Subscribe 
Subscribe 
Subscribe 10 Soul-Shaping Australian Journeys (To Do At Least Once)
In the beginning there was distance — red and salt and green — and the faithful said: let’s cross it beautifully. These are not tick-boxes but pilgrimages; not souvenirs but sacraments.
Australia is vast. Not just in scale — though 7.7 million square kilometres of coastline, desert, rainforest and mountain ranges should keep you busy — but in mood. It’s a country where you might savour a truffle-laden feast in Tasmania one week, and take a helicopter drop into the Kimberley the next. A sunburnt land, yes, but also a glittering one — of coral seas, red-rock cathedrals, and vineyards where the chardonnay tastes like liquid silk.
Here, we’ve gathered ten journeys every Australian should take in their lifetime. Not tick-box trips, but soul-shaping pilgrimages — adventures where heritage meets hedonism, design meets wild nature, and food and wine are as much part of the story as the landscapes themselves.
The Great Ocean Road, Victoria
The ultimate coastal drive
A rite of passage as much as a road trip: 240 kilometres of cliff-hugging tarmac, misted rainforest and limestone drama that never grows old. Drive it slow and savour the rhythm — surf breaks in Torquay, designer rooftops and sundowners in Lorne, scallop pies and sea spray in Apollo Bay, Twelve Apostles standing like a chorus line of titans in the Southern Ocean, and Port Fairy’s heritage charm. Detour inland for waterfalls and a long lunch that becomes legend.
Base yourself at Alkina Lodge — three architect-designed pavilions set among coastal scrub, all glass, stone and starry skies. Book ahead for Brae in Birregurra, where the garden sets the brief and the wine list reads like poetry. Walk a clifftop trail at golden hour, then return for a bath, a fire, and the distant thrum of the Southern Ocean. This is Australia’s most cinematic drive — and yes, you’ll want to pull over every five minutes.
Tasmania’s Wild East Coast
Art, oysters, and ancestral stories
Begin with Hobart’s energy — MONA’s provocation, Salamanca’s bounty, waterfront warehouses reborn as design hotels — then trace the coast to Freycinet’s pink-granite amphitheatre. Check into Saffire Freycinet, a stingray-shaped lodge where suites frame the Hazards and staff arrive at sundown with freshly shucked oysters. Spend a day wandering Coles Bay and sipping cool-climate pinot at Devil’s Corner’s sculptural cellar door. Further north, the Bay of Fires glows orange against white sand; walk with palawa guides on the wukalina Walk for 60,000 years of culture carried in story and landscape.
Dinner is seafood pulled straight from Tassie’s waters, pinot poured with precision, and night skies clear enough to reset your sense of scale. This is the island distilled — wild, cultured, exquisitely hosted. Few places entwine wilderness, wine and history quite like Tasmania.
Uluru & Kata Tjuta, Northern Territory
The spiritual heart of the nation
Sunrise at Uluṟu is a revelation in quiet: the rock shifting from violet to ember as the desert holds its breath, an audience hushed without instruction. Walk with Aṉangu guides to waterholes and rock shelters, Dreaming stories etched in stone, then return after dark for Bruce Munro’s Field of Light — 50,000 glowing stems shimmering across the desert floor — or Wintjiri Wiṟu, a symphony of drone, light and sound drawn from ancient lore.
Rising 348 metres above the desert, Uluṟu is more than a landmark; it is a living, sacred canvas. At Longitude 131°, tented pavilions open onto the dunes, and dinner is served beneath the Milky Way, with native herbs perfuming each course. The next day, the Valley of the Winds at Kata Tjuṯa delivers sweeping domes and skies that expand your sense of scale. Here, luxury lies in reverence: everything considered, nothing hurried, time itself the most exquisite indulgence.
Enjoying Our Round-Up of Australia’s Most Essential Destinations? Check Out…
Daintree Rainforest Accommodation For a Treetop Escape
Kakadu & Arnhem Land, Northern Territory
Wetlands, wildlife, and 50,000 years of culture
If Uluṟu is the heart, Kakadu is the soul — a UNESCO-listed wilderness of floodplains, escarpments and rock art that has held continuous life for more than 50,000 years. At dawn, glide the Yellow Water Billabong as mist lifts, jabiru stalk through reeds and crocodiles slip soundlessly beneath lilies. Climb to Ubirr for galleries older than the pyramids, then watch sunset spill across stone country. With the right guide and permit, step into Arnhem Land — a journey shaped by protocol, river light and ancestral story.
Base yourself at Anbinik Kakadu Resort in Jabiru, a locally owned retreat shaded by pandanus and designed with architectural smarts. Days bend to heat and tide; dinner might be barramundi and bush tomato on a deck open to the night, evenings given over to starfields and the slow metronome of the tropics. Kakadu breathes in six seasons. Culture leads, nature answers, and you follow — light on your feet, wide awake.
The Kimberley, Western Australia
Epic gorges and tidal wonders
Few landscapes humble like the Kimberley — rust-red gorges split by turquoise rivers, boab trees standing sentinel, tides that run sideways. Take a seaplane into Talbot Bay to see the Horizontal Falls, where surges of ocean tumble through sheer rock like waterfalls on their side. Fly over the beehive domes of Purnululu, striped orange and black like giant vessels of honey, then sink into a thermal pool as wedge-tails carve slow circles overhead.
Make El Questro Homestead your outpost — white linen tables perched on a sandstone rim above the Chamberlain River — and take a chopper to a secret cascade for champagne sundowners. Time your visit with the Ord Valley Muster if you crave a party under a bruised outback sky. In between, visit remote art centres, hear stories carried in ochre and song, and let the silence do its work. The Kimberley is raw, remote, hypnotic — adventure amplified by scale.
Sitchu Tip: For the ultimate budget-meets-bucket-list secret, head to Lake Argyle Resort and Caravan Park. From just $43 a night, you can claim a patch of grass overlooking one of Australia’s most cinematic lakes — with access to the resort’s legendary infinity pool, a beer garden that turns golden at sunset, and views that make you forget the word “caravan” ever implied ordinary.
Margaret River & The South West, Western Australia
Wine country meets wild coast
This corner of Western Australia is a gourmand’s fantasy stitched to peppermint trees and turquoise coves. Margaret River alone produces a quarter of Australia’s premium wines — sip biodynamic icons at Cullen, art-filled tastings at Leeuwin, or escape over a long, linen-draped lunch at Voyager Estate. Beyond the vines, ancient karri forests stretch skyward and coastal trails trace headlands where whales breach against turquoise seas.
Stay in vineyard retreats or design-led eco-lodges, adults-only sanctuaries tucked into bushland where dawn carries the perfume of eucalyptus and fresh sourdough. Days start with crystalline shallows at Meelup or spa-and-surf rituals at Injidup; nights return you to firelight and Cabernet, and the sweet dilemma of which bottle to take home. In Margaret River, wine and wilderness entwine effortlessly.
Great Barrier Reef & Daintree, Queensland
Two World Heritage wonders, side by side
Snorkel the world’s largest coral reef system, where parrotfish scatter confetti through coral gardens and green turtles drift like apparitions. Join a reef-restoration project, planting coral fragments and feeling hope swing in the current, or take to the air in a helicopter to see aquamarine swirls stretching to the horizon.
Then trade fins for forest: the Daintree’s green hush, older than the Amazon, alive with cassowary footprints, strangler figs and jade-coloured rivers. Base yourself at Silky Oaks Lodge, treetop suites suspended above the Mossman, a spa pavilion tuned to the water. Walk with Kuku Yalanji guides for Country-led storytelling, toast sunset with something tropical and unfussy, and let an afternoon storm clear the air like theatre. Reef and rainforest in one breath — Australia’s great double act.
Sydney & The Blue Mountains, New South Wales
Harbour light to mountain mist
Few cities pivot between cosmopolitan gloss and wilderness so seamlessly. In Sydney, start on foot: an Aboriginal-led walk through The Rocks reframes the city’s history, Barangaroo Parkland stitches sandstone back to the harbour, and a ferry ride feels less like transport than therapy. Sunset on the Opera House steps is mandatory; galleries, wine bars and laneway restaurants fill the hours in between.
When the city hum quiets, head west. In under two hours, the Blue Mountains deliver eucalypt-scented air and cliffs veined with waterfalls. Hike to the Three Sisters or take a stretch of the Grand Cliff Top Walk, all big-sky drama and valley silence. Stay in Leura cottages, heritage guesthouses with log fires, or Chalets at Blackheath — timber, stone and forest views — then book high tea at the Hydro Majestic, a panorama served on porcelain. City energy, mountain stillness; both feel deserved.
Barossa Valley & Flinders Ranges, South Australia
From Shiraz to starfields
Two South Australian moods, perfectly paired. Begin in the Barossa, where bold Shiraz flows from century-old vines and tastings honour both heritage and new ideas. Check into The Louise, swoon over dinner at Appellation, and let a long lunch at Fino Seppeltsfield roll lazily into golden hour.
Then head north, where the Flinders Ranges rise in ochre and stone. At Ikara/Wilpena Pound, join Adnyamathanha guides to read the ranges properly — Dreamtime stories etched into gorge walls, ancient geology threaded with meaning. Stay at Arkaba, a former sheep station turned conservation lodge, and watch red kangaroos flicker across the plains at dusk. Nights fall under skies so thick with stars they look brush-painted. Wine, wilderness and timeless storylines — South Australia at its most elemental.
The Ghan, South Australia to Northern Territory
Australia’s greatest rail journey
The Ghan isn’t transport; it’s theatre on rails. Board in Adelaide and watch the continent unfold in acts: vineyard folds giving way to ochre plains, then the tropics of the Top End, green and unapologetic. Cabins are moving cocoons, linen crisp, glassware polished, and the dining car hums with the low clink of cutlery as regional wines keep pace with the scenery.
Step off for a gorge cruise at Nitmiluk, or a desert dawn at Marla that feels scripted by light itself. Back onboard, dinner arrives in three considered courses — kangaroo with native pepper, barramundi with lemon myrtle — and the rhythm of steel carries you into the night. The tempo is slow, deliberate, indulgent: nothing to do but look, taste, listen. Bring a novel you’ll never open. The Ghan stitches Australia together in a single ribbon of steel, and the journey is as intoxicating as the destination.
These aren’t trips you tick off and move on from. They lodge under your skin: the reef still glitters in memory, the desert’s silence resets your pace, and the wine threads through the story for years to come. In short, they’re the journeys that remind you why we live here — and why Australia will always be a place to keep discovering. For more epic wanderings, explore our guide to enticing island escapes and our edit of retro-motel dream stays — guaranteed to spark the best kind of nostalgia.
Subscribe 
Subscribe 
