University of Georgia, Discover Abroad: Australia and New Zealand Maymester Program

Sydney, Great Barrier Reef, Outback, Tropical Rainforest, Queenstown, Fiordland, and Aoraki/Mount Cook

Visit two worlds in one program! This program focuses on sustainable development with electives in natural history, animal behavior, or business sustainability in both Australia and New Zealand. The Australia portion of the program includes Sydney, considered one of the world’s best places to live and play, the Great Barrier Reef (where we stay at the eco-resort of Lady Elliot Island), the vast expanse of the Outback (to explore the wildlife and indigenous art of Carnarvon Gorge), the modern and sophisticated city of Brisbane (within a short drive of the Gold Coast) and either Tropical Rainforest (in Binna Burra) or the surfing beach town of Noosa (Sunshine Coast). 

The second half of the program is spent on the South Island of New Zealand, where the kiwi image of 100% Pure, Clean, and Green is arguably most evident. Known as the adventure capital of the Southern Hemisphere, there are mountains rising 14,000 feet out of the sea, the largest fiords in the world, rainforests, massive glaciers carving their way to the ocean, thermal hotsprings, and volcanoes. New Zealand’s isolation has spurred the development of a unique natural heritage: Plants and animals have evolved here that are unknown anywhere else. We travel the breadth of the South Island from the deep south in Fiordlands National Park to the northern coastal town of Kaikoura.