AFTER DAYS OF MEETINGS, AUSTRALIA’S GREAT OUTDOORS MAY SEEM OUT OF REACH. BUT WITH SO MANY SIDE TRIPS AVAILABLE, YOU CAN STILL HAVE YOUR WALKABOUT AND TEND TO BUSINESS, TOO.

VISITING AUSTRALIA FOR BUSINESS IS ALL ABOUT the cities. Sophisticated Sydney, artsy and mellow Melbourne, booming Brisbane and (if you’re going for a conference and really lucky) Adelaide.

The ideal downtime down under, however, mixes city adventures—great food, culture and history—with non-urban pleasures, such as leisurely coastal drives, wine-tasting tours, famous Aussie beaches, hikes, snorkeling, or explorations of the outback and Aboriginal culture.

More Americans than ever are taking on the 14.5-hour flight from Los Angeles to Sydney: 446,000 in 2005, up three percent from the previous year, according to Tourism Australia. And a greater number of us are heading there for business: 21 percent of U.S. travelers to Australia visited the country for business or conferences last year. That’s a 9 percent increase from 2004.

But if you fly all that way for business, it makes sense to throw in a little personal time, and travel agents say most people do. Two weeks is the suggested length of time you’ll need for a broad Australian sampler with an outback excursion—maybe to Ayer’s Rock—a little snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, a short visit to one or two cities, and time for tippling in one of the country’s several wine regions. However, if you only have a week or less, you can try some targeted tourism that will still provide a uniquely Australian experience (and likely leave you wanting to come back for more).

No matter how much free time you have, this is not a trip where you can leave the details to your office assistant, says Barbara Mackenzie, a travel agent with Australia New Zealand Travel Source in Minneapolis, Minn. It’s worth your while to pick up a good guidebook, talk to folks who have been there, and put some thought into what you most want to see and do. “People really underestimate the size of Australia and how far it is between some of the major things they want to see,” Mackenzie notes.
Daniel Shaw, a pediatric dentist in Eden Prairie, Minn., recently took two weeks to travel around Australia with his wife and two other couples before attending a conference in Sydney. He recommends that would-be visitors think about the types of activities they want to do, and let that dictate their itinerary.

An avid scuba diver, Shaw couldn’t visit Oz without a trip to the Great Barrier Reef, off the Northeast corner of the country, so he and his friends spent four days on a boat that held about 35 passengers and took them to distant parts of the reef that can’t be reached on day trips from the mainland.

Afterward, they flew to the south coast to base themselves in Adelaide. “We wanted to do a lot of hiking and walking, we wanted to see the animals and wildlife,” Shaw says, and they wanted to try some of Australia’s great wines. After seeing the city for a few days, they did a four-wheel-drive safari into the Flinders Ranges for a taste of the outback; then hopped a flight to Kangaroo Island, about a half hour off the coast, to spot some of the island’s namesake natives, along with koalas and seals. And they took a one-day tasting tour of the Barossa, birthplace of much of the country’s famous red shiraz.

If you only have a few days, or even just some spare time between meetings or conference sessions, the cities themselves can give you a sound introduction to Aussie culture and lifestyle, especially if you have
local business contacts to steer you to the best beaches, cultural sites, restaurants, pubs and wine bars.

Ed Hoover, a manager with public relations firm Burston Marstellar, likes to spend his weekends biking around Washington, D.C., where he lives. So, when he had only a Sunday to himself ahead of three days of meetings in his firm’s Sydney office, he took a three-hour bike tour of the city. “We started at the opera house, went around Circular Quay to the base of Harbour Bridge, through the historical area, and up Observatory Hill, where there was a nice panorama of the city. Then we headed back to the opera house through the botanical gardens,” Hoover describes. Along the way, the group stopped at a pub to sample the local beer. Although the tour was brief, he adds, “You can really see the highlights, so when I go back, I know what I want to see more of.”

Australia has lots of coastline, so seafood is the local food to try. After work one day, on the advice of local colleagues, Hoover took a ferry to Doyle’s on Watson’s Bay, where he enjoyed fish ’n’ chips and a memorable sunset.

If you have more than a day, but less than two weeks, Jan Flinn—a Brisbane native and travel agent with Innovations World Travel Utah in North Salt Lake—recommends using one city as a base, the way Shaw did with Adelaide. From there, you can plan day trips and two- to four-day excursions nearby. Flinn points out that a good mix of typical Aussie experiences is easily available from any of the major cities.

Whether you choose to explore cities or the outback, take rugged treks or enjoy more laid-back options, plan well for any downtime you have in Australia. As you head back to the office, you’re sure to feel like you’ve really been as far off the beaten path as that long plane ride takes.

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eileen gunn is a freelance writer based in New York. Email Eileen at editor@executivetravelmag.com.