While staying in Surfers Paradise on Australia’s Gold Coast, we decided to cross into New South Wales for a day trip to one of Australia’s most famous beach towns:
Byron Bay.
On a map, it’s an easy road trip south.
There’s just one thing we didn’t realize.
Wait. What Time Is It?
Queensland and New South Wales don’t necessarily operate on the same time.
Seriously.
Queensland does not observe daylight saving time. New South Wales does.
That means during daylight-saving months, you can drive south from Surfers Paradise, cross the state border and suddenly lose an hour.
We were not aware of this.
Our phones were.
So somewhere along the drive, our expected arrival time abruptly changed.
This is worth remembering if you have lunch reservations, tours or anything else scheduled in Byron Bay.
During daylight saving, Byron Bay is one hour ahead of Surfers Paradise.
Fortunately, we weren’t in much of a hurry.
And Byron Bay isn’t really a place that encourages hurrying anyway.
Byron Bay
My immediate impression of Byron Bay was that it felt like a high-end backpacker town.
That’s not meant as an insult.
Quite the opposite.
There’s still something free-spirited and bohemian about Byron. Surfers walk barefoot through town. Backpackers mingle with families. You’ll find hostels, live music, independent stores, healthy cafés and people who appear to have made the conscious decision that shoes are optional.
But modern Byron isn’t exactly cheap.
Mixed into that backpacker culture are expensive restaurants, beautiful boutiques, designer Australian clothing brands and increasingly upscale hotels.
It isn’t luxurious in the traditional sense.
It also isn’t budget travel.
It’s polished bohemian.
And somehow the combination works.
Main Beach & Apex Park
Our first priority was giving the kids somewhere to run around after the drive.
Apex Park sits directly beside Byron Bay’s Main Beach, making it an easy place for families to start.
There’s a large grassy foreshore, picnic areas and direct access to the sand.
We let the kids play at the park and then moved onto the beach.
And that’s when you immediately understand why Byron became Byron.
The beach is beautiful.
Main Beach stretches out in front of town, with surfers in the water, mountains visible in the distance and Cape Byron rising to the east.
More importantly for parents traveling with young children, you can transition almost seamlessly between park, beach, restaurants and the center of town.
There’s no elaborate itinerary required.
Let the kids play.
Walk on the beach.
Then cross the street for lunch.
Lunch at the Beach Hotel
That’s exactly what we did.
Beach Hotel, Byron Bay sits directly across from Main Beach and is something of a Byron institution.
This isn’t where I’d go looking for a formal Australian dining experience.
That’s precisely the point.
It’s a big, casual beachfront pub where you can grab lunch and a beer while looking toward the ocean.
After driving down from the Gold Coast and letting the kids play on the beach, it was exactly what we wanted.
And from there, you’re perfectly positioned to explore town.
Shopping in Byron Bay
One thing that surprised me was how good the shopping was.
Byron has developed a distinctive Australian beach aesthetic—surf culture mixed with bohemian fashion, wellness, independent designers and considerably more expensive clothing than the barefoot guy walking past you might suggest.
You don’t really need a shopping itinerary.
Just walk.
Jonson Street is the main spine through central Byron and the easiest place to start. You’ll find a mixture of boutiques, surf shops, cafés, restaurants and recognizable Australian brands.
From there, wander onto Fletcher Street, which runs parallel closer to the beach and has more independent shops, fashion and smaller boutiques.
Lawson Street connects much of the town center back toward the beachfront and is also worth exploring.
The best approach is essentially to wander the rectangle created by Jonson, Lawson, Fletcher and Byron Streets, ducking into whatever looks interesting.
For more serious shoppers, Byron’s retail scene extends beyond the compact center of town. The Arts & Industry Estate farther west has become another destination for Australian fashion, homewares and design.
But for a day trip, central Byron gives you more than enough.
Park the car.
Walk.
Shop.
Get coffee.
Repeat.
Drive Toward Cape Byron
After spending a few hours around town, we got back into the car and headed uphill.
The road climbs away from central Byron toward Cape Byron, with increasingly impressive views over the coastline.
Eventually you reach Walgun Cape Byron State Conservation Area and the famous Cape Byron Lighthouse.
This is the part of Byron Bay you shouldn’t skip.
Even on a short day trip.
The Most Easterly Point of Mainland Australia
Cape Byron marks the most easterly point of the Australian mainland.
There’s a lookout and marker along the headland where you can stand at the edge of the continent with the Pacific Ocean stretching seemingly forever in front of you.
It’s one of those geographical landmarks that is admittedly somewhat arbitrary.
Move a few feet west and nothing changes.
But I love these places anyway.
There’s something satisfying about standing at the edge of a map.
And the views alone justify coming up here.
The headland drops dramatically toward the ocean, with beaches curving around either side and the white Cape Byron Lighthouse sitting above the coastline.
If you have more time than we did, there’s a roughly 3.7-kilometer walking track around the headland that connects rainforest, beaches, grasslands, viewpoints and the lighthouse.
We drove.
Traveling with kids occasionally encourages efficiency.
Cape Byron Lighthouse
The lighthouse itself has been standing over the cape since 1901.
From here you can look back toward Byron Bay and across the Pacific, and depending on the season, the headland is also one of the area’s best places to look for dolphins, sea turtles and migrating humpback whales.
But my favorite part was simply standing there and taking in the geography.
Earlier that morning we’d been surrounded by high-rises in Surfers Paradise.
Now we were standing at the easternmost edge of mainland Australia.
That’s a pretty good day trip.
Surfers Paradise to Byron Bay
The contrast between the two places is actually one of the reasons I’d recommend making this drive.
Surfers Paradise is vertical.
High-rise hotels. Condos. Restaurants. Nightlife. Crowds.
Byron Bay feels horizontal.
Beaches. Low-rise buildings. Surfboards. Boutiques. Backpackers. Cafés.
Surfers Paradise feels like a resort city.
Byron feels like a surf town that became famous and expensive without completely abandoning the personality that made everyone want to come here in the first place.
I enjoyed both.
Just for completely different reasons.
A Perfect Byron Bay Day Trip
If you’re staying on the Gold Coast, I’d give Byron most of a day.
Drive down in the morning—remembering the potential one-hour time change—and start around Main Beach.
Let the kids play at Apex Park and spend some time on the sand.
Have lunch at the Beach Hotel.
Then spend a couple of hours wandering through the shops along Jonson, Fletcher and Lawson Streets.
Grab a coffee.
People-watch.
Try to figure out how the barefoot backpacker beside you is shopping at the same expensive boutique you are.
Then get back in the car and drive toward Cape Byron.
Stop at the lookout.
Stand at the most easterly point of mainland Australia.
Walk up toward the lighthouse.
Look back down the coast.
And then head north toward Queensland.
You’ll even get your hour back.
Final Thoughts
Byron Bay wasn’t quite what I expected.
I’d pictured a sleepy Australian surf town.
There’s certainly still some of that here.
But Byron has evolved into something more complicated—and more interesting.
It’s part surf town.
Part backpacker stop.
Part wellness retreat.
Part fashion destination.
Part celebrity hideaway.
And part hippie town that became expensive somewhere along the way.
That’s why “high-end backpacker town” is probably still the best description I can give it.
You can surf in the morning, walk barefoot through town, spend far too much money in a boutique, drink a beer overlooking the beach and finish the afternoon standing at the easternmost point of mainland Australia.
Then drive back to the Gold Coast.
Just remember:
Check your watch when you cross the border.
