Australia among the top 10 travel destinations in 2016

Lonely Planet have released the best in travel destinations for 2016, and Australia rightly makes the cut for the top 10 places to visit next year.

Featuring for it’s outstanding natural beauty, Australia weighs in at number 6 on LP’s best in travel list, beating the likes of Poland, Uruguay, Greenland and Fiji (which are all places that I want to visit, funnily enough). 

Rightly summed up is the massive expanse of UNESCO heritage sites, including the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru and Kata Tjuta, Kakadu National Park and pretty much the entirety of Tasmania. I can happily vouch for all of these places being as amazing as they’re described elsewhere – forget the amount of travelling you’ll need to do to get between them, it’s more than worth it and you’ll see a fair few pretty sights in between.

As always, this isn’t everything Australia has to offer, it misses out of the excellent city life, as well as some other prominent destinations such as the Whitsundays and the Great Ocean Road.

The current economic environment is making Australia more affordable than it has been in recent years, and you’ll get more bang for buck if you make the most of the weak position of the Aussie Dollar.

I’d suggest taking a long break out there personally, after all, Australia is one of the largest countries in the world, and even covering only the well known places will take a few weeks. If you want to head over and take a gap year, or spend a few months travelling its certainly possible, and as the southern hemisphere enters its summer period you’ll find an abundance of rural jobs (particularly good if you want to extend your visa) and great weather to get you started from the beginning of 2016.

There’s also a growing trend in cultural tourism (about bloody time!) so you’ll find it easier than ever to learn about the Australian natives and aboriginal art and culture. Between the landscape, its indigenous people and amazing weather, you’ll have plenty to do and explore, and you’ll return home having gone through a life changing travel experience that will really open your eyes to the rest of the world, and most likely infect you with the travel bug (if you don’t already have it).

If you do, or if you’ve already been, you might also want to look at the rest of Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 2016 list, which features a relatively first-world top 5 with plenty to see. The complete list is as follows:

1. Botswana
2. Japan
3. USA
4. Palau
5. Latvia
6. Australia
7. Poland
8. Uruguay
9. Greenland
10. Fiji

You can find out plenty more about the various destinations on their web page, and I can all but guarantee that each of these places will make an amazing trip in the coming year.