling alone and wanting to make friends. I found this to be invaluable as I made four great friends who I have kept in touch with in England and we constantly met up whilst out in Australia. It made you feel as if you were not alone which is priceless at times.

On top of all of this they allowed you to use the internet for free, which may not seem like much, but it costs on average £2 per hour everywhere in Oz, so for free it soons adds up. They also allow you to stroe luggage for free, and allow you to use their address for incoming mail and will hold it for around six months. As they are a travel agent they will sort out any firther activites for you and are always glad to help out with your travel plans. I managed to get quite a lot of discounts through booking up with them too whcih was helpful.

The people who were there were locals, but had the mindset of a backpacker and were only there to make our time fun and interesting. I would recceoomend this company to anybody thinking of travelling to Australia for the first time espicially if you are travelling alone. The website is www.ozintro.com for anybody who wants to know!

Summary: Probably the best way to see Australia in your first week, absolutly fantastic