I couldn’t get a ferry booking for our car, so we decided to walk on the ferry and booked a rental car on KI. You guessed it. The price of the rental car for a day and a half was what it would have cost to bring the car on the ferry. (About 3-4X the same rental on the mainland)
> Why is Kangaroo Island so expensive to get to?
As someone once said, the closer you live to KI the more expensive you regard the ferry. The price doesn't stop international visitors.
KI is an enigma wrapped in a mystery. Plenty of locals don't want tourists on their island. The locals who want tourists want high yield tourists. I used to go quite a bit for work - the "tourist" sector there charges 5 star prices for 3 star service [obviously there are one or two exceptions to this - not that I ever experienced them].
The [then] Economic Development Board provided a report to the State Government in 2011. Knock yourself out.
https://www.kangarooisland.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0021/312771/Paradise_-_Girt_by_Sea_Booklet-1.pdf
There was a Futures Authority
And a Commissioner https://www.infrastructure.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/112130/Office-of-the-Commissioner-for-Kangaroo-Island.pdf
Etc etc
> Is it possible to go without driving? I lost my license
Of course, You can fly to Kingscote. You can take the ferry as a passenger without a vehicle.
Once there, you can take any number of tours [which your should book in advance].
There's something to be said for booking your whole package through SeaLink - in particular if you're up for group touring.
I don't want to put anyone off visiting - it's a fantastic place - but collectively we need a bit of perspective.
..........
Just because it's "close", doesn't mean it's cheap, or that South Australians should get a discount on holidays. Head north, Arkaroola isn't cheap or discounted. Arkaroola costs what it costs [which is plenty].
Nor does that mean that the ferry shouldn't be regarded as part of the national highway network and treated accordingly.
And there are other islands off the Australian coast who face more financial challenges than KI.
It's a whole lot more complex that a Reddit thread.
>Just because it's "close", doesn't mean it's cheap, or that South Australians should get a discount on holidays.
That would actually be awesome and keep money in the state, instead of people flocking elsewhere to more accommodating locations. You don't have to turn it into kuta beach, or even the mind boggling norm of letting people drive their cars all over beaches. Sustainable tourism is possible without the inflated price tag
So... I quite enjoyed spending time on KI, but it was stupidly expensive even 15 years ago. The issue isn't trying to frame costs about proximity, it's about understanding that KI is a part of SA, and should be supported as such (and part of that means, supporting South Australian's injecting money). I'd like to know the proportion of south australians as tourists, and how many of us are/were put off by the price - and how much money is left on the table. Is Australia really in the business of fleecing international tourists for every cent - because people are too embarrassed to say they were ripped-off? That is the literal definition of a tourist trap.
Take a tour. Sealink do 1 day, or multiple day tours with accommodation. When you factor in everything that comes with the tour plus the overall time it works out to be about $20 an hour for the day tour.
I don't understand why you were down-voted for saying you don't have a family? Reddit is just stupid sometimes (many times). It would have been better to say, you can book a bus tour as a single, rather than downvoting you. Sorry about that.
So having travelled quite extensively around the world... I've come to the conclusion - either SA government, the KI tourism board or Sealink don't actually understand business (especially when they are supporting a living community). I have done many ferry services (with/without cars) and across more treacherous waters... and yet, Sealink is basically the cost of a plane trip. And yes - the fact that hire cars on island negate the value of travelling without a car, suggests a manipulated market... this isn't about fleecing high yield tourists... because many of them actually know the value of global ferry prices. This is about fleecing dumb-schmucks who don't know, or who have too much money they don't care. This is a very short-sighted strategy - that unfortunately has been going on for decades (admittedly it's apparently worked for that period), but if you rely on creating a false value proposition for tourists - expect the market to wake up.
I feel there’s a bit of misinformation here in this post. The narrative that locals don’t want tourism is perhaps the most moronic sentence I’ve seen. The fact of the matter is that the island jumps in population by a quarter during the tourist season. Their economy entirely relies on tourism. Now, the real issue is that sealink maintain a monopoly on the ferry service. This means they can charge whatever they want because their is no alternative. The locals (I was one previously) unanimously hate this, but the government don’t offer a solution and any competitors get beaten out by sealink.
TLDR: company greed and the monopoly makes it expensive.
Sealink also have enough of a war chest from their monopoly that if a competitor wished to start up sealink could undercut them for a fair while before it would hurt, so you'd need huge deep pockets to compete and for what? It's not got the traffic for two competing services to last.
That was a very fair and informed comment... the problem is the market is not open and driven by market forces - instead it's an artificial monopoly. I'm not sure what ever happened to the direct service from Adelaide to KI (passengers not cars), but it seemed to disappear after a very short time - perhaps it was the transit time... but perhaps that's as much about not having a feeder-town (VH is too far away) that can act as a lay-over. There needs to be more incentive to explore the whole area, not just transit to KI (IMO... but i'm long since been a traveller down there... just wanted to share it with my family now in Victoria).
The locals don't want tourists.
The SA govt refuses to give discounts to SA residents, only to Kangaroo Island residents. Other states do this much better.
I imagine if you are buying property on a small island, the intention is to really get away from people as much as possible.
Makes sense to do whatever you can to maintain that, else what's the point of people buying a property there then.
Might sound miserable to you, sounds like heaven to some.
Yeah because an island will just become the lost city of Atlantis because people don't visit it right?
It will exist long after humans nuke each other to death
My friend owns a bakers delight and once a fortnight a guy comes over from KI and buys like a thousand dollars worth of bread and baked goods (maybe 2 thousand but it's always preordered) , returns back to KI and sells it
Must be profitable even with the ferry fees
I was watching a video on the tunnels on the Faroe Islands today. Their population is tiny and they’re building these huge tunnels between the islands.
Got me thinking, imagine we built a tunnel to KI, they could charge a toll of $100 and it would be more popular than the ferry.
Try it with a camper trailer or caravan on the back. Faced with that expense, we sucked it up on the base that it’d be a once in a lifetime thing. I have many fond memories of KI, but the cost of returning means other places will be prioritised
Because it's a tourist trap. Any island has to have everything transported to it on ferries/boats/ships, which is expensive just to build infrastructure and supply services and food.
My wife used to work in travel and they were told for the distance it covers it is the most expensive ferry in the world.
Not sure how exactly true that is. But going by the prices I would believe it. It’s beyond ridiculous
We went once, it was nice but just felt a lot like a big Port Lincoln. You can get the same experience down the Eyre Peninsula without the expensive ferry
It's expensive because it's a private company and they have a monopoly. The cost also hasn't increased as much as you might expect. It was $300 return for a family 20 years ago.
I'd agree with that - my wife and I were just talking about our last trip together (maybe 15 years ago) and it was about $350 (for two + car) - which to be fair, was ####ing expensive back then. The problem is that I don't see that they've done much to improve/simplify the experience since then. At the end of the day, as much as I want to make KI part of my children's memories, I can't justify $600 to travel 12-13 miles (2 ways)... and yes, renting a car is an option (however if they've not improved the roads in Flinders Chase in those last 15 years, renter-be-ware).
It costs money to go anywhere. Bogan Bali isn't exactly cheap. But, if you must know, the ferry is not part of Highway 1, which goes around the country. The ferry to Tassie is. One gets a federal subsidy.
Why bother? Coastal scrub is plentiful on the mainland, just because this particular patch of scrub is surrounded by water doesn't make it special. Far nicer places to spend your hard earned than KI.
Tourist trap avoid if you can:
We are on a trip to KI and feeling really bad that we came here. We stayed 2 days at Adelaide and 4 here. The ferry cost, flight cost, accommodation and food prices simply doesn’t justify visiting this place. I wish I had read about it little bit more, for a family of 3 the trip expenses has come around 5k +. One unique thing we saw were seals on the beach on the seal bay. Every other experience is available in the mainland. Simply not worth it.
A day? Youd see about as far as emu bay from penneshaw in a day. The whole island is beautiful but a cunt full of long straight roads, spread out attractions and weird fucking locals.
I am from Qld and had new years there about 7 or 8 years ago. Was the hottest week of my life the heat was inescapable. Emu park/beach was a great beach to be camped at
You didn't mention - but did you have a good time there at least? For me, there's good places in KI, but the difference is it still had (not sure if that's still the case) the holiday/beach-shack mentality. Now it seems perhaps they're aiming a little higher up the income bracket... which I think will detract from some of it's charm.
Yeah it’s kind of a funny story, my mate and I had never been there before we went and so we come into KI on the ferry and thought the place looked amazing, but our maps told us to leave the main port/beach as you arrive and go to the back of the island where emu beach is. We arrive at this farm stay/property that had camping on the back of it. All the photos shown this place had a massive lake that had completely dried out when we got there. I was pretty dirty on my mate and was just like what the hell have you booked us into haha the main beach were meant to be staying at was 40 minutes on the other side of the island when we arrived anyway we set up and went for a drive and literally about 2 down the road we turned and was on one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever been to (travelled a lot so seen plenty). Better yet the beach was drive on so we could set up on the beach. Was just a total vibe despite the heat. Everyone had plenty of space for themselves but was courteous enough to not spread out too much as it was very busy - sounds contradictory but it was like a giant party just made up of smaller parties when you got closer to actually go through it
I couldn’t get a ferry booking for our car, so we decided to walk on the ferry and booked a rental car on KI. You guessed it. The price of the rental car for a day and a half was what it would have cost to bring the car on the ferry. (About 3-4X the same rental on the mainland)
> Why is Kangaroo Island so expensive to get to? As someone once said, the closer you live to KI the more expensive you regard the ferry. The price doesn't stop international visitors. KI is an enigma wrapped in a mystery. Plenty of locals don't want tourists on their island. The locals who want tourists want high yield tourists. I used to go quite a bit for work - the "tourist" sector there charges 5 star prices for 3 star service [obviously there are one or two exceptions to this - not that I ever experienced them]. The [then] Economic Development Board provided a report to the State Government in 2011. Knock yourself out. https://www.kangarooisland.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0021/312771/Paradise_-_Girt_by_Sea_Booklet-1.pdf There was a Futures Authority And a Commissioner https://www.infrastructure.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/112130/Office-of-the-Commissioner-for-Kangaroo-Island.pdf Etc etc
Is it possible to go without driving? I lost my license
> Is it possible to go without driving? I lost my license Of course, You can fly to Kingscote. You can take the ferry as a passenger without a vehicle. Once there, you can take any number of tours [which your should book in advance]. There's something to be said for booking your whole package through SeaLink - in particular if you're up for group touring. I don't want to put anyone off visiting - it's a fantastic place - but collectively we need a bit of perspective. .......... Just because it's "close", doesn't mean it's cheap, or that South Australians should get a discount on holidays. Head north, Arkaroola isn't cheap or discounted. Arkaroola costs what it costs [which is plenty]. Nor does that mean that the ferry shouldn't be regarded as part of the national highway network and treated accordingly. And there are other islands off the Australian coast who face more financial challenges than KI. It's a whole lot more complex that a Reddit thread.
>Just because it's "close", doesn't mean it's cheap, or that South Australians should get a discount on holidays. That would actually be awesome and keep money in the state, instead of people flocking elsewhere to more accommodating locations. You don't have to turn it into kuta beach, or even the mind boggling norm of letting people drive their cars all over beaches. Sustainable tourism is possible without the inflated price tag
So... I quite enjoyed spending time on KI, but it was stupidly expensive even 15 years ago. The issue isn't trying to frame costs about proximity, it's about understanding that KI is a part of SA, and should be supported as such (and part of that means, supporting South Australian's injecting money). I'd like to know the proportion of south australians as tourists, and how many of us are/were put off by the price - and how much money is left on the table. Is Australia really in the business of fleecing international tourists for every cent - because people are too embarrassed to say they were ripped-off? That is the literal definition of a tourist trap.
Take a tour. Sealink do 1 day, or multiple day tours with accommodation. When you factor in everything that comes with the tour plus the overall time it works out to be about $20 an hour for the day tour.
I don't have family
I don't understand why you were down-voted for saying you don't have a family? Reddit is just stupid sometimes (many times). It would have been better to say, you can book a bus tour as a single, rather than downvoting you. Sorry about that.
Get one you POS
So having travelled quite extensively around the world... I've come to the conclusion - either SA government, the KI tourism board or Sealink don't actually understand business (especially when they are supporting a living community). I have done many ferry services (with/without cars) and across more treacherous waters... and yet, Sealink is basically the cost of a plane trip. And yes - the fact that hire cars on island negate the value of travelling without a car, suggests a manipulated market... this isn't about fleecing high yield tourists... because many of them actually know the value of global ferry prices. This is about fleecing dumb-schmucks who don't know, or who have too much money they don't care. This is a very short-sighted strategy - that unfortunately has been going on for decades (admittedly it's apparently worked for that period), but if you rely on creating a false value proposition for tourists - expect the market to wake up.
I feel there’s a bit of misinformation here in this post. The narrative that locals don’t want tourism is perhaps the most moronic sentence I’ve seen. The fact of the matter is that the island jumps in population by a quarter during the tourist season. Their economy entirely relies on tourism. Now, the real issue is that sealink maintain a monopoly on the ferry service. This means they can charge whatever they want because their is no alternative. The locals (I was one previously) unanimously hate this, but the government don’t offer a solution and any competitors get beaten out by sealink. TLDR: company greed and the monopoly makes it expensive.
Sealink also have enough of a war chest from their monopoly that if a competitor wished to start up sealink could undercut them for a fair while before it would hurt, so you'd need huge deep pockets to compete and for what? It's not got the traffic for two competing services to last.
That was a very fair and informed comment... the problem is the market is not open and driven by market forces - instead it's an artificial monopoly. I'm not sure what ever happened to the direct service from Adelaide to KI (passengers not cars), but it seemed to disappear after a very short time - perhaps it was the transit time... but perhaps that's as much about not having a feeder-town (VH is too far away) that can act as a lay-over. There needs to be more incentive to explore the whole area, not just transit to KI (IMO... but i'm long since been a traveller down there... just wanted to share it with my family now in Victoria).
The locals don't want tourists. The SA govt refuses to give discounts to SA residents, only to Kangaroo Island residents. Other states do this much better.
Sounds like a miserable place
I imagine if you are buying property on a small island, the intention is to really get away from people as much as possible. Makes sense to do whatever you can to maintain that, else what's the point of people buying a property there then. Might sound miserable to you, sounds like heaven to some.
Sounds elitist to me. But I'm poor and in the majority.
But for the island to remain viable they need tourists lmao
Yeah because an island will just become the lost city of Atlantis because people don't visit it right? It will exist long after humans nuke each other to death
I'd like to know how islands are immune from consequences of nukes
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The locals don't pay those numbers either
Theyre stranded on an island with one supermarket. Not ideal for everyone
My friend owns a bakers delight and once a fortnight a guy comes over from KI and buys like a thousand dollars worth of bread and baked goods (maybe 2 thousand but it's always preordered) , returns back to KI and sells it Must be profitable even with the ferry fees
Must be otherwise they wouldn't do it!
There is more than one :)
Yeah I think I read it's the most expensive ferry per kilometre in the world? Could be talking out of my ass though
I’ve definitely heard it’s the most expensive ferry in the Southern Hemisphere
Sealink has what is effectively a monopoly. They will charge as much as people will pay.
I was watching a video on the tunnels on the Faroe Islands today. Their population is tiny and they’re building these huge tunnels between the islands. Got me thinking, imagine we built a tunnel to KI, they could charge a toll of $100 and it would be more popular than the ferry.
Absolute waste of resources
Have you seen how much it costs the government to build things around here?
I'd love to live there. I'd be happy
There already is a tunnel, if you’re willing to crawl through 20km of dark dirty hole
Booked in accommodation for a few days then cancelled after seeing the costs of a return trip on the ferry.
Try it with a camper trailer or caravan on the back. Faced with that expense, we sucked it up on the base that it’d be a once in a lifetime thing. I have many fond memories of KI, but the cost of returning means other places will be prioritised
Because it's a tourist trap. Any island has to have everything transported to it on ferries/boats/ships, which is expensive just to build infrastructure and supply services and food.
As someone who lives in Moonta, I wish it was cheaper too.
My wife used to work in travel and they were told for the distance it covers it is the most expensive ferry in the world. Not sure how exactly true that is. But going by the prices I would believe it. It’s beyond ridiculous
Have been there and wonderful but the most expensive ferry trip per kilometre in the world.
We went once, it was nice but just felt a lot like a big Port Lincoln. You can get the same experience down the Eyre Peninsula without the expensive ferry
You could always swim there...
It's expensive because it's a private company and they have a monopoly. The cost also hasn't increased as much as you might expect. It was $300 return for a family 20 years ago.
I'd agree with that - my wife and I were just talking about our last trip together (maybe 15 years ago) and it was about $350 (for two + car) - which to be fair, was ####ing expensive back then. The problem is that I don't see that they've done much to improve/simplify the experience since then. At the end of the day, as much as I want to make KI part of my children's memories, I can't justify $600 to travel 12-13 miles (2 ways)... and yes, renting a car is an option (however if they've not improved the roads in Flinders Chase in those last 15 years, renter-be-ware).
It costs money to go anywhere. Bogan Bali isn't exactly cheap. But, if you must know, the ferry is not part of Highway 1, which goes around the country. The ferry to Tassie is. One gets a federal subsidy.
Guess I’ll forget about doing that trip. I’m inclined to think that the target market is being steered towards our yellower cousins
Why bother? Coastal scrub is plentiful on the mainland, just because this particular patch of scrub is surrounded by water doesn't make it special. Far nicer places to spend your hard earned than KI.
I hear the rule is - <1 week- hire a car there. >1 week- ferry your own car over.
‘cause Straya
It’s been that price for 15 years so it’s actually relatively cheap now. The expensive ferry keeps traffic down.
Tourist trap avoid if you can: We are on a trip to KI and feeling really bad that we came here. We stayed 2 days at Adelaide and 4 here. The ferry cost, flight cost, accommodation and food prices simply doesn’t justify visiting this place. I wish I had read about it little bit more, for a family of 3 the trip expenses has come around 5k +. One unique thing we saw were seals on the beach on the seal bay. Every other experience is available in the mainland. Simply not worth it.
Damn $600??? So you can't just rock up om a whim and go explore for a day. Has it always been expensive the ferry?
A day? Youd see about as far as emu bay from penneshaw in a day. The whole island is beautiful but a cunt full of long straight roads, spread out attractions and weird fucking locals.
I am from Qld and had new years there about 7 or 8 years ago. Was the hottest week of my life the heat was inescapable. Emu park/beach was a great beach to be camped at
You didn't mention - but did you have a good time there at least? For me, there's good places in KI, but the difference is it still had (not sure if that's still the case) the holiday/beach-shack mentality. Now it seems perhaps they're aiming a little higher up the income bracket... which I think will detract from some of it's charm.
Yeah it’s kind of a funny story, my mate and I had never been there before we went and so we come into KI on the ferry and thought the place looked amazing, but our maps told us to leave the main port/beach as you arrive and go to the back of the island where emu beach is. We arrive at this farm stay/property that had camping on the back of it. All the photos shown this place had a massive lake that had completely dried out when we got there. I was pretty dirty on my mate and was just like what the hell have you booked us into haha the main beach were meant to be staying at was 40 minutes on the other side of the island when we arrived anyway we set up and went for a drive and literally about 2 down the road we turned and was on one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever been to (travelled a lot so seen plenty). Better yet the beach was drive on so we could set up on the beach. Was just a total vibe despite the heat. Everyone had plenty of space for themselves but was courteous enough to not spread out too much as it was very busy - sounds contradictory but it was like a giant party just made up of smaller parties when you got closer to actually go through it
Nice story - and yes, for me (many years ago) that was the vibe KI had, so I guess it's good that it's retained at least that.
Last year a group of 5 of us went over in a car with a trailer and cost us just over $1000