How to plan a family-friendly Australian beach holiday

A family beach holiday is a logistics problem dressed as a postcard. You want a patrolled beach, shade, a supermarket, and a place to cook the one meal nobody wants to eat out. Bondi can do that if you accept crowds and prices. So can a quieter stretch on the Sunshine Coast or a Northern Rivers town, or a Victorian bay in a month that is not January.

Read the flags. Rip currents do not care that you booked a nice apartment. Slop on sunscreen more than once. Hats on small heads. The public holiday calendar will tell you whether you are on holiday with Australia or underneath it.

Stays that forgive you

A kitchen. A washing machine if the trip is longer than five days. Beds you do not have to assemble from a sofa. Walkability so the car can stay put. The multi-stop accommodation advice still applies if you are touring; for a single beach week, pay for location and stop moving.

If teenagers need a town, pick one. If toddlers need a lagoon, Cairns Esplanade and similar public pools are more honest than an unpatrolled pretty cove. The Cairns base guide is not only for backpackers.

What to pack that is not cute

Reef shoes for rock pools, a cheap shade tent, medication you cannot buy on a Sunday in a small town, and entertainment that is not a phone for the one rainy day. Wildlife ethics includes leaving beach-nesting birds alone.

The measure of the week is not whether the water was turquoise. It is whether anyone slept.