Tasmania, Australia

Tasmania is the island at the bottom of the world and it has genuinely changed its own reputation inside two decades — from a place mainlanders joked about to the most desirable food, whisky and wilderness destination in the country. Hobart is the capital with MONA, the provocative museum that made the international art world look at Tasmania for the first time; Launceston is the northern city with the gorge running through the middle of it; Cradle Mountain is the wilderness park that is genuinely a World Heritage area; Wineglass Bay has one of the most photographed beaches on earth; and the Gordon River runs through rainforest that has never been logged.

The state's character is pristine, cold and genuinely alternative, with a real whisky industry, a serious food scene built on the cleanest air and water in the world, and a population that is small enough that the whole island feels like a community. The wilderness covers a quarter of it and is protected.

Expect real wilderness content, genuine whisky and food talk, and a state that is further south than everywhere else and entirely proud of it.

Nearby: Hobart Melbourne Adelaide Canberra