Forget Europe. This Northern Summer, Australians Should Be Looking West For A Big Adventure

For the better part of two decades, the Australian travel playbook has been pretty simple. Fly Emirates, Qatar or Etihad through Dubai, Doha or Abu Dhabi. Wake up somewhere in Europe 20-odd hours later. Drink an Aperol Spritz. Repeat annually.

That playbook just got shredded.

The Middle East conflict has turned three of the world’s busiest aviation hubs into something between a ghost town and a lottery. Dubai International, which normally handles over 1,000 flights a day, is operating a fraction of its usual schedule.

Abu Dhabi and Doha are in similar shape. Airspace closures remain volatile, with short-notice shutdowns still hitting carriers mid-route. Emirates operated just 24 flights on March 1. By March 29, that number had crawled back to 327, but that’s still well short of normal capacity, and every route is subject to change without warning.

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For Australians, the flow-on effect is brutal. Over half of us typically reach Europe via Gulf hubs. Those seats have evaporated. Alternative routes through Singapore, Hong Kong and Seoul are available, but they’re buckling under demand.

Cathay Pacific pulled economy seats on its Hong Kong to London route entirely in April, leaving only business class tickets averaging AU$11,000. One-way economy fares via Singapore are sitting above $5,000. And with oil pushing towards $200 a barrel thanks to the Strait of Hormuz disruptions, fuel surcharges are piling onto every booking regardless of route.

So here’s a thought. Instead of paying through the nose to reach a continent you’ve already been to six times, maybe this is the year you go west.

North America is wide open. And it’s cheaper to get to.

Sydney to LA is a direct, 13-and-a-half-hour flight that doesn’t go anywhere near the Middle East. Return economy fares are sitting around AU$1,200 to $1,500 depending on timing. Compare that to the $4,000-plus you’re now looking at for Europe via Asia, and the maths speaks for itself.

Qantas, United, American and Delta all run regular direct services from the east coast. No dodgy connections. No airspace roulette.

It helps that the product is getting better, too. United is rolling out its new Airbus A321XLR this northern summer, a long-range narrowbody with lie-flat Polaris suites (complete with sliding doors, once the FAA signs off), a walk-up snack bar in economy, and 150 seats split heavily towards premium.

For Australians connecting through LA or San Francisco, the onward experience to places like New York, Denver or Chicago is about to feel a lot more like a widebody long-haul than the cramped 757s we’ve been tolerating for years.

And once you land? North America in summer is a different beast entirely.

Start with the States…

If you’ve only ever done the obvious LA-New York-Las Vegas triangle, you’ve barely scratched the surface. This is the year to rent something with a V8 and point it towards Montana. Yellowstone in June is one of those places that makes you feel physically small in the best possible way. Bison on the road. Geysers going off on their own schedule. The whole place feels like it belongs in a different century.

If you’ve been watching Landman (and you should be), West Texas has a rawness to it that photographs don’t do justice. Big Bend National Park, the Marfa art scene, proper Tex-Mex in a town where nobody’s heard of a degustation menu.

Then there’s the coast. Venice Beach in July is still Venice Beach. Skaters, bodybuilders, weirdos, the best people-watching on earth. But if you want something with a bit more polish, drive out to Montauk on the eastern tip of Long Island. It’s the Hamptons without the pretension. Surf in the morning, lobster rolls for lunch, cold beers watching the sun drop into the Atlantic. For an Australian who’s used to coastal living, it just clicks.

New York in summer is loud, sticky and completely alive. LA is spread out and sun-drenched and moves at whatever pace you set. Both are worth your time. Neither requires a $11,000 plane ticket to reach.

And then there’s Canada.

Australians have been sleeping on Canada for years, and it’s hard to explain why. Vancouver alone would justify the trip. The city sits between ocean and mountains in a way that makes even Sydney look like it’s trying too hard.

From there, Whistler is two hours north and in summer it transforms from ski resort into one of the best mountain biking and hiking destinations on the continent. The trails are world-class. The air is clean enough to make you angry about George Street.

But the real knockout is the Rockies. Lake Louise. Banff. Jasper. This is landscape on a scale that Europe simply cannot match. Turquoise glacial lakes backed by snow-capped peaks, grizzly bears wandering through valleys, fly fishing in rivers that have never seen a crowd. If you’re the type who’d rather carry a pack than a poolside cocktail, Canada in July and August is hard to beat anywhere on earth.

And if you want something wilder still, go fishing in British Columbia. Go hunting in Alberta. Charter a floatplane into backcountry that doesn’t have phone reception. This isn’t curated European charm. It’s the real thing, unfiltered.

The cold hard truth about Summer 2026

We’ve stared ourselves blind on Europe for too long. The Middle East crisis has made that obvious by making it expensive, unreliable and, at times, genuinely risky. But the silver lining is sitting right there on a direct flight path from Sydney: a North American summer that offers everything from Manhattan cocktail bars to grizzly country, at a fraction of what you’d now pay to reach Rome.

Politics aside, America is still a fun place to be. Canada is quietly one of the most spectacular countries on the planet. And neither of them requires you to route through a war zone to get there.

This might be the best travel pivot Australian travellers never planned to make.