No bullsh*t Backpackers Guide to Surviving (and thriving) Cairns
- Giovanni San Giacomo
- Jul 3
- 20 min read
Updated: Jul 12
I would firstly like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the Land on which these events have taken place. I pay my respect to Elders, Past and Present.
I lived in Cairns for six months in 2024. I was broke, confused, exhausted, and lost in the sauce of exponential self-discovery. Nonetheless, I ended up making some of my greatest memories, meeting my now-wife, and can call people from all over the globe my dearest friends. I won’t sit back and type out every tour I took and fancy meal I had because… I didn’t, I’m your typical ‘everything I own lives in a backpack’ traveler, like many of those who come to live, travel, and experience Cairns. Anything I did, you can too.
With that being said, this biased post of mine is heavily geared towards backpackers coming to live and work in Cairns for their 88/179 days of Specified Work, with an emphasis on how to find a job, a place to stay, etc. If you don't fit this category, this might not be as helpful to you.
Alright, let’s talk the real stuff.
Table of Contents
88/179 Days Specified Work
Many, many, many (did I say many?) People fly to Cairns in hopes of accomplishing their Specified Work to stay another year in Australia on a Work-Holiday Visa. It's what I did! And there's a reason I did it.
There were two choices, really.
I could take my chances out on a cattle farm or something of the sort in remote Australia. Sometimes these opportunities are great, and I’ve met people who’ve had amazing experiences! But, I’ve also met many people who’ve had terrible ones. I'd already had my go at working on a remote farm in the past, and... it went just like all of the horror stories that you'll come to hear about from people who've worked at these places. (Not getting paid, laid off for absurd reasons, told to leave because the crops aren't pulling through, cults, racism, sexism, homophobia, and bigotry of all sorts, etc.)
So, Cairns was where I wanted to be. Cairns, because Hospitality and Tourism work counted as specified work that far north (anything North of the Tropic of Capricorn) and I figured being in a city working in a bar would leave me least likely to be abused, not get paid, or lose my 88 days and generally to avoid winding up with another horror story from working on a farm. There are, of course, other towns/small cities where you can do all sorts of specified work, but I’ll be focusing on Tourism/Hospitality work in Cairns.
Resume/CV
*Before we go any further, we do have to talk about resumes/CVs (trust me here, don’t skip this)*
Go to the library in the middle of the city, print out as close to a hundred as you can, it’s 20 cents a page as of writing this, which is far cheaper than the places in the mall, which sit around $1 a page, if not more. If you can make it two-paged and staple it, do it! I know, I know, heaven forbid. But if you’re the manager, being handed single-paged CVs every single day, then the two-paged one will automatically stand out and is harder to lose. Got a pretty face? Throw it on there, don’t have one? That’s fine, I didn’t.
Oh, you’ve got no experience? Neither did I! Lie! Fake it till you make it. Once you’re in, it’s not hard to learn. I only worked five shifts at a pub in Sydney- my resume said I’d worked there for months as a glassy, bartender, bar opener, and closer. But really, I didn’t even know what Bundy or Shiraz was. I had no clue how to pour drinks or even beer. I could stack glasses, and that was about it. I'd only had my first drink ever, less than a month prior, so 99% of you would already be ahead of me.
Just whatever you do, don’t be like Callum, who said he’d done cocktails for years and then proceeded to be terrible at everything. But worst of all, didn’t admit he was wrong and try to learn. No one liked Callum. You can lie all you want on your CV, but when you get hired and your co-workers are trying to teach you something- listen, and everything will be just fine. They know you lied. They lied too.
And one more MASSIVELY IMPORTANT thing*
Include your availability on your CV, which you, of course, will list as open. Secondly, how long you’ll be in Cairns.
If you’re staying in Cairns for less than six months, the amount of managers who’ll be calling you in for trial shifts will significantly decline.
If you want to lie about how long you’re staying, that’s your judgment call, because it most definitely is slightly frowned upon. But people do it all the time (on purpose, family emergency, visa issues, etc.). But if you are genuinely staying six months or longer, put that on your CV and try to throw it in when talking to managers as well! Tell them that, and you’ll see a big, bright smile pop up on their face.
Though just having a good CV won't win you the battle.
Okay. You’ve got a hundred CVs printed, great! Now it’s time to hand them out. First things first, make a list. (notes app, Google Docs, whatever, avoid paper, it rains a LOT in Cairns) Write down every place you drop a CV off at, the date you did, and anything notable (Did the place reek of vomit? Were the workers clearly miserable and mistreated? Did the manager write some info on your CV? etc.) Also note which places have called you in for trial shifts and at what times (if you wind up like me with too many trial shifts to count, then this will come in extremely helpful)
And right here is where so many people fail.
Do not trust that these managers will check your CV and give you a call. They might throw it out, don't take it personally, because they’ve got an endless stack of CVs in the back that’s grown far too big.
So the absolute best thing you can do here is be annoyinggggg! Refer to your list and go back to the places you’ve already handed your CVs into (every two or three days seemed to be the sweet spot), go with more CVs in hand and a smile on your face (they may have thrown yours out). It’s best to go when the managers are probably around but aren't busy, so don't go handing in a CV on a Saturday night at 6pm. They will hate you.
Keyword: Managers. Give your CV to the manager at all costs and not the workers. They’re busy and tired they might not be fucked to hand it off. Not to mention, you’ve just wasted the opportunity to chat with who decides whether to hire you or not.
I stuck to this plan from the first day I landed in Cairns, and I had so many bars and restaurants calling me for trial shifts that I had to constantly tell managers I was too busy with other trials. Before the end of each trial, I was asked if I’d like a job, there were so many that I kept telling them, “I’ll think about it.” Because I genuinely could, I now had the chance to pick and choose where to work instead of jumping into something I hated out of desperation.
I had a job working at a place I loved in under two weeks.
Jobs/Work
Yes, what you've heard is true, Cairns does have lots of competition, but it also has lots of work. Bartending, glassy, cleaning, scuba instructing, barista, boat chef, hotel reception, smoothie maker, travel agent, valet, etc.
Don’t get caught up thinking you need to be working at just some random local restaurant. Look up! There’s hotels everywhere! They all have bars and restaurants, oftentimes you won't even know they’re there. Not to mention, just cleaning the cum-riddled sheets at the Hilton counts as specified work! (whatever works, right?) So, apply online, apply in person, do it all! Boats need staff of all sorts, cooks, bartenders, cleaners, etc. Walk down the Esplanade, walk the little side alleys, walk the malls, there’s more than you think hiding all around, I promise.
Get your ass on google maps and start mapping out where you’re going and what you’ll do. Struggling to find work? Walk outside the city center, these places usually have more consistent workers, but it’s not always the case, and sometimes you hand in a CV the same day someone quits.
So go walk around Edge Hill, Earlville, Bungalow, Cairns North, White Rock, etc. (if you so desire), and if you don’t mind getting away from Cairns and have been given a work opportunity, you can always look towards the Trinity Beach/Palm Cove area.
Looking for a Sponsored Work Visa? Cairns might be the place! Most of the workers in pretty much every single store, bar, tour company and hotel are foreigners just passing through. So if you're the one who's not leaving in under a year- you stick out like a sore thumb, and every employer wants you because you're steady. All of these places are owned by larger companies that can afford to spend the visa fees and such to bring you on the team for good. All your manager has to do is give the green light. So, if Australia is the place you want to call home and you don't mind Cairns, then it can be an amazing stepping-stone to living in Australia permanently.
Accommodation
There’s an absurd number of options for accommodation in Cairns. Let's talk Hostels, since that’s where you’ll be first things first. I won’t list every hostel in Cairns, that’s been done before. (Check other blogs, check reviews, pictures, etc. Mainly, you want to figure out whether it's a party hostel or not, and you should be alright from there.)
You can pay to live in a hostel, which is “cheap”. I knew heaps of people who’d been living in hostels, if not the same one, for three months, six months, a year, and so on. Usually, hostels will have cheaper weekly-based rates for people who are on long-term stays, and those people will usually get put in the same dorm together as well.
Go for this if you know you’ll be living at a hostel for a good long while. You’ll save heaps of money, and generally, the people in the dorm can be a bit better to get along with since you’re all in the long haul together. Please note I said "generally", sharing a room with 10-20 strangers is no picnic. Though amazing for character development :)))
Really on a budget? You can always have a crack at volunteering in exchange for accommodation at a hostel! You can call/email hostels before heading to Cairns, and they may get back to you with an offer so you'll have "free" accommodation from the moment you land. I did this, though it didn’t end up working out. Nonetheless, I still had three or four hostels that got back to me, and I did end up getting a volunteer exchange position after I'd landed. Generally, it seems that becoming friends with the current staff and weaseling your way in is the best route when it comes to trying to become a volunteer.
Do keep in mind that most hostels will only consider you if you’ll be volunteering for at least a month.
Stay active within Facebook Groups that are for backpackers in Cairns, as opportunities come up through there all the time. New hostels open up and need volunteer workers at first, and stuff like that, it happens relatively often.
If you plan to volunteer, keep in mind what job you will be working outside of the hostel. If it’s a bar, then you’re looking to get morning/mid-day shifts at the hostel. Working in a cafe? You’ll be wanting night-time shifts, etc.
At the hostels, they’ll be looking for cleaners, dishes (dish washers), bartenders, receptionists, night-watchers, drivers and travel agents, not all of those will be available roles at every hostel nor will they always be volunteer but those are a majority of the positions you will see at a hostel.
Some people live in hostels… just about forever. Which, as we all know, can be heaps of fun, but after a while, you'll go insane and start smearing your shit all over the walls using your hair as a paintbrush.
So, if you’re looking for your own room, some quiet, some space to breathe, and a hold on your sanity, then you’ll be looking at Share-Houses. They’re pricey. I flew up from Sydney expecting the rooms to rent to be dumb cheap, considering Cairns is… well, not Sydney. It was cheaper, but not by much. Every time you see a $200-a-week room, it’s usually some old lady's run-down shed in Bungalow that her son has posted on her behalf. On that note, watch for scams.
Nonetheless, having a room to rent is usually far cheaper than paying to live in a hostel. My now wife, then girlfriend, was paying $320 a week to live in a 16-bed long-term room with one bathroom. I was paying $280 a week for my own room with AC, a TV, a desk, a wardrobe, and a closet with a shared kitchen and bathroom with only four other people.
So, get yourself on Facebook Marketplace (how I’ve found every share house so far), Facebook Groups for backpackers in Cairns, Rooms to Rent in Cairns, etc, and Flatmates.
And again, just like your CV, make it loud and clear how long you’ll be in Cairns; those staying less than six months are much less considered by Landlords looking to rent out a room.
Having a hard time on these websites? Overbearing? Too many scams? Fear not! There’s a solution, and it sort of happens automatically *drumroll noises* Networking! As a, well, human, you’ll naturally be doing this, and it’s how sooooooooo many people end up finding a place to stay. Oftentimes, people who work at the same place will all live at the same Share-house or hostel as well- it’s just how it goes. So maybe it’s a co-worker, maybe it’s a stranger at the lagoon, maybe it’s the friend at your hostel, maybe it’s the barista at the cafe. Network, network, network! And no, that doesn’t mean you need to be fake and insincere, just be you! Have fun and talk to people, go do things you’d never usually do, go walk places you wouldn’t think to walk, etc. Just be more conscious of the networking you do with every conversation. Eventually, it’ll come out in conversation that you’re looking for a place to live, and eventually, someone will have an opportunity for you. Humans being humans.
*monkey noises*
When to go to Cairns?
Cairns doesn’t have the seasons many of us Fall and Spring lovers are used to (Where are my fall lovers?). There’s a blisteringly hot and stormy season. As well as a not-so blisteringly hot and far less stormy season. Which meanssss there’s also a busy/slow season for businesses.
The busy season is in the winter when there’s fewer storms and bearable weather, and the slow season is in the summer when you'll be melting alive while trying to survive the monsoons. *NOTE* I’m talking about Southern Hemisphere Summer/Winter. *
So, here’s my advice.
Try to get in before the busy season when managers will be looking to hire more staff. Likewise, if you can’t get in before busy season, then before slow season is a good time as well (though obviously not as good as busy season) and this is because lots of people will have worked the busy season, doing long hours all week and now have the money to leave, so when slow season rears its head around, backpackers start leaving Cairns in droves now that they’ve made enough money to travel again (literally droves, they'll all just leave together as a pack and oftentimes it'll leave some bars with literally NO staff which is good for you) So although the slow season can get very slow. It can also be an opportunity to get a job even if there's little hours to go around, but by the time the busy season comes around, you’ll have been working for a while and you’ll get as many hours as you want!
So, when the slow season comes around, you can continue the cycle of traveling off with your pack of friends/co-workers to other parts of Australia.
That’s why the time between halfway to the end of the slow season is best to come and start applying for jobs, because you’ll escape the mass amounts of competition with other travelers flooding in during the busy season, and hopefully you’ll have surpassed the drag of the slow season. When I was working during the peaks of both busy and slow season, I’d have probably forty or so backpackers coming into the bar every day, absolutely desperate for a job, clearly finding it very hard to get anything anywhere.
So, as a general rule of thumb. Avoid the peaks of both seasons, try to get there during those in-between times. (Fall and Spring)
Stuff You May Not Want to Hear- But Should
DON’T do anything stupid (no shit). A majority of the Hostels and Bars are owned by the same company/companies. And even if not, they all talk with each other. Don't stir trouble on a night out. Don't get too blasted drunk (you'll do it anyway, of course, but try not to have sex with someone on the dance floor, I've seen it before. yay typical night at Gilligan's!) And maybe most importantly, watch which venue manager/boss you piss off.
Is it always fair? No. Not at all.
I’ve seen backpackers get banned nationwide from Hostels/Bars all because they wanted to take a shift off and their boss was not happy about this. I've seen backpackers get banned nationwide for refusing to go out on dates with their bosses. I've seen backpackers get banned nationwide for cutting the boss's drunk friends off, and so on.
So, watch who you work for. They'll smile when they hire you, but that means nothing.
Lots of these managers are used to dealing with a new flock of people every 3-6 months, so they don’t mind hurting or using you, considering you’ll be gone soon anyway. (Of course this is not the case with all of them) So, watch your ass, and watch your little heart as well. Anyone who lives in Cairns can pretend to be whoever they want to be, there’s no one around who’s known them long enough to say who they really are. I’ve seen co-workers get too close to a manager and wind up regretting it when they find out this person pretends to be someone they're not. And even worse, someone who pulls this hoax every 3 months when the right French, or Italian, or Greek, or Swedish, or English, or whoever girl comes to Cairns for the trip of their life, only to be heartbroken.
So, be careful with how "loose" you are. You're here to travel, not just physically, but outside of yourself, and that's a beautiful thing! Please! Try new things, break your comfort zone, and sometimes, put yourself in harm's way. (As in facing the things within us we all wish to ignore.) We all need to challenge ourselves. But all things being said, ask yourself if what you're about to do will build character and become something you can look back on and smile at. Or is it gonna get your name on a nasty "Banned" list, or like I've seen in Cairns, cuffed in the back of a cop car.
Be You and Be Open
Possibly the Most Important out of everything- I mean that when I say it. Yesss, all this job and seasons and accommodation bullshit matters. But it won’t matter how much you know if you aren’t being yourself and open to the experience and personal growth that you will inevitably go through. Without your willingness to flow with the process, it will only fight you, and you’ll be a sad little one.
I knew people personally who went through this fight. They made it allllll the way to Australia. Just to try and simulate all the comforts they had back home. People will be different, the culture will be different, the very air… is different. So go live, and go learn. You can make some of your greatest life-long friends and memories anywhere you travel, so long as you’re open to it.
I saw travelers first-hand who had a terrible time in Cairns because they didn’t do this. They’d come, excited to have gone this far along the journey. But in fear of living the unknown life they've now signed up for, they’d sit around watching movies all day at the hostel, then go bar-hopping in the night, stressed to sickness all the while because they can’t get a job or a place to live. No one’s gonna hand it to you- this isn’t home where you can work with a school-friend at the bakery or the tire shop where your dad works.
I knew people who just never grasped this and had to book flights back home prematurely, ending their time in Australia because they ran out of money.
You don’t want to be this person.
You want to live your story to its fullest potential because you'll never forgive yourself if you don't decide to shed your skin and live in the moment. Leave all of your insecurities and Trauma Responses wherever you learned them. Here in a foreign land- You get the choice to be whoever you want to be. Why not heal your wounds and step into your true self?
I learned this the hard way, so hopefully you don't have to.
My Time in Cairns & Why it Matters
Like many others, I found myself Cairns-ways as I was desperate to do my 88 days and stay in Australia, and happily out of my birth country- the US. So I went to Cairns, knowing only what YouTube and blog posts could tell me. I found these hard to digest, especially YouTube videos where someone who could afford to eat out for every meal and stay at the most expensive Hostel, or even worse, a motel, was giving me advice? (This isn’t the full case, but as a viewer, it feels like it) It just felt like the human aspect was always missing. Which I've aimed to put at the forefront of this post.
Me, on the other hand, was a broke home runaway who’d found himself far from New York in Australia- and in Far North Queensland of all places. I landed at the airport and couldn’t afford an Uber or a taxi, so I started making the long walk to town. I only had two nights of accommodation booked at Mumma's Hostel as it was all I could afford. I just told myself that I’d figure something out. I networked my ass off walking around to every hostel and smooth-talked my way into getting a volunteer position washing dishes at The Jack. When they asked if I had experience in the kitchen, I said “heaps!” I had none. But I told myself I did. I volunteered there, in the meantime searching, and finding much luck looking for work while also running around inspecting rooms to rent. I found one off Marketplace, a half-hour walk or ten-minute ride on my skateboard in Cairns North, where I paid $280 a week for my own room, and eventually $140 when my wife, then girlfriend, moved in. I completed my 88 days, had an amazing time, and even had a trip down the coast before flying back to The States to visit family.
All of that, from nothing. If I, the small, unattractive, shit-talking, lost in the sauce of growing up American, can do it, then so can you!
Resources/Extra Info
Cairns is amazing for a stupid number of reasons, but one of my favorites is the people. A destination for backpackers, cruisers, doofers (as in Bush Doofs, not as in morons) and grey-nomads. Everyone from everywhere is here. Being surrounded by people from all over the world is something that always comforted me in Cairns, I never felt alone as my global dog pack only grew larger. I learned so much from so many different cultures all right here in Australia! Despite the constant stream of new faces, Cairns has a very intimate and small feel. It warmed my heart that I could never walk around town without bumping into a friend, someone I met at a bar, a person I swam with at the lagoon, someone I’d lived with in a hostel dorm, etc. It was exactly how small-town people described life- always waving to friends and family from block to block, always in happy conversation with strangers and family. Unable to go five minutes without hearing someone shouting your name from down the block. The funniest part about this small-town feeling was that most of these people weren’t from here. We were from some of the strangest and smallest parts of the world, but we were all here together, and that made all of us travelers one big family.
So, for most of our (Me & my Wife's) adventures out of Cairns, we went through Travel Hub. I HIGHLY recommend them! We never thought of using a travel agency until Kirk (Co-Founder) offered my Wife a job (perfect example of networking). So, we gave it a go, and they were a very down-to-earth group of people who went above and beyond for us. They sorted us being able to skydive and bungee jump in the same day! Replied to questions far outside of office hours and were always keen for a good chat. They really are Backpackers for Backpackers.
- Want to know why they're the BEST? Read Here
If you don’t have a car, make friends with someone who does! There’s a massive lack of public transport infrastructure in Cairns. So many people come to Cairns for the Daintree Rainforest, the waterfalls, the mountains, and the beaches. But then face the reality that getting to them is hard, and expensive. You can still get to these places, though, remember, strength in numbers (apes together strong) renting a car for a road trip up to Port Douglas is fun, but it’s even more fun when the car is packed and everyone’s split the costs so you can finally afford to down a whole bottle of Baileys on the beach and play handball with people who have funny accents.
- Looking for a cheap Car/Campervan to rent? Click Here!
- On that note, if you can, get a skateboard, or scooter, rollerblades, or whatever. Besides having a good occasional cruise along the esplanade, it's really useful to have a way to get around because buses aren't always the most reliable. Having a skateboard saved my ass all of the time. There's also a pretty cool skate park nearby on the Espenshade next to the free outdoor rock-climbing thingy. I miss that thing literally every city should have that.
- I got my Surf-Skate Board from Urban Wheelz! Highly recommend! The workers there were super nice and let me skate around the shop for literally 2 hours as I tried to find the perfect board.
DEHUMIDIFER!!! So, there's something in Cairns where lots of people get a strange sort of sickness. You can't sleep. You can't talk. You just feel wrong. I had it. I had it from the start, and I'm amazed anyone called me back for trial shifts because I sounded like I was trying to speak through a chokehold. I thought there was mold in the AC at the hostel that must've really fucked me up. And mold is a part of it, considering the humidity and rainfall, but it seems it's not the full picture. I was told by locals and sent some articles I can't find now that suggested something about a bacteria found in FNQ was the main culprit, and that it thrived in humidity inside old Queenslander houses. So, my wife and I (who also had this issue) got a dehumidifier for our room and laced it with lotssss of essential oils, and then we were fine. Heaps of people came to me when they started getting this sickness because everyone knew I had it BAD. So bad around my first month that I was up for 7 days- yes, 7 days straight! I tried EVEYRTHING but I couldn't sleep and I was hallucinating up the wazoo. So if you're suffering this terrible sickness, then do yourself a favor and get a dehumidifier and some essential oils, try going to the The Happy Herb Shop, or you can always go to the Big W and all the other big brand stores at the mall.
If you hit up the reef, do the outer reef! The coral is far healthier, and it’s pretty much an underwater city out there that you would never see all of, even if you tried. I recommend Silver Swift for getting out there. They fed us, and I like food. We spent all day on the outer reef, equipment supplied, food and drinks, and three different dive sites with guided tours as well, if that's your thing! TravelHub helped book this for us at a really cheap price <3
Cairns is humid AF, your pin-straight hair might wind up curly no matter what you do. If you're looking for a haircut so your brain doesn't feel like it's gonna explode from all the trapped heat, I highly recommend Spence Street Barbers. The staff are great, and the haircuts are under $30. I always went to Billie, she did me solid every single time, and I have some wildly curly hair that every barber despises, except her, love ya Billie!
Hopefully, they still do it, but when I was there, Summer House Hostel would do $5 Jugs! Cairns is HOT, and so sometimes I'd get one before work, not thinking about it much, and work was always fun on those days. So maybe not before work, but a jug and a dip in the pool was always nice.
If you've already made your way to the Public Library to print out CV's, you may as well grab a Library Card while you're there. It's free (all you need is ID) and this allows you to borrow books from the library, which I did quite often :)
Conclusion
I hope that this little backpackers guide to Cairns has helped you a least a little bit. I always had so many questions, before, during, and after all of my travels, so helping other travelers is something I love to and will forever keep doing! And please don’t take my word for absolute gospel, at the end of the day, I'm just a guy, this is my biased advice from my subjective experience of Cairns. So make your own decisions. But if you’ve read this far down, I'm imagining you’ve never been to Cairns, and I have, so at least think of it justtttt a little bit.
Go challenge yourself and your soul, whether that leads you to Cairns or not, I wish you all the best in your adventures :)
Happy Travels!
Contact
If you have any further questions, feel free to contact me! Email or DM!
* Also, feel free to get in touch if you're looking to book any tours for cheap while you're in Cairns! *
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* Absolutely no AI of any kind has been used in the production of this post. *
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