Australien

Beyond the Great Dividing Range the sky opens up over tough country that's both relentless and beautiful. Travellers come for the exotic and intimate Australian experience, their restlessness tamed by the sheer size of the place, its luminous colours and its silence. It's a place that echoes with Indigenous stories down through the ages, and tales from Burke and Wills to Waltzing Matilda. Towns like Winton, Longreach and Birdsville in particular capture the essence of this vast place.

On the lowest gradient of any Australian river, the slow-flowing Murray hooks through 650 South Australian kilometres. Tamed by weirs and locks, it irrigates the fruit trees and vines of the sandy Riverland district to the north, and winds through the dairy country of the Murraylands district to the south. Raucous flocks of white corellas and pink galahs launch from cliffs and river red gums, darting across lush vineyards and orchards.

Sandstränder, surfvågor och vin. Australiens västkust är som gjord för en roadtrip för dig som är både naturälskare och finsmakare.

In Wadjuk country, way out west in the Indian Ocean breeze, Perth regularly attracts that most easy-going of adjectives – 'livable'. Under a near-permanent canopy of blue sky, life here unfolds at a pleasing pace. Throw in superb beaches, global eats and booming small-bar and street-art scenes, and Perth seems downright progressive. Free from the pressures of congestion, pollution and population afflicting Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, Perth and neighbouring port town Fremantle are uncomplicated, unfettered and alive. Yes, it's the most isolated city of its size on the planet, but this remoteness fosters an outward-looking world view. Instead of heading east for their holidays, locals – who suffer the ugly, geologic-sounding moniker of 'Perthites' – travel to Bali, the Maldives, Singapore, Sri Lanka… Currency-exchange reports include the Indian rupee, while the Perth-to-London 'Dreamliner' direct flight delivers Europe's virtues in a tick under 17 hours. Forget about isolation: Perth is going places.

This less-heralded stretch of Queensland's coast straddles the Tropic of Capricorn, and comprises the southernmost islands of the Great Barrier Reef. Here, local families seek escape from the inland heat of centres such as beef capital Rockhampton among dreamy beaches, mangroves and reef-fringed islands, while the less-accessible coast and hinterland hold some of the state's most arrestingly beautiful national parks. School holidays can be busy in the main cooling-off spots, but for most of the year you needn’t travel far to find a deserted beach.

The South Coast is paradise without pretension, a place to wriggle your toes into brilliant white sand while guzzling down a meat pie. The stretch unfurls south from Sydney to Eden along coves, saw-toothed sea cliffs and bays where emerald waves lavish foam onto soft, squeaky sand. It's not as popular as NSW's North Coast and, frankly, locals couldn't be happier about that.

'Rotto' – or Wadjemup to Noongar Aboriginal people – has long been the go-to destination for Perth families on holiday, and a coming-of-age promised land for local teens. Although it's only about 19km offshore from Fremantle, this car-free, off-the-grid slice of paradise, ringed by secluded beaches and bays, feels a million miles away

Operahuset och Bondi Beach i all ära, men Sydney har så mycket mer att erbjuda. Vi listar tre stadsdelar med bra mat, vintage och stammis-favoriter.

Between Nelson Bay and Woolgoolga, the coast is riddled with lakes and shot through with swaths of coastal eucalypt and rainforest, much of it protected in national parks. The joy here is forsaking the Pacific Hwy for leafy roads that cut across to the coast, taking detours and switching back. What you'll find at the end of the road are wonderfully unpretentious beach towns, basic campgrounds beside dunes and rivers, and miles and miles of lush nothing. The big towns here are Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour, which can appear busy and built-up but nevertheless manage to maintain a languid holiday pace.

Australia's most populous state is home to its largest city: glitzy, vibrant, intoxicating Sydney, an unforgettable metropolis in a privileged natural setting. Bondi Beach and the harbour are justly famous, but in reality the whole NSW coast is simply magnificent: a mesmerising sequence of beach after quality beach backed by a series of excellent national parks and interesting coastal towns.