The 35 Best Resorts in Australia

Twenty-four white-sand beaches and no one on most of them: that's the pitch for this remote luxury resort on the Great Barrier Reef, a Michelin 3 Keys property that takes commitment to reach and none whatsoever once you're there. Villas lean into the landscape with bleached timber and open layouts, and the resort runs on a notably lock-free, schedule-free philosophy. Morning dives, long seafood lunches, empty beaches in the afternoon.

A chandelier made of 10,000 globes hangs over a wine cellar encased in floor-to-ceiling glass, which tells you everything about the register this Mornington Peninsula vineyard hotel is playing in. The rooms lean into the surreal with Japanese soaking tubs, heated floors, and views straight into the vines. It holds two Michelin Keys. The mythical horned jackrabbit lends the place its name, and the designers clearly took the brief personally.

Treehouse-style rooms hang over the Mossman River where the Daintree Rainforest meets the Great Barrier Reef, and the staff handle everything from guided reef dives to rainforest picnics before you've finished your coffee. Silky Oaks is an ecolodge built for people who want the wilderness but aren't interested in roughing it. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys. Bring good walking shoes and a slightly loose schedule, because the team here will fill it.

The kangaroos that hop past your window aren't a marketing promise; they're just Tuesday. This eco-lodge sits inside Taronga Zoo Sydney, so the native animal sanctuary outside is literally part of the grounds, and every stay includes two days of zoo admission and a guided tour. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame either the wildlife habitat or a postcard shot of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. The Michelin Guide awarded it one Key.

Qualia occupies its own private peninsula at the northern tip of Hamilton Island, with coast on three sides and the Great Barrier Reef doing the heavy lifting outside every window. It's a luxury resort holding a Michelin Key, with villas ranging from sprawling great rooms with verandahs to windward suites with plunge pools, and a Beach House for groups. The buildings are low, wooden, and tucked into jungle foliage, and someone made the brave call to skip the beige.

Eight safari-lodge suites tucked into the Blue Mountains, about an hour from Sydney, where the name comes from the Zulu word for "healer" and the design follows through on the promise. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys. Suites range from canvas-walled rooms with Philippe Starck tubs to a two-level Chief's Suite, and an infinity pool hangs over the forested gorge. Hiking trails, spa treatments, and a small organic restaurant fill the rest of the day.

The name is the coordinates of Uluru itself, which tells you everything about this desert tent-cabin resort's priorities. Each elevated cabin faces full-length windows across six miles of red scrub toward the thousand-foot monolith, blinds and screens operated by bedside button so you can let the view in without leaving the bed. Guided walks to Uluru and Kata Tjuta are the activities on offer; the pool is almost an afterthought. The Michelin Guide awarded it 2 Keys.

A stingray-shaped roof gliding low over Tasmanian coastal bushland is your first sign that this is not a standard resort. Saffire Freycinet is a luxury lodge with twenty timber-lined suites angled toward the Hazards mountains, built on what was once protected national park. Local oak and celery-top pine run through the interiors, guided walks run through the bush, and the Michelin Guide awarded it two Keys. Solitude, it turns out, has very good bones.

Perched above Piccadilly Valley in the Adelaide Hills, this adults-only boutique hotel estate has a cellar stocking over 1,300 labels, which tells you something about the priorities here. There are two restaurants, a day spa, a valley-view pool, and a billiards room, and the whole operation carries the quiet confidence of somewhere that has never felt the need to try very hard.

Moon windows above the bed frame the night sky, which is either the most romantic detail or the most unsettling depending on your mood. This boutique hotel in the Adelaide Hills runs fourteen suites, each with a sunken lounge and freestanding bath, plus a spa housed in a former National Trust building using locally farmed Jurlique products. Wallabies on the trails, indigenous Dreamtime storytelling, and spring-fed hot pools round out a stay that leans hard into the landscape.

Eight freestanding pavilions perched over the River Derwent, each named for an Australian artist whose work hangs in the adjacent Museum of Old and New Art. It's a hotel, more or less, though "museum guesthouse with a vineyard" gets closer to the truth. Rooms run to full kitchens and laundry, shared facilities include a heated infinity pool and sauna, and the Moorilla wine bar pours from grapes grown on the same land you're sleeping on.

Seventy-five acres of rolling hills in the Scenic Rim, less than an hour from the Gold Coast but feeling considerably further from anything. Beechmont Estate is a luxury cabin and pavilion retreat where the main draw is the Gondwana Rainforest pressing in on all sides. Days fill with spa treatments, guided hikes, or hot air balloon rides if you're feeling ambitious. The farm-to-table Paddock Restaurant anchors the central pavilion, and the Michelin Guide has selected it.

The one-acre lagoon pool comes with a white sand beach and, crucially, none of Queensland's famously homicidal marine life. This large resort sits inside Sanctuary Cove, a country club and marina community on Hope Island between Gold Coast and Brisbane, and despite 251 rooms it manages to feel more private enclave than convention hotel. Rooms blend tropical ease with Art Deco touches, and there are two golf courses, one of them the only Arnold Palmer design in Australia.

A private island on the Noosa River where the resort has no restaurant, just an executive chef cooking whatever you feel like that day. Richard Branson and Brett Godfrey's getaway takes a maximum of 22 guests, then proceeds to spoil them with facilities sized for something four times larger. Villas, personal service, and activities on request make this less a hotel and more a very expensive favor from someone you've just met.

Three pavilions tucked into Bouddi National Park, about 90 minutes up the coast from Sydney, with a penthouse suite in the main house and a pool that makes doing absolutely nothing feel like a plan. Pretty Beach House is a small, self-contained resort where the options run from bush walks and indigenous cultural experiences to staring at the greenery until dinner. The Michelin Guide has it on its selected hotels list.

The central pavilion was shaped to look like a windswept sand dune, and the rest of this beachfront resort in Byron Bay follows that logic, low-slung and contemporary, tucked into the forest above Belongil Beach. Villas come in four nature-inspired categories, all timber floors and private terraces. There's a spa, an infinity pool, a cocktail bar, and a general flip-flop-friendly vibe that makes "dressing for dinner" feel like a foreign concept.

Limestone walls from 1875 anchor one wing of this full-service resort on the Mornington Peninsula, where Port Phillip Bay sits on one side and the open ocean on the other. The rooms run across three wings, all pulling toward a vaguely European, cosmopolitan look. Downstairs you'll find a spa and bathhouse, a pool deck, a twenties-style cocktail bar, and a flagship restaurant by Scott Pickett. An hour and a half from Melbourne, and firmly in wine country.

The mineral water drawn from a spring on the property runs the spa and fills at least one suite's bath, which tells you what kind of resort this is. Set on 200 pastoral acres of the Bellarine Peninsula, Lon is a wellness retreat where the suites read more like private residences, with kitchenettes and an in-room seasonal dining menu standing in for a restaurant. The Bellarine's wineries handle the rest.

Five freestanding villas sit on a ridge above the Mornington Peninsula, each looking out toward the bay through floor-to-ceiling glass with no one else in sight. This is a wellness resort where the villas are designed as a direct extension of Alba's thermal springs, all muted tones and native bushland pressing against the windows. It's the kind of place where the architecture does the work of telling you to slow down.

Olivia Newton-John co-founded this wellness resort in the Byron Bay hinterland, and the bush setting does most of the heavy lifting before you've even unpacked. Rooms, suites, and villas run quietly luxe, and the programming, daily yoga, spa treatments, and organic meals sourced with evident care, pulls guests out of them quickly enough. The kind of place where people arrive wound tight and leave speaking softly.

Cedar hot tubs on every private deck, even in the studios, give this rainforest retreat in the Sunshine Coast hinterland a strong case against the beach. Set in the green hills outside Maleny, Spicers Tamarind is a small resort where villas go further into the trees for extra quiet. An on-site cooking school and a Thai-inspired restaurant, The Tamarind, handle the evenings, and Maleny's cafes and breweries are a short drive for when you want to leave.

Coconut palms lean in at improbable angles over the beachfront at this apartment-style resort halfway up the Queensland coast from Cairns. Suites run one to three bedrooms, all with full kitchens and dedicated dining areas, so it reads more like borrowing a well-designed flat than checking into a hotel. Three pools, a spa, and a restaurant from MasterChef alum Nick Holloway fill the hours when the beach itself isn't enough.

The four-bedroom Beach House here puts you close enough to the Indian Ocean that "minimalist décor" starts to feel like a practical choice rather than an aesthetic one. A resort in Yallingup on the southwest coast, it sits inside the Margaret River wine region with clean, modern architecture that holds its own against the scenery. All accommodations, from one-bedroom apartments up, come with full kitchens, so you can actually cook between cellar doors.

Safari tents on timber platforms above the Jervis Bay bush, each one with an open-air bathroom and a freestanding tub under the sky. This tented camp keeps things deliberately low-tech, which is the point. The Gunyah lodge doubles as a treetop dining room with a deck wrapped in eucalyptus and paperbark trees. Wi-Fi exists there, if you absolutely must, but the camp clearly regards that as a character flaw it's politely tolerating.

Floor-to-ceiling glass walls face the Tasmanian coast, with a secluded beach at the bottom of the path and wetsuits in the cupboard if the water looks inviting. This is a self-catering modernist retreat, really a private three-bedroom house designed by local architect Craig Rosevear, sitting midway between Hobart and Launceston. The kitchen comes stocked with local provisions, and several good restaurants are a drive away. Selected by the Michelin Guide.

A giant stone fireplace anchors the main lodge while timber cabins fan out toward a beach so clear a pool would feel like an insult. This wilderness retreat on Tasmania's Freycinet Peninsula sits at the end of a long, deliberate drive, and the lodge leans into that: understated interiors, private terraces aimed at the bay, and tennis courts that most guests ignore in favor of just getting outside.

A hotel built into the Mitchelton Winery Estate on the Goulburn River, with rooms done in grey tones and warm timber that Australian studio Hecker Guthrie designed as a deliberate echo of the landscape outside. Balconies look over the river or the vines, the spa runs on plant-based treatments, and the outdoor infinity pool faces open country. The Muse Restaurant leans on local Goulburn Valley produce, though guests are welcome to skip the middleman and fish dinner straight from the river.

Sixty thousand acres of South Australian outback and six rooms to share it with, which is the kind of ratio that makes the Flinders Ranges feel genuinely yours. Arkaba Homestead is an all-inclusive safari-style stay inside a private wildlife sanctuary, with the old stone homestead doing its antique-meets-contemporary thing while the team handles the drives, the guided walks, the cooking, and the South Australian wine.

Tented bungalows perch at the edge of Kakadu National Park, where the Mary River floodplain stretches far enough that you stop looking for the fence. Bamurru Plains is a wilderness lodge in the safari mold, Australian chapter, trading the Big Five for saltwater crocs and magpie geese. Wildlife excursions are the whole point, but the central lodge and communal table, stocked with local cooking and serious Australian wine, make coming back inside feel less like a compromise.

Tented camps, the argument goes, are what eco-lodges become once someone decides comfort shouldn't be optional. Near Binalong Bay on Tasmania's northeast coast, Bay of Fires Bush Retreat offers beautifully fitted safari-style tents alongside a bunk house and a king room for those who prefer walls. The outdoor draw is serious, with surfing, diving, and mountain biking close at hand, and the chef-owner who runs dinner came out of the local restaurant world.

The cattle still outnumber the guests by a considerable margin at this working Northern Territory station turned remote outback stay. Stone-walled rooms replace the tents you'd expect from a place this far off the grid, and activities range from a pool dip to a helicopter sweep over the bush. The off-grid life here is less performance than plain fact, which is precisely what makes it feel different from a resort playing dress-up.

Seven hundred thousand acres of Kimberley wilderness, and the adults-only Homestead is tucked inside all of it. This all-inclusive resort does the thinking for you: guided hikes, boat cruises, and nature drives fill the days, while evenings gather everyone around a communal table for seasonal Australian cooking and local wine. Rooms have the big windows to match the scenery, and private terraces for when you'd rather not share the view.

A working cattle station the size of a small country sits behind this remote all-inclusive lodge, about 100 miles northwest of Cairns. Accommodation runs from safari tents to two-bedroom pavilions, and the property is small enough that it never feels like a resort. Helicopter tours, river fishing, and sunset cocktails fill the days, and the night sky out here is the kind that makes you feel the universe has been withholding information.