australia

your journey down under

For travelers who love adventure but want the comfort of travel to an English-speaking country, Australia offers boundless opportunities. Like the United States, Australia is a huge country. It measures roughly 2500 miles across, only slightly less than the USA’s 2800 miles width. This means that travelling across the country will generally involve flights, which will add time and cost overhead to your trip. However, roughly 80% of Australia’s 25 million people are concentrated in the three eastern states of Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria.

The range of adventure, nature and cultural activities in Australia is boundless. Queensland in the northeast is the home to the city of Brisbane, the coastal and island resorts of the Great Barrier Reef, and the Daintree Rainforest. New South Wales along the mid-East Coast is home to Australia’s culture capital of Sydney, as well as the World Heritage-listed Blue Mountains and the Hunter Valley wine region. Victoria in the southeast boasts Melbourne, the nation’s business center, along with the wineries of Yarra Valley and the rugged coastline along the Great Ocean Road.

A little further afield, you can visit South Australia and its colonial capital of Adelaide, along with the aptly-named Kangaroo Island and the Flinders Ranges — threshold of the Outback. The island state of Tasmania offers endless opportunities to see gorgeous and unspoiled wilderness. For a deep Outback adventure, the Northern Territory offers two vastly different experiences. Darwin and Kakadu in the far north highlight escarpments, waterfalls, and many roads only accessible by 4WD. In the Red Centre, Alice Springs and the sacred monolith Uluru are a unique desert experience with arguably the best stargazing in the southern hemisphere.

For those with the luxury of time or repeat visitors to Australia, a visit to the country’s largest state of Western Australia offers many additional opportunities to explore. From the coastal cities of Perth and Broome to the rugged wilderness frontier of the Kimberley in the northwest (three times the size of England!!), a visit to the west will not disappoint.

Tourism Australia

More Journey Softly destinations like this: New Zealand, Fiji, Tahiti (French Polynesia)

Photos: Kangaroos in the Outback; Opera House, Sydney; Great Barrier Reef, Queensland

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