Roadtrippin' Perth (Part 1) - Perth CBD

After months of having the desire to travel around Aussie, I managed to have Perth and some parts of Western Australia ticked off my list just a little over a week back when some of us decided to have spontaneous plans to go on a road trip.

Perth was sort of a last minute decision, not something any of us particularly thought through until just a couple of weeks before? In fact, we only had the skeletal of our itinerary and our first two nights of accommodation settled when we took off. A year ago, the lack of concrete plans would've scared me, but I think I might just be getting used to the spontaneity of making decisions as they come. I might even enjoy it haha.

This trip was a little on the costly side, mainly because we did quite some shopping, ate out a lot (I should've just stuck to my $1.30 mug shot pasta tbh) and Uber-ed around before we got our car. There goes my month's pay... But I ain't complaining. Here's a rough rundown of our three-man 8D7N trip and our average spendings!



Flight + Insurance -
We got Scoot since they had their deals, and insurance from NTUC income. I didn't have to pay for my VISA since the one I got last year had yet to expire (wew way to save $$).
Spending: $448 (flight) + $45 (8 days travel insurance)

Accommodation -
Out of our seven nights, only one of our nights wasn't from airbnb. Since there were three of us, we were all for spending a little more to have our own apartment instead of sleeping in a dormitory or sharing common spaces in a backpackers' inn. You can easily find many hostels/inns available, they're hardly fully booked but if you're planning to travel in a group, you should probably use airbnb. Our average spending per night per person was only $41, which is pretty worth it if you consider how we had a whole apartment to ourselves hehe.
Spending: $287 (total of 7 nights)

Phone Service and Data -
The first thing that I hunted for was their SIM card because I couldn't imagine surviving without data LOL. At the airport, there are a couple of services to choose from but we thought Optus was the best?  We got their $20AUD prepaid SIM card that gives us 500MB of data daily for a week, plus free SMSes/phone calls. I think there's some extra data in case you exceed your limit too.
Spending: $21










Transportation, Car Rental and Petrol -
While you're in Perth's CBD, their public buses are actually free so you don't have to worry about transportation costs while commuting around the city. Otherwise, if you're lazy (like us), Uber is pretty reasonable too.
We got our car on Day 3 of our trip, and I'm not too sure about other countries but in Australia, most car rental places require you to be at least 21 years of age. Otherwise, with a little trouble you can find other rental places (like we did). We got ours at Ace outside of Perth city, which had a minimum age requirement of 18 only. And like almost every other car rental we've been to, the bill must be charged to the driver's card (no cash payment).
I think Ace is considerably cheaper compared to the others. We got our two-wheel drive at about $71/day, including insurance and everything so that makes it about $24 per person? :)
Spending: $25 (Uber) + $141 (6 days drive) + $47 (petrol)



Food -
As you can see our spendings are pretty justified and reasonable for everything above, until you add the cost of how much we spent on food lol. Eating out is ridiculously expensive. Being able to find a meal that costs you $13 is considered cheap. I guess this brings me to the conclusion that eating out in any country outside of Asia is going to cost you a bomb lol, and it isn't always worth your buck. If you want to save, cook your own. Seriously.
Spending: $500+ (for 7.5 days and I didn't even get dessert wtf!!!)

So as you can see, a whole bulk of my spending went to food and I have regrets almost after every meal because it's not like the meal actually warrants such an absurd price tag. Most foods were just... Meh.
Total Spending: $1.5k + $200 (shopping) + $50 (misc entrance fees) + $40 (parking fine lol yup)

Personally, I find $1.8k pricey for an 8 day trip because I was expecting myself to spend about $1.5k at most. The food seriously... ):







So yeap. That's the breakdown of our logistics. We spent our first two days in Perth CBD, shopping mostly around Hay and Murray Street, as well as the outlet stores. I guess there's not much to do in Perth CBD since it gave me pretty much the same vibe as Singapore. Well, with the exception of their graffiti walls, narrow alleys and themed bars/pubs of course. The fun starts right after we got our ride and begun our road trip around Western Australia.

I'll blog about the route we took, the distance travelled and our shenanigans in the next few posts to come :')

Check out my other posts on Perth:

▶ Roadtrippin' Perth (Part 1) - Perth CBD
▶ Roadtrippin' Perth (Part 2) - Lancelin Sand Dunes and The Pinnacles
▶ Roadtrippin' Perth (Part 3) - Geraldton and Kalbarri National Park
▶ Roadtrippin' Perth (Part 4) - Perth and Fremantle
▶ Roadtrippin' Perth (Part 5) - Caversham Wildlife Park
▶ Roadtrippin' Perth - Travel Video