The region is enormous, so it helps to be clear about what draws people here.
The Great Barrier Reef is the world's largest coral reef system — over 2,300 kilometres of reef along Queensland's coast, visible from space, home to extraordinary marine biodiversity. Snorkelling or diving here is an experience unlike anything else on earth. Go sooner rather than later; warming oceans are causing ongoing coral bleaching events that are gradually changing the reef's character.
Uluru stands alone in the red centre of Australia. It's one of those places that photographs badly and impresses enormously in person — not just for the rock itself but for what surrounds it: the flat desert stretching to every horizon, the quality of the light at dawn and dusk, and the weight of 60,000 years of human history attached to a single place. The Anangu people, its traditional owners, have asked visitors not to climb it. Most don't.
Milford Sound, New Zealand is frequently cited as one of the most beautiful places on earth, and the claim holds up. Sheer cliffs drop thousands of metres into the fiord, waterfalls pour off the rock faces, and the scale is genuinely difficult to process. Accessible by road from Queenstown or Te Anau, it's worth going in the rain as well as sunshine — the waterfalls are spectacular after rainfall.
Sydney Harbour is one of the world's great urban settings. The Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, the ferries moving between the bays — it all looks like it should be on a postcard and is, which hasn't stopped it from remaining a genuine working city. Arrive by ferry if you can; the approach from the water is still the best way to see it.
The Polynesian Pacific — Tonga, Samoa, French Polynesia — offers something that is becoming rare: a culture that absorbed outside contact on its own terms and retained its identity. The Sunday church services in Samoa, the lovo feast in Fiji, the traditional navigation traditions of the Pacific — these are not performances for tourists. They're how people live.
Fiordland and the Southern Alps, New Zealand contain some of the most dramatic mountain scenery outside the Himalayas and the Andes. The Routeburn and Milford Tracks thread through it. Aoraki/Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest peak, looms over a valley of glaciers. Queenstown sits at the edge of a lake ringed by peaks. This part of the South Island is why New Zealand is on so many people's travel lists.
The Kimberley, Western Australia is one of the last truly remote wilderness regions left. Gorges, waterfalls, ancient Aboriginal rock art, and a coastline barely touched by development. It's not easy to get to, which is part of why it's worth going. The Gibb River Road through the heart of the region is best tackled in the dry season (May to October) with a 4WD.