Best Holiday Destination

For the third year, readers have told us which tour operators, cruise lines, hotels, airlines, destinations and airports represent the very best in luxury travel. Here, Graham Boynton presents the Top 100, and the recipients of an ULTRA award.

Best Holiday Destination

Australia
Despite the pain of having to fly more than 20 hours to get there and, on arrival, having to endure jet lag on a massive scale, Ultratravel readers have voted for Australia as their favourite destination for the second year running. So, there must be something about that distant continent that appeals to us.
Let’s start with the people. However multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and aspiring-republican Australia has become in recent decades, most of its inhabitants remain close relatives, or rellies, as Dame Edna would have it. We share the same sense of humour, the same core sports, the same cultural references – dammit, they’re us with strange accents and frontier spirits. And we love that. We cross the planet and find people who are like us and are generous hosts.
Then there is the climate, the endless beaches, the magnificent New World wines, the fusion cuisines, the impressive transport infrastructure, and so on. And if I were to pick three cities that, in another life, I would like to live in, they would probably be Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. So, it is fair to say Ultratravel readers have probably got it right.