The Gold Coast's best assets cost nothing: 57km of patrolled beach, volcanic headland tracks and freshwater rock pools inland. This three-day route skips the theme parks for $2 markets, $12 street-food plates and viewpoints with no ticket booth.
The 1.2km Oceanview Walk circles Burleigh's volcanic headland through pandanus and hoop pine, opening onto the point break where surfers queue below. Gates open 24 hours; the Rainforest Circuit adds 30 minutes.
Freshwater swimming holes carved into granite along Currumbin Creek, 15 minutes inland from the coast. Free parking and toilets, no entry fee and no lifeguards. The deepest pools sit upstream past the first bridge.
Calm, clear estuary between Burleigh and Palm Beach with sandbanks shallow enough to wade across at low tide. Free BBQs, cold showers and shaded picnic tables line the Burleigh side; snorkelling near the mouth suits an incoming tide.
The basalt boulder anchoring Currumbin Beach, with a short staircase to a viewing platform above Currumbin Alley. Sunset lights the hinterland ranges behind you, and the ANZAC dawn service is held on this same rock each April.
Held on the school oval the first and third Sunday of each month, 6am to noon. Around 130 stalls of vintage clothing, records and independent labels, plus coffee carts and breakfast rolls in the $8-12 range under the fig trees.
Three blocks of Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese kitchens around Young and Davenport Streets, marked by red lanterns and paved mosaics. Pho, banh mi and rice plates run $10-16, and the monthly night market adds street stalls.
A 1.5km free foreshore park with electric BBQs, a rock pool, water playground and netted swimming enclosure looking across to South Stradbroke Island. Showers and shade sails cost nothing and parking on Marine Parade is untimed.
Warehouse street-food market on Hillcrest Parade, open Wednesday, Friday and Saturday evenings from 5pm. Free entry, more than 30 stalls with most plates $12-18, and live bands on two stages with no cover charge.
Queensland's first national park, gazetted in 1908. The 3.1km circuit drops through palm groves and strangler figs to a seasonal falls lookout before climbing back to the escarpment edge. Free parking off Main Western Road.
The memorial straddles the Queensland-New South Wales border on the headland above Snapper Rocks, topped by a laser lighthouse and open to the wind on all sides. Free views run south down the Tweed Coast to Mount Warning.
Paved coastal path from Rainbow Bay over Greenmount Hill to Kirra, roughly 4km one way past three patrolled beaches. Free public showers sit at each headland and the Greenmount lookout frames the whole skyline north.
The northern tip of the Gold Coast sandbar, with free untimed parking, uncrowded surf at TSS Beach and Seaway walls where fishers work the outgoing tide. Federation Walk threads 3.7km of coastal scrub back toward Main Beach.