100 Best Towns in Australia

From wine-growing hubs to beachside hideaways and remote outback communities, Australian Traveller has searched high and low to determine which are Australia’s Best Towns. But before you get to the list, here’s how we made our decisions . . .

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Click the links below to check out each 100 Best Towns entry: 

About the 100 Best Towns in Australia

Here at Australian Traveller, we’re very lucky to be able to get out and see much of the country. But everywhere we’re asked the same question: what is our favourite town? Everyone here has a different opinion. So, for our fourth birthday, and the fourth of our popular “100 Things” editions, we set out to answer that much-debated question. Which is the Best Town in Australia? And boy, did we open up a can of worms.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. How else can you explain the mullet, the Hypercolour T-shirt or the Kia Sportage? For some people, the perfect town is a largely untouched seaside hamlet. For others it’s anywhere with a quintessential outback pub full of hard-living characters. So we decided to simplify things a bit. We created a shortlist of around 300 towns we liked, all with a population of less than 45,000 – some with fewer than 50. We then created a Judging Panel of 12 people who’d been there and seen almost all of Australia. We made sure they represented different tastes; we had fashionistas, grumpy old men, sports nuts, tourism industry experts, travel writers, and even some well-travelled normal people. That would keep the research experts happy.

But then we had to ask the right question of our panellists. So we made it very simple and open. “Regardless of where the town is located, would you recommend a good friend drive an hour out of their way specifically to visit this town?” They then gave each town a rating, and added a few suggestions of their own. After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, we totalled the votes and came up with a list.

Then we poured ourselves a stiff drink. A strange thing had happened. Places that polarised opinion didn’t do as well as places that had mass appeal across all demographics – Byron Bay, for example, had as many fans as detractors – but by the end we had an amazing list. That’s right. The best town in Australia is not Beechworth, Margaret River or Strahan. It’s Yamba. That’s right, Yamba. And we are willing to make a small wager that you didn’t think the best town in Australia was Yamba. Or that the second best was Esperance.

But once we poured ourselves a few more stiff drinks, it started to make sense. Esperance is utterly beguiling. It is a magnificent place. And so is Yamba. And that’s the key. These top towns often have highly commercialised neighbours, much in the public eye. But they also have that “X" factor. They are unique, they are still beautiful, but they are often hidden gems.

So the question has been answered. We asked our experts to recommend to their friend the top places to take some time out on their next trip. And Australian Traveller is the travellers’ friend.

As always, we recognise that a project of this nature is open to debate, and we welcome it. So if your favourite town isn’t here, whether you’re from Bathurst, Bowen or Busselton, let us know via This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and tell us where we got it wrong. We’d love to hear from you.

The Australian Traveller Team 

Click HERE to view our Judging Panel.