The great escape

Is it nearly time for our travel daydreams to be realised? Picture yourself in a plunge pool in Bali, slurping mangoes from a floating breakfast table. Or enjoying a Spectre Martini in a Singapore bar where Jazz Age meets Gotham City in opulent eruptions of gargoyles and gilded ceilings. Or perhaps dog-sledding in Sweden under trees bearded with ice, a pavlova of mountains draped on the horizon.

For some time, travellers have only fantasised about such distant delights. Now optimism is in the summery air, travel is opening up, and we’re poised to reclaim the world. The federal government has announced Australians will no longer require permission to travel overseas or hotel quarantine on return once 80 percent of their state has been vaccinated – already the case for some.

Meanwhile, many international destinations have seen staggered re-openings, cautiously in the case of the South Pacific and Asia, more vigorously in Europe and North America. This has allowed them to test and tinker with COVID protocols and paperwork, so Australians should benefit from more streamlined processes when we finally get overseas.

For the moment, requirements such as mask-wearing and proof of vaccination are haphazardly applied internationally, but you’ll certainly need an international vaccine certificate – now available to Australians via MyGov – and perhaps a local version as well in order to access venues such as restaurants and museums.

The travel world has become a little more complicated and bureaucratic, but don’t let that put you off. A year of shrivelled horizons has left us yearning for other places, other foods and other landscapes. As we eye up a more hopeful 2022, here are six varied destinations to tempt you to restart your travel engines.

NEW ZEALAND

Our nearest and certainly dearest neighbour is improbably wonderful. New Zealand is snug in an old-fashioned Hobbit way despite its wave-pounded coastlines, bubbling geysers and splendidly rumpled landscapes. It offers a sedateness of luxury lodges and cellar-door wine sipping, yet also heart-banging adrenaline sports. While sometimes you feel you’ve wandered into the 1950s, Wellington is quirkily avant-garde, and the dining scene impressive. But most of all, New Zealand is quite simply outrageously beautiful, whether you’re sailing the Bay of Islands, hiking the vertical Fiordlands or swooshing down a ski slope near Queenstown.

FIJI

Fiji offers all the tropical-island holiday clichés in which you banish all thoughts of work to sit under a coconut tree, wiggle your toes in the sand and order up another cocktail. If you hanker to find Nemo, you need only plunge into water iridescent as peacock feathers. The geographically convenient Mamanuca Islands and more remote Yasawa Islands are the favourites, but those with energy should stay on main island Vita Levu, where you’ll find river rafting, rainforest hikes and cave tours in the waterfall-draped interior, plus towns crammed with Fijian markets, Hindu temples and Chinese restaurants. 

SCANDINAVIA

Differences set Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland apart, but happy commonalities include a bracing maritime atmosphere, youthful harbour cities and distinctive Nordic chic in architecture, fashion and lifestyle. What’s less appreciated – fjords apart – are Scandinavia’s landscapes and outdoorsy appeal. Mountains, vast forests, shimmering lakes, Arctic tundra and island constellations make for marvellous hiking, kayaking, sailing and cycling. Don’t rule out winter, when you can ice skate, cross-country ski, dog sled and admire the Northern Lights. The ultimate winter dare is a plunge from sauna into icy lake, which leaves you screaming like a figure in a Munch painting.

SINGAPORE

Singapore, once a mere stopover city, has become a worthy destination of abundant, well-organised pleasures. Attractions such as outstanding Singapore Zoo, Universal Studios theme park and the astonishing vertical-garden Supertrees keep the family engaged but, if you’re after a more adult urban getaway, then stylish boutique hotels and a sophisticated dining and bar scene await. Chinese, Malay, Indian and European cultural influences mingle in arts, architecture and food, while eclectic neighbourhoods erupt in mosques, markets and flamboyant temples. Sprawling parks, nature reserves and the golf courses and beaches of Sentosa Island provide a green escape to round off the variety.

CANADA

Australians are most familiar with western Canada, no surprise considering Vancouver is the nation’s most beautiful city and the Rocky Mountains provide sumptuous skiing and scenic flamboyance. But Canada deserves more wide-ranging appraisal, not least for its polar-bear encounters, Niagara Falls, and the compact blend of rugged coastline and rural domesticity in the Maritime Provinces. Quebec and Montreal offer French-derived flavour that supplies intriguing hints of alternative history that turned on the outcome of a few battles. And surely Ottawa is the most agreeable of all small custom-made capitals. You may wish you’d lingered longer.

BALI

Don’t let visions of the hustle and overdevelopment of slivers of Bali put you off. Our favourite island remains an iridescent green tumble of rice paddies and jungle overlooked by volcanoes and fringed with kaleidoscopic reefs. Local temples fill with monkey chatter and the bing-bong of gamelan xylophones. Escape to tranquil luxury hotels and loll about in spas. Or get cycling, white-water rafting or scuba-diving on shipwrecks where barracudas and turtles lurk. To really get away, venture to diminutive island Nusa Lembongan, favoured by salty-haired surfers, now scattered with boutique resorts for a kickback beach-fringed retreat.

Travel carries a risk. Keep up-to-date right up to your departure on the latest regulations and COVID conditions overseas, listed country by country at smartraveller.gov.au, so you remain well informed about requirements.