Victoria, Australia

Victoria is the smallest mainland state and the one with the most culture per square kilometre, which its population will explain at length. Melbourne is the capital and the country's cultural engine; the Great Ocean Road runs along the southwest coast for two hundred and fifty kilometres of genuine spectacle with the Twelve Apostles as the headline; Phillip Island has the penguin parade that everybody does; the Yarra Valley and Mornington Peninsula are the wine and food regions that Melbourne treats as its backyard; and the Grampians are the mountain range in the west that most visitors never reach.

The state's character is sport, coffee and weather. Australian rules football was invented here and treated as a religion, the coffee culture is genuinely the best in the southern hemisphere, and the weather changes four times a day in a way that locals have stopped commenting on. Winter is cold enough for real snowfields, which the rest of Australia finds hilarious.

Expect real culture talk, genuine coffee snobbery, and a state that considers itself the intellectual capital and behaves accordingly.

Nearby: Melbourne Hobart Adelaide Sydney