Travel Editor Susie Boswell visits a dream destination – where the essence of the tropics blends with romance and colonial charm.

The closest I’ve come in Australia to my favourite holiday spots, Bora Bora and the Maldives, is Palm Cove in tropical north Queensland. The bonus: holidaying at home means saving thousands of dollars in airfares and precious days otherwise eaten up by long-haul travel and jetlag. At Palm Cove – just 15 minutes from Cairns’ new international airport to martini, bikini and poolside sun lounge – I spent a week in the exotic surrounds of three beautiful resorts, all dotted along the cove’s Esplanade beachfront with its sandy shores and ocean-side boardwalk winding through groves of tall swaying palms. Read more

Travel Editor Susie Boswell goes bush and enjoys a Berry relaxing weekend.

The countryside around is as easy on the eye as anywhere in the world – all graduating shades of green, from the lightest of lime-tinted roadside tufts of grass to a deep green forested mountain escarpment soaring high above my valley.
I’m at Jaspers Brush, next door to Berry, on the upper South Coast of NSW. The area’s part of the Shoalhaven region less than 150km from Sydney. Berry itself is next to coastal Gerroa and Gerringong, and east of Kangaroo Valley, just below Kiama and a whisker above Nowra, a short drive from Seven Mile Beach. Read more

Travel Editor Susie Boswell says scenically-stunning Canada is welcoming visitors and offering some good deals post Olympics.

The Winter Olympics are over – let the fun and games begin! The billions of dollars spent by the Canadian Government and private enterprise to stage last month’s winter sports extravaganza – based on one of the world’s best ski resorts, Whistler – is now required to pay dividends. The TV spotlight’s faded to black and now’s the time Canada hopes to capitalise on the worldwide exposure the Games delivered. Let’s hope they do better than Sydney: despite staging “the best Olympics ever” Australia’s premier city is considered to have failed to benefit fully from the heightened, welcoming, profile it gained from holding the friendly summer 2000 Games. Vancouver, capital of Canada’s westernmost province British Columbia, was “Games central” and has focused much attention on B.C. and its neighbouring province, Alberta, the country’s winter sports capital. Read more

The land down under comes out tops for Australian family holidays, writes Travel Editor Susie Boswell.

HOBART, January 2010 – This is one happening town! From my heritage hotel overlooking Constitution Dock I’ve waved farewell to the last of the returning Sydney-Hobart yacht fleet. And I’ve inspected the navy-hulled $25m three-masted luxury vessel berthed nearby (with grand piano in the salon!) belonging to an Italian multimillionaire, his crew awaiting his next nautical whim. She sits rather conspicuously alongside hundreds of tour cruisers and working fishing and cray boats tied up at this bustling port – that make for an entertaining stroll around the waterfront. Read more

Travel editor Susie Boswell samples a road less travelled – and finds the Mediterranean offers far more than the much-vaunted Greek isles.

Despite being installed in the spiffing Les Orangers Beach Resort, standing on golden sand on the south-west Mediterranean, I was none to happy with the hotel just at that moment. Read more

Sydney for summer holidays is not so far away, but it can transport you to a world of great entertainment.

Mamma Mia! What a show! The stage musical has returned to Sydney by popular demand, following the success of the Meryl Streep film version in spawning a whole new generation of ABBA fans. Opening night in October was a wild success, with stars strutting the red carpet, champagne flowing, and patrons from eight to 80 dancing and singing in the aisles – some of the more overly enthusiastic in the dress circle in danger, it seemed to me, of toppling over the balcony. Read more

The spotlight fell unhappily on Samoa when a deadly tsunami struck the tiny South Pacific nation a month ago. But travel editor Susie Boswell suggests it’s still worthwhile saying Talofa (“hello”) to Samoa sometime soon.

The mid-morning refreshments I enjoyed in the restaurant at upmarket Coconuts Beach Resort on the south coast of Samoa’s main island were welcome on a steamy tropical day. Read more

If there is one word that best captures Singapore, it is “unique”. A dynamic city rich in contrast and colour, you’ll find a harmonious blend of culture, cuisine, arts and architecture here. Brimming with unbridled energy, this little dynamo in Southeast Asia embodies the finest of both East and West.

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The unassuming accountant from the back rooms of a big Sydney merchant bank regularly spent his lunch hours browsing in Dymock’s CBD book store.

He always made a beeline for the Lonely Planet section, reading avidly about far-off holiday places.
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What do Keith Richards and k.d. lang have in common?

Along with Kate Winslett and Keanu Reeves, Keith and Katherine Dawn have escaped from Sydney concert gigs and movie launches to an exclusive retreat known for its exquisite surroundings – Rae’s, on Watego’s Beach at Byron Bay.

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The church choir on Wakaya island is like a band of angels, singing out hymns in the sweetest of voices.

It’s a wonderful spiritual experience.
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Hellooo, Soosie! Well-come to Singapore,” the cheery greeting echoed down the phone in my suite at Singapore Intercontinental. “This is Wee Tee, your personal guide. Come on down; let’s go!”

This energetic dynamo, keen to show me her hometown’s highlights, bustled me into a waiting limo. Bouncing in alongside, she directed the driver to our first scenic stop.

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Holidaymakers enjoy an amazing range of tour options, from traditional scenic sights and weird special attractions like ghost tours in black hearses, to rewarding historical tours.

It’s fascinating to visit Port Arthur, south of Hobart, and marvel at the inhumanity of early colonialists who confined prisoners to cells like horse stalls.

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Without doubt, the most spectacular landscape and stunning scenery I’ve ever experienced surrounds western Canada’s Icefields Parkway, high up in the Canadian Rockies close to the peak at 3750m.

The parkway is a ribbon section of more than 200km of Canada’s Highway One that carves for the greater part of the year through craggy snow-clad mountains, glaciers, fir forests cloaked in white and shimmering frozen lakes.
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With the Australian dollar exchange rate diving, it’s worth revisiting unique holiday experiences we can enjoy at home in Australia.

One of the best is a three-day kayak and camp safari on the Katherine River, 300km south of Darwin. You’ll come back a changed person.
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Susie Boswell takes a ride in a ‘ ship’ in the desert, in Dubai, head-spinning centre of the United Arab Emirates.

True sea sickness is not when you think you’re going to die, but when you want to die. And so in Dubai I am experiencing a major case of mal de mer, yet I’m a good hour inland from the Arabian Gulf.
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Stop saving to go overseas – just go! Travel editor Susie Boswell says there’s never been a better time to pack your bags and grab a cheap airfare.

There’s a tendency of would-be travellers to see a bargain-priced international airfare and assume there’s a catch or that it will still be available next month. Both assumptions are likely wrong.

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There is only one way to eat crab: freshly caught, of course, but also with the shell and claws cracked and the flesh extracted, by someone else, so I am able to enjoy the delicious feast without having to pause and deal with the mechanics of getting to the sweet white meat.

Ideally, I like it with champagne. Indulgent, decadent? Yes, I’m guilty.
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Sugarloaf Point Lighthouse is an ancient landmark that’s just become the newest, must-visit local spot.

Wow! That’s the word that springs to mind everywhere we turn at Sugarloaf Point Lighthouse. What a wonderful beach and ocean views out over Seal Rocks! What a lovely lighthouse and beautiful keeper’s cottage, high on the point, that’s to be home for a day or two. No wonder that, just last month, the three cottages – head keeper’s and twin assistant keepers’ dwellings – took out the 2009 title of Best New Tourism Development on the entire Mid-North Coast.
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Susie Boswell enjoys a total change of scenery, some fine wines, a challenging 18 holes and a couple of days packed with fun, just a few hours’ drive from home.

I’m playing the first hole at Cypress Lakes Golf and Country Club Resort in the Hunter Valley. It’s a reasonably comfortable, loosen-up par 5 running down to the country road that threads between the nearby big-name wineries and their cellar doors.

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It’s mid-winter and I’m spending a weekend away exploring Coffs Coast. Coffs – our country cousin to the north, our nearest and dearest, yet different in many ways. But, while Coffs vies vigorously with Port and Taree for a share of the tourist dollar, it shares so much in common with us. Where travel exchanges between both regions are concerned, we’re bosom buddies; sporting contests, especially, generate two-way traffic.

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Otto and I are in Sydney, staying in splendour at – officially – the city’s best hotel.

Susie Boswell assesses online travel sites vs. travel agents’ advice.

If you were building a barbecue deck at your home, spending hard-earned cash on a leisure facility, would you call in a specialist or DIY? We don’t do our own dental work or surgery: we use the experts. So when do we decide our expertise is adequate and the savings in dollars and time sufficient to justify DIY? Travel’s one essential service where the question arises: go online/call direct to make my bookings… Or do I use a travel agent?

The Sheraton Rio de Janeiro sits at the tip of a pleasure playground stretching for kilometres along the golden sands and superb surf of upbeat Copacabana and trendy Ipanema. Girls in string bikinis, bronzed volley ball players and accomplished roller-bladers throng the boardwalks and beaches that skim the Atlantic Ocean shoreline. The scene is sheer fun; I couldn’t wait to join in.

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We’re being urged to holiday at home this year, so no better time to visit Broome – an intriguing destination so many Aussies wonder about, but comparatively few take the plunge to enjoy. Remote in the far north-west of our country, these days it’s easy to reach, just hours by air from the eastern seaboard via Adelaide, Darwin or Alice Springs.

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Tight economic times are making many families reassess vacationing overseas. But an exotic holiday at budget prices is easily had, right on our own doorstep.
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