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2026 Readers’ Choice Awards – here are the results you’ve been waiting for

Credit: Louise Hawson

Australian Traveller Australian Traveller
Thousands of Australian Traveller readers voted in our 2026 Readers’ Choice Awards. The results are in, and here are your winners.

We asked you to vote for your favourite Australian destinations and travel experiences, and thousands of responses came flooding in. Now, it’s time to reveal the results: spellbinding destinations, trusted hotels and journeys that have captured our nation’s heart.

Read more about the winners in our 2026 Readers’ Choice hub.

Best city to visit

Winner: Melbourne, Vic

Runners-up:
Sydney, NSW
Hobart, Tas
Gold Coast, Qld
Adelaide, SA

Best town to visit

Winner: Airlie Beach, Qld

Runners-up:
Byron Bay, NSW
Noosa, Qld
Port Douglas, Qld
Daylesford, Vic

Best outback destination

Winner: Broome, WA

Runners-up:
Uluru, NT
Kakadu, NT
Alice Springs/ Mparntwe, NT
Exmouth, WA

Best family holiday spot

Winner: Gold Coast, Qld

Runners-up:
Hamilton Island, Qld
Noosa, Qld
Cairns, Qld
Sunshine Coast, Qld

Best island escape

Winner: Hamilton Island, Qld

Runners-up:
Lord Howe Island, NSW
Kangaroo Island, SA
Rottnest Island, WA
Bruny Island, Tas

Best country escape

Winner: Blue Mountains, NSW

Runners-up:
Margaret River, WA
Barossa Valley, SA
Hunter Valley, NSW
Bright, Vic

Best resort

Winner: Daintree Ecolodge, Qld

Runners-up:
Freycinet Lodge, Tas
InterContinental Hayman Great Barrier Reef, Qld
Elements of Byron, NSW
El Questro Homestead, WA

Best under-the-radar destination

Winner: Healesville, Vic

Runners-up:
Bicheno, Tas
Gerringong, NSW
Stanthorpe, Qld
Narooma, NSW

Best accommodation brand

Need tips, more detail or itinerary ideas tailored to you? Ask AT.

AI Prompt

Winner: Accor

Runners-up:
Peppers
Hilton
QT Hotels & Resorts
Hyatt

Best hotel

Winner: Crown Towers Melbourne, Vic

Runners-up:
The Langham, Melbourne, Vic
Jackalope Mornington Peninsula, Vic
Mount Lofty House, SA
MACq 01 Hotel, Tas

Best luxury accommodation

Winner: Crown Towers Melbourne, Vic

Runners-up:
The Langham, Melbourne, Vic
Daintree Ecolodge, Qld;
Crown Towers Sydney, NSW
qualia, Qld

Best glamping or off-grid experience

Winner: Bay of Fires Bush Retreat, Tas

Runners-up:
Peninsula Hot Springs, Vic
Freycinet Lodge, Tas
Discovery Resorts – Cradle Mountain, Tas
Cockatoo Island Campground, NSW

Best family accommodation

Winner: BIG4 Holiday Parks

Runners-up:
Discovery Parks
RACV Resorts
Sea World Resort
Mantra

Best road trip

Winner: Great Ocean Road, Vic

Runners-up:
East Coast Tasmania
The Big Lap
Brisbane to Cairns, Qld
Adelaide Hills, SA

Best foodie experience

Winner: Barossa Valley wineries, SA

Runners-up:
Melbourne dining, Vic
Hobart dining, Tas
Hunter Valley wineries, NSW
Adelaide Central Market food tour, SA

Best wine region

Winner: Barossa Valley, SA

Runners-up:
Hunter Valley, NSW
Margaret River, WA
Yarra Valley, Vic
Adelaide Hills, SA

Best festival to travel for

Winner: Dark Mofo, Tas

Runners-up:
Vivid Sydney, NSW
Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, Vic
Adelaide Fringe, SA
Noosa Food & Wine Festival, Qld

Best cultural or arts festival experience

Winner: Adelaide Fringe, SA

Runners-up:
Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Vic
Australian Open, Vic
Dark Mofo, Tas
Vivid Sydney, NSW

Weekly travel news, experiences
insider tips, offers, and more.

Editors’ choice

Winner: Sydney, NSW

Runners-up:
East Coast Tasmania, Tas
Darwin, NT
Pemberton, WA
Grampians/Gariwerd, Vic

Best beach

Winner: Whitehaven Beach, Qld

Runners-up:
Wineglass Bay, Tas
Hyams Beach, NSW
Noosa Main Beach, Qld
Byron Bay beaches, NSW

Best First Nations experience

Winner: Ngadiku Dreamtime Walk at Mossman Gorge Cultural Centre, Qld

Runners-up:
Arnhemlander Cultural & Heritage 4WD Tour, NT;
Uluru sunrise at Talinguru Nyakunytjaku and ranger-guided Mala walk, NT
Bangarra Dance Theatre performance
Guluyambi Cultural Cruise, NT

Best walk or hike

Winner: Bay of Fires walk, Tas

Runners-up:
Blue Mountains Grand Canyon track, NSW
Blue Mountains Grand Cliff Top Walk, NSW
Cradle Mountain Summit, Tas
Great Ocean Walk, Vic

Best wellness destination

Winner: Byron Bay, NSW

Runners-up:
Daylesford, Vic
Blue Mountains, NSW
Mornington Peninsula, Vic
Hepburn Springs, Vic

Best rail journey

Winner: The Ghan, SA & NT

Runners-up:
Puffing Billy Railway, Vic
Kuranda Scenic Railway, Qld
The Indian Pacific, NSW, SA & WA
Scenic Railway at Scenic World, NSW

Best cruise line

Winner: Royal Caribbean

Runners-up:
Carnival Cruise Line
Princess Cruises
Celebrity Cruises
Disney Cruise Line

Best airline

Winner: Qantas

Runners-up:
Virgin Australia
Jetstar
QantasLink
Rex

Best airport to spend time in

Winner: Sydney Airport, NSW

Runners-up:
Melbourne Airport, Vic
Brisbane Airport, Qld
Adelaide Airport, SA
Perth Airport, WA

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Skyline view of Melbourne
Australia

Readers’ Choice 2026: Best city to visit

Winner: Melbourne, Vic

Read more
mossman gorge
Australia

2026 Readers’ Choice Awards: Best First Nations experience

Winner: Ngadiku Dreamtime Walk at Mossman Gorge Cultural Centre, Qld

Read more
A family on the beach in the Gold Coast
Australia

2026 Readers’ Choice Awards: Best family holiday spot

Winner: Gold Coast, Qld

Read more
Grand Cliff Top Walk, Wentworth Falls
Australia

2026 Readers’ Choice Awards: Best country escape

Winner: Blue Mountains, NSW

Read more
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Discovering Bendigo’s unique heritage through incredible foodie experiences

    Kate Bettes Kate Bettes
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    Tuck your napkin firmly in place and get ready to dive into Bendigo’s history.

    It’s an internationally recognised fact that Bendigo food experiences prove this region knows how to wine and dine. After all, its shiraz-laden landscape was named Australia’s first UNESCO Creative City and Region of Gastronomy. But what visitors lured in by this shiny label might not know is how deeply its culinary scene sits within the gold-rush town’s colourful past.

    Whether you’re eating in a grand colonial bank or nibbling through a gold miner’s garden, grab a big plate. In Bendigo, every meal is served with a huge helping of heritage.

    Take a food tour

    foodie walking tour in bendigo at Ms Batterhams restaurant Bendigo foodie experiences
    Join a Foodie Walking Tour to local highlights like Ms Batterhams.

    Start in the capable hands of Bendigo Guided Tours. Named as the 2025 Victorian Best New Tourism Business, they run two 12-person options. A Taste of Bendigo – Foodie Walking Tour will see you tasting seasonal dishes and sipping wine, craft beer and cocktails made with regional spirits over two-and-a-half hours, with stops at Ms Batterhams, Wine Bank on View, The Dispensary and Bendigo Brewing.

    You can up the ante a notch or two with the Four Hats of Bendigo – a night of fine-dine hopping with the experts across Terrae, Le Foyer, Alium Dining and The Woodhouse.

    Book a table

    Terrae restaurant in bendigo victoria
    Dine at Terrae.

    Alternatively, see Bendigo’s stars under your own steam. There’s Terrae, where produce from the owners’ own farm kitchen garden and orchard is plated up inside what was once a bank, while cocktails are poured in the underground bar below. For something special, book a private table in old bank vault. Rather less wholesome? The bullet hole in the window – a throwback to Victoria’s wild gold rush era.

    Another former bank-turned-eatery, Alium Dining, goes full art nouveau inside a 1908 building overlooking the Alexandra Fountain in the heart of Bendigo. Here, Alium’s Asian-meets-European flavours run all the way from duck leg croquettes with mandarin marmalade to raw trevally with coconut and nước chấm, to pork milanese with anchovy and stout mustard.

    Beneath an old school hall at Mackenzie Quarters, Ms Batterhams serves southern European-inspired dishes inside a 19th-century basement bar and restaurant. Beyond its sourdough crumpets (smeared with taramasalata, paprika and parsley oil, if you must know) is the origin of the restaurant’s name: Winifred Batterham, the owners’ mother’s former kindergarten teacher. Honour her properly with a ‘Winifred’ cocktail.

    Alium Dining in bendigo victoria
    Alium Dining offers a unique setting inside a 1908 building.

    Carnivores, get ready to bang your sharpest knives on the table. Bendigo’s only dedicated steakhouse, The Woodhouse, specialises in Wagyu sourced from surrounding farms. They’ve got beef every which way – from tartare topped with Giaveri Oscietra caviar and wagyu toast to porterhouse dry-aged and grilled over redgum.

    Your next bank stop on the food circuit is Bunja Thai. Housed inside the former Colonial Bank, it’s all Victorian-era Australian grandeur, from the enormous arched ceilings to the detailing overhead. Thai Singha and local craft beer jostle for attention – but both are perfect quenchers when you’re sharing barramundi baked in banana leaf beneath all that old-world opulence.

    If your trip through Australia isn’t complete without a country pub stop, make it The Bridgewater Hotel on the Loddon River. Renovated since its 1942 beginnings, but the establishment still retains its Art Deco charm. It’s the kind of place where steak burgers come stacked with bacon, egg, cheese and dripping beetroot relish, and are best handled in the riverside beer garden.

    Pour a glass

    Heathcote Wine Hub bendigo food experiences
    Find over 180 local wines at Heathcote Wine Hub.

    Your plate’s been stacked. Now it’s the glass’s turn – ideally with the famously bold shiraz and cab sav grown here. Early settlers in Bendigo and Heathcote were onto something when they first planted vines in the area’s mineral-rich soil, and their legacy still pours strong across more than 60 cellar doors today. Start big at the Heathcote Wine Hub, where more than 180 wines from nearby vineyards sit beneath the rafters of a restored former wooden church, with 16 available to taste by the glass.

    Heathcote Winery might have become one of the area’s first commercial wineries in the seventies, but its story started way before its courtyard tastings. Back in 1854, it operated as a miners’ produce store during the gold-rush years. Other cellar doors aren’t immune to reinvention under the wine wave either. At Munari Wines in Heathcote, charcuterie boards are presented in their newly renovated cellar, originally the stables of the former sheep station.

    Discover local events

    the Heritage and Hidden Spaces Wine Walk in bendigo
    Time your trip for the Heritage and Hidden Spaces Wine Walk

    Time your trip right and watch the parks, gardens and buildings fill with food and drink. Fans of the malt: mark 29 August  2026 for Bendigo On The Hop, when craft breweries take over venues throughout the CBD. Brews make way for history at the Heritage and Hidden Spaces Wine Walk (17 October 2026), where bottles are opened inside some of the city’s most interesting buildings – including rarely opened spaces. In November, the Regional Gin Gala raises spirits in Mackenzie Quarters with a boozy celebration of its homegrown distilleries, including Noble Bootleggers, Envy Distilling and In Good Spirits. Explore wine, food and live music at Heathcote on Show (6 – 8 June 2026).

    Take it all in

    bendigo tram cafe Bendigo foodie experiences
    Tram meets tasty at Bendigo Tram Cafe.

    Takeaway means something different in Bendigo. At Australia’s oldest operating Tram Depot, the Tram Cafe sits aboard an out-of-service 1916 N-Class Tram that serves tea and scones. Once you’ve polished off the last crumb, you can even pop into the driver’s cab and try the controls yourself.

    Peppergreen Farm continues Bendigo’s long connection to Chinese market gardens, first established here by immigrants in the 1850s. Today, the not-for-profit farm invites visitors to pick up organic produce, alongside jars of honey harvested from its own hives.

    Indulge in retail therapy

    Bendigo Pottery
    Elevate your at-home dining experience after a trip to Bendigo Pottery.

    If there’s still room in your bag among the clanking jars and bottles, stop by Uniquely Bendigo inside the Old Post Office. Sharing space with the Bendigo Visitor Centre, it’s a one-stop shop for favourites like Bendigo Brittle, Bridgeward Grove and Tea Associates.

    If you’d rather leave your fingerprints on your Bendigo souvenir, there’s a place for that too. At Bendigo Pottery, visitors can try their hand at shaping clay while taking part in another tradition of evolving old spaces – creating works of art within Australia’s oldest working pottery.

    Start planning your Bendigo adventure at bendigotourism.com.

    Sydney Harbour sunrise

    Part of 2026 Readers’ Choice Awards