Australien

Equal parts dynamic, cosmopolitan, sports-mad and arty, Melbourne simultaneously exudes style and keeps its best spots hidden, inviting discovery by food and culture lovers.

Tasmanska djävulen, Australiens bästa viner, vildmarken och en fantastisk östkust är orsaker nog att besöka Tasmanien i Australien – men ett besök på Mona är ett absolut måste!

Baked, straw-coloured plains, hawthorn hedgerows, rows of poplars, roadside mansions… Tasmania’s Midlands have a distinct English-countryside feel. This is old-school Tasmania, tracing the route between Hobart and Launceston hammered out by convict gangs in the early 1800s. As the road rolled itself out, sandstone garrison towns and pastoral properties appeared: the Midlands soon became the food factory of Van Diemen's Land.

The local Butchulla people call it K’gari – 'paradise' – and for good reason. Sculpted by wind, sand and surf, the striking blue freshwater lakes, crystalline creeks, giant dunes and lush rainforests of this gigantic sandbar form an enigmatic island paradise unlike any other. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world (measuring 120km by 15km) and the only known place where rainforest grows on sand.

Thursday and Horn Islands are the most visited of the remote Torres Strait Islands, Australia’s most northerly frontier. The archipelago consists of more than 100 islands stretching like stepping stones for 150km from the tip of Cape York Peninsula to Papua New Guinea.

With stunning natural beauty, the World Heritage region of the Blue Mountains is an Australian highlight. The slate-coloured haze that gives the mountains their name comes from a fine mist of oil exuded by the huge eucalypts that form a dense canopy across the landscape of deep, often inaccessible valleys and chiselled sandstone outcrops.

If the vast expanse of Western Australia (WA) was a separate nation, it would be the world's 10th-largest (bigger than Algeria, smaller than Kazakhstan). Most of WA's population clings to the coast, yet you can wander along a beach here without seeing another footprint, or be one of a few scattered campers stargazing in a national park.

Northern Queensland's often-overlooked major city is easy on the eye: at Townsville's heart is its handsome, endless esplanade, an ideal viewing platform to fabulous Magnetic Island, a mere ferry ride offshore. A better museum and aquarium you'll struggle to find in Queensland, and it's a pedestrian-friendly city, its grand, refurbished 19th-century buildings offering loads of landmarks. If in doubt, join the throngs of the fit and fabulous marching up bright red Castle Hill to gaze across the city's dry environs.

The traditional land of the Wurundjeri people, scenic Yarra Valley is now Victoria’s premier wine region and weekend getaway – partly for its close proximity to Melbourne, but mainly for its wineries, superb restaurants, national parks and wildlife-viewing opportunities. This is the place to rise at dawn in a hot-air balloon and to kick back at world-class wineries in the afternoon.

Cairns (pronounced ‘cans’) has come a long way since its humble beginnings as a boggy swamp and rollicking goldfields port. As the number-one base for Far North Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef, today Cairns heaves under the weight of an ever-growing number of resorts, tour agencies, souvenir shops, backpacker bars and reef boats. This is a tourist town, and unashamedly so – luxury hotel development in 2018 and an increasingly busy cruise-ship port suggest it's only growing busier.