CELEBRITY

Australia’s golden boy of tennis shares his hot local tips (and talks nude beaches and not stealing hotel robes).   Q: Are you a Sydney or Melbourne boy? A: If I had to pick, I’d take... Sydney. The surf, the weather’s a bit warmer and I like the golf in Sydney. Although I do like the golf in Melbourne too. Wait! [laughs] Umm... if I had to, I’d probably put my choice down to the weather, rugby league and the beaches right in the city – they’re easy to access. Q: Do you live near the beach? A: I live right on...

Who better to judge Australia’s best-kept secrets than those well-versed in the best our country has to offer? Pat Rafter Hanging up his racquet hasn’t stopped Rafter travelling – his latest duties as the face of accommodation giant Mantra and father of two, have merely meant becoming well-versed in different kinds of trips. A Sunshine Coast resident, he’s an especially big aficionado of Queensland, having lived there on and off since the ‘80s. Favourite holiday: “The whole family loved our trip to North Queensland last year. I had been to Cairns before but had never ventured further up to Palm Cove and Port Douglas...

Australia’s favourite media darling and Australian of the Year 2013 talks hotels, holidays and her travel to-do list What’s your favourite holiday spot in Australia? I must say, I like going up to Queensland. I just think it’s a great place to relax. When my kids were little we used to go to the Gold Coast a lot but now I think it’s too built up. I quite like going right up to the Daintree... and I like the atmosphere of Noosa, I have to say. I like what they’ve done with the coastal walkway. You can walk all the...

At ten years old, Palazzo Versace is no spring chicken, but the glitzy hotel recently won Best Luxury Hotel at the 2011 Australian Traveller Reader Awards. Chris Smith sees what all the fuss is about. A little over a decade ago, when the Gold Coast’s latest themed five star hotel, Palazzo Versace, rose from the docks of The Broadwater, the critics called it “gaudy”, “naff” and even “repulsive”. Sometimes the worse the write-up, the better it is for bookings. That’s what drew me to staying at Palazzo Versace soon after it opened in 2001. What was this brazen brand, which...

Five minutes with… Greg Pickles, Director of Border Biosecurity at the Department of Agriculture and Food According to recent statistics from WA border security, there has been an unprecedented number of people taking banned foodstuffs into the state, with over 30 tonnes of prohibited material seized at road checkpoints last financial year (a nine percent increase), and almost a further three tonnes seized at Perth domestic airport. While most of us are aware of the importance of quarantine when travelling overseas, many underestimate the cost of taking food or plant materials interstate. Why is it important we don’t take certain foods...

To relax or do it tough: that’s the choice facing many prospective holidaymakers. So which camp are you in – the fearless and intrepid? Or Melissa Hoyer’s? Lately, I’ve been feeling I should grow up and become a bit more inventive in my travel choices. Sure, wouldn’t we all lust after that chilled bottle of Veuve Clicquot ‘poo left on ice in a Park Hyatt suite; salivate over a truly magnificent hotel burger from Hayman; or gasp at the pillow menu at Emirates’ Wolgan Valley. In fact, “Sloth” has been my middle name when it comes to the kinds of...

And you thought you knew about air travel. Melissa Hoyer lifts the lid on the very particular skills of her favourite travel buddies . . . I have a couple of great mates who I’ll call DB and Mikey – a pair of my pals who seem to know absolutely everything there is to know about air travel. I’m not talking “normal” air travel things, like how many minutes you should arrive at Jetstar check-in if you still want to be let on (no less than 30); how many kaftans to pack (as many as possible); or the amount of...

A Bucket List? Not quite. But to complement our Stuff We Love issue, and because it’s almost Christmas, Melissa Hoyer reveals just a small portion of her lengthy “Stuff She Wants” List . . . I don’t really want to call this my Bucket List because, God willing, I’m going to be here for at least double the years my birth certificate currently certifies. So let’s call it more of a To-Do-Before-I Get-Thee-To-An-Infirmary List. A good old fashioned checklist of places to see and people to visit before those peeps dies and some of those places fall victim to the...

Melissa Hoyer has found that there’s value to be had in that quick – and hopefully guilt-free – holiday escape. Even if you think you can’t afford it, lord knows you deserve it. I thought my days of one-night stands were well past me. Hang on – I don’t mean those of the blokey variety. I’ve recently discovered the joys of the other one-nighter, in the small-break holiday genre. Whether it’s just that I’m getting older and realising we need to treat each day as though it were our last (although if I kept up the pace of a year...

Clowns to the left of her, jokers to the right, Melissa Hoyer comes clean about one of her all-time pet hates: flying with slobs. We’re all pretty good at bashing our airlines. Cancelled flights, the ’tude of out-of-whack flight attendants, lost luggage, questionable food, stuffed audio system and the at-times lamentable loos – complaining about these, and more, is all part and parcel of travelling. But there are a few issues that aren’t always the fault of our much-derided airlines. I mean, how can we blame carriers for having the misfortune to carry some simply smelly and sartorially insolvent passengers?...

  It’s not that she doesn’t want to go there. It’s just that AT’s style-meister Melissa Hoyer doesn’t know whether her version of the Aussie outback . . . is quite the same as yours. I have nothing against the outback. Really. I just need to know how to add a few of the more civilised parts of vacationing-living to it. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not some city slicker who’s never gone 20km outside of the CBD. Hey, I grew up in government housing in Sydney’s southern ‘burbs. While it wasn’t quite the outback . . . it nearly...

As the doyen of stylish travel, AT’s Melissa Hoyer has stayed in her fair share of wonderful (and terrible) hotels. Many have measured up. Some have surprised. But only a precious few have turned her on, tucked her in, and virtually assured her return . . . In the olden days, when Chanel was just the name on a quilted bag and travel used to be a slow, languid process, the choice of a chic sleepover spot didn’t seem very important. It would take you so long to get somewhere, your body would end up spending more time in transit...

A five-minute Arrival Gate interview between Australian Traveller and foodie author Pete Evans. Arrival Gate Five Minute Q&A WHO // Pete Evans WHAT // Author of cookbook Fish, co-owner and exec chef of Sydney’s Hugos group, host of Channel Nine’s Fresh cooking show and host of the Lifestyle channel’s Fish series. WHERE // Bondi Beach The experience every Australian MUST have? Trout fishing in the snowy mountains. You get to see so much wildlife with not one tourist. We’re talking wild brumbies, kangaroos, wallabies, snakes, wombats, echidnas, rare birdlife, possums . . . and to catch a fish, that’s a...