Australien

Tasmania’s east coast is sea-salted and rejuvenating – a land of quiet bays and sandy shores, punctuated by granite headlands splashed with flaming orange lichen. The sand is white-blonde and the water is gin-clear. It looks as inviting as a tropical postcard, but when you strip off and plunge in, you'll probably be quickly out again – even in summer the water temperatures here can leave you breathless.

When the Adelaide plains are desert-hot in the summer months, the Adelaide Hills (technically the Mt Lofty Ranges – the traditional lands of the Peramangk people) are always a few degrees cooler, with crisp air, woodland shade and labyrinthine valleys. Early colonists built stately summer houses around Stirling and Aldgate, and German settlers escaping religious persecution also arrived, infusing towns like Hahndorf and Lobethal with European values and architecture.

Unfettered and alive, West Coast Australia is 12,500km of truly spectacular coastline. There's a freedom and optimism here that the rest of Australia can't replicate.

Proclaimed in 1916, Mt Field is Tasmania's oldest national park (along with Freycinet) and sits little more than an hour's drive north of Hobart. There's an upstairs, downstairs structure to the park, with its rainforest-covered lower slopes leaking waterfalls, while its tips hold exposed alpine moorlands, a laid-back ski field and the wonderful Tarn Shelf, which turns on one of Tasmania's finest autumn spectacles when the native fagus (beech) glows gold.

The Daintree represents many things: Unesco World Heritage–listed rainforest, a river, a reef, laid-back villages and the home of its traditional custodians, the Kuku Yalanji people. It encompasses the coastal lowland area between the Daintree and Bloomfield Rivers, where the rainforest tumbles right down to the coast. It’s a fragile, ancient ecosystem, once threatened by logging but now protected as a national park.

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.

'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

The Limestone Coast − strung out along southeastern SA between the flat, olive span of the lower Murray River and the Victorian border − is a curiously engaging place. On the highways you can blow across these flatlands in under a day, no sweat – but around here the delight is in the detail. Detour off-road to check out the area's lagoons, surf beaches and sequestered bays. Also on offer are wine regions, photogenic fishing ports and snoozy agricultural towns. And what's below the road is even more amazing: a bizarre subterranean landscape of limestone caves, sinkholes and crater lakes – a broad, formerly volcanic area that's known as the Kanawinka Geopark.

Far North Queensland is a remote tropical adventure where the Great Barrier Reef is tantalisingly close. It's a cliché, but the rainforest really does meet the reef up here. Steamy Cairns is the main traveller base and an obligatory stop on any east-coast itinerary. Divers and snorkellers swarm here – and to more upmarket Port Douglas – for easy access to the Great Barrier Reef. The cooler Atherton Tablelands – with volcanic craters, jungly waterfalls and gourmet food producers – is a short, scenic drive inland.

Named for cliffs of colourful, mineral-rich sand, Rainbow Beach is an idyllic Australian beach town on Butchulla land at the base of the Inskip Peninsula. Beloved of European backpackers and the chief contender to Hervey Bay as a base for excursions to Fraser Island, it's a generally low-key place that nonetheless offers a few hostels hot-housing all the frenetic action a young, fun-seeking clientele could want. Ideally reached via the Cooloola Section of the Great Sandy National Park, a dramatic approach possible only for 4WDs, it's more easily and conventionally accessed by excellent roads from Gympie, 73km southwest. It's a great place to try your hand at different outdoor activities, tap into the backpacker party scene, or just chill out with family and friends.