AU · Curated travel guide
Great Barrier Reef, Sydney Opera House, Uluru and 7 more — what each one is, and why it is worth the detour.
Chosen from everything Wikidata knows about Australia and ranked by how many Wikipedia language editions describe them, which is about as close to "famous" as open data gets. 3 are on UNESCO's World Heritage list.
World Heritage
Coral reef system in Queensland, Australia
The largest coral reef system in the world: more than 2,900 separate reefs and 900 islands, stretching over 2,300 kilometres (1,400 mi) and covering about 344,400 square kilometres (133,000 mi²). It lies in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia.
Photo: NASA, by MISR, Public domain
World Heritage
Performing arts centre in Australia
A performing arts centre with several venues in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, on the shore of Sydney Harbour. It is widely counted among the most famous and distinctive buildings on Earth, and among the masterpieces of architecture of the 20th century.
Photo: No machine-readable author provided. Roybb95~commonswiki assumed (based on copyright claims)., CC BY-SA 3.0
Sandstone monolith in the Northern Territory, Australia
Also called Ayers Rock, and officially named Uluru / Ayers Rock, a huge monolith of sandstone rising near the centre of Australia, in the south of the Northern Territory, 335 km (208 mi) south-west of Alice Springs.
Photo: Thomas Schoch, CC BY-SA 3.0
Highest mountain in mainland Australia
The highest peak on the Australian mainland, rising 2,228 metres (7,310 ft) above the sea. It stands on the Snowy Mountains' Main Range in Kosciuszko National Park, which belongs to the Australian Alps National Parks and Reserves, in New South Wales, west of Crackenback and near Jindabyne, close to the Victorian border.
Photo: John Wormell, CC BY-SA 4.0
Desert in Western Australia and South Australia
A thinly populated desert ecoregion and interim Australian bioregion in South Australia and Western Australia.
Photo: Unknown, Public domain
Bridge across Sydney Harbour in Australia
A steel through-arch bridge in Sydney, New South Wales, spanning the harbour between the North Shore and the central business district (CBD). Seen together with the harbour and the nearby Sydney Opera House, it makes an image widely thought iconic of Sydney and of Australia.
Photo: Adam.J.W.C., CC BY 3.0
National reference library in Australia
Usually shortened to NLA, and once called the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, Australia's biggest reference library and its national library, charged by the National Library Act 1960 with "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the Australian people". It is in Parkes, Canberra, ACT.
Photo: Shkuru Afshar, CC BY-SA 4.0
Desert in Northern Western Australia
Australia's second-biggest desert, after the Great Victoria, covering 284,993 km² (110,036 sq mi). An interim bioregion, it lies in northeastern Western Australia, across the Pilbara and southern Kimberley, and reaches east into the Northern Territory.
Photo: This image was acquired by Landsat 7’s Enhanced Thematic Mapper plus (ETM+) sensor., Public domain
World Heritage
Lake in the state of New South Wales, Australia
A World Heritage Site in the Far West region of New South Wales, Australia, and the traditional meeting place of three Aboriginal peoples, the Paakantyi, Ngiyampaa and Muthi Muthi.
Photo: Unknown, Public domain
Desert in Western Australia
A large desert in Western Australia, still mostly almost untouched. Covering about 155,000 square kilometres (60,000 sq mi), it is Australia's fifth largest desert, after the Simpson, Tanami, Great Sandy and Great Victoria deserts.
Photo: Gazjo, Public domain
Officially the Commonwealth of Australia, a country made up of the Australian mainland, Tasmania and many smaller islands. With 7,688,287 km² (2,968,464 sq mi) of land it is the sixth-largest country on Earth, and the flattest and driest inhabited continent. It is megadiverse, and its size brings a great range of climates and landscapes, from deserts inland to tropical rainforest on the coast.
Officially The Commonwealth of Australia.
Based on the Wikipedia article, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0: the facts are Wikipedia's, the wording is this site's.
This guide lists 10: Great Barrier Reef, Sydney Opera House, Uluru and Mount Kosciuszko and others. Great Barrier Reef, Sydney Opera House and Willandra Lakes Region are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
By machine, from open data, with no human ranking them and nobody able to pay for a place on the list. Everything Wikidata records in Australia that is a building, a landform, a protected area or a tourist attraction, has coordinates, a photograph and an English Wikipedia article, is ranked by how many Wikipedia language editions wrote about it. Provinces, cities, airports, stations and stretches of sea shared with the neighbours are filtered out.
3 of the 10 in this guide: Great Barrier Reef, Sydney Opera House and Willandra Lakes Region. That is not the full count for Australia, only the listed sites that made this guide.
English. The currency is AUD.
A travel eSIM is usually the cheapest way, and avoids a roaming bill. The plans suggested at the foot of this guide start at $1.79 for 1GB per day. The eSIM is data-only and sits alongside your normal SIM, so calls, texts and WhatsApp keep working on your own number.
Optus, Vodafone and Telstra. Your phone picks whichever has the best signal where you are, the same way a local phone does.
Maps, tickets and translation all want data, and roaming is the expensive way to get it. A Computatus eSIM eSIM connects to Optus, Vodafone and Telstra once you land, and installs by QR code before you leave.
| Plan | Data | Valid | Price | Order |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1GB per day Cheapest | 1 GB | 1 day | $1.79 | Get it → |
| 1GB for 7 days | 1 GB | 7 days | $1.83 | Get it → |
| 1GB per day | 1 GB | 1 day | $1.90 | Get it → |
| 2GB per day | 2 GB | 1 day | $2.83 | Get it → |
| 2GB per day | 2 GB | 1 day | $2.86 | Get it → |
| 3GB for 15 days | 3 GB | 15 days | $3.04 | Get it → |
No app needed. Install by QR code before you fly, keep your own number for calls, and it connects the moment you land.
A commission on plans bought through these links is what pays for this guide. Nothing above depends on it: the places are chosen before any price is looked up.
