The Best Hotels and Resorts in Australasia: The Gold List 2026
Consider the Gold List the answer to the question our editors get asked more than any other: what are your favourite places to stay? Our annual collection, passionately selected by our international team, this year including a handful of hotels in Australia and New Zealand. Now all you have to do is pick the experience that’s right for you – and get travelling.
See the full Gold List here.
Werner Segarra photography inc/Courtesy Omni HomesteadhotelEl Questro Homestead, Kimberly, Australia
Three flights and two and a half days later, I finally landed in the Kimberley, Western Australia’s northernmost region. My stay at El Questro Homestead, a cattle station turned luxury property, would end up being not much longer than the journey to reach it. Regardless of the length of my visit, nowhere else could I have experienced all that I did there. This member of Luxury Lodges of Australia has 10 rooms and suites on a clifftop overlooking the Chamberlain River. As part of a 2022 Indigenous Land Use Agreement, the traditional Ngarinyin landowners regained more than 400,000 acres of the property in a historic arrangement that El Questro’s owners say will make it possible to increase Indigenous employment. Many aspects of a stay at El Questro, however, will remain unchanged: in the morning screeching cockatoos act as an alarm clock. In the evening you can sit and watch crocodiles in the waters below. Later, a tree frog may hop its way into your bathroom. Four-wheel drive safaris and helicopter tours will take you to remote waterfalls and hot springs, and here, in one of the most sparsely inhabited regions in the world, new animal and plant species are discovered regularly. I happened to be standing next to a ranger when he came upon what appeared to be a new species of beetle. But I was even more impressed by Injiid Marlabu Calls Us, an immersive experience developed by traditional owners Mary and Nelson O’Reeri and their daughter Shonelle. The family recounts how Nelson's grandmother Injiid grew up on this land and how it was taken away from her by cattle barons; how her son was forced into a state home; and how she found him again decades later. To listen is to learn about the challenges and hopes that life holds for many Aboriginal people today. You will likely be deeply moved, and it may prove to be one of the most lasting memories of your visit. From £1,200. Dennis Braatz
George ApostolidishotelHuka Lodge, Taupō, New Zealand
Allegedly, Queen Elizabeth and Mick Jagger once slept in the same bed, just not at the same time. That bed would be at Huka Lodge, New Zealand. Opened in 1924 as a humble fishing camp, it’s since become a tartan-and-teak retreat with roaring fireplaces and martinis on silver trays. Oversized suites open onto manicured lawns and the Waikato River, with Ralph Lauren-ish decor: lots of tartan, gilt-framed oil paintings, and velvet sofas. You’ll fall asleep to the rush of water and wake to birdsong and woodsmoke. Aperitifs are served at golden hour before long dinners. It’s the original luxury lodge and still the blueprint for all others that follow. From £1,442. Chloe Sachdev.
Courtesy HyatthotelPark Hyatt Sydney, Australia
$$$Celebrating my one-year anniversary as a staff editor at Condé Nast Traveller while on a work trip to Australia, I stayed at this elegant 155-key property right on the edge of Sydney Harbour. On September 11 (yes, it felt strange entering our offices at 1 World Trade Center on my first day), I woke up at the Park Hyatt Sydney to golden light pouring into my room through floor-to-ceiling windows. I stepped out onto a balcony – one of two – and watched the metropolis wake up: the ships and ferries coming into the harbour, good-looking Sydneysiders out for their morning run on the boardwalk, the sun rising behind that iconic sail-shaped opera house. From its prime spot in the Rocks historic neighbourhood on the western side of Sydney Cove, the hotel has offered a front-row seat to this Aussie scene for the past 35 years. That’s 35 New Year’s Eve fireworks displays that the Park Hyatt’s extremely lucky guests have seen from this vantage point: fountains of sparks and chrysanthemums of light bursting from both the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, all ringing in another 365 days of good fortune. And there I stood on an ordinary Wednesday in September, in a plush bathrobe, sipping on a demitasse of espresso and wishing over a pale blue sky the same for myself. I was so happy to mark the occasion of my first work anniversary at this hotel. Sure, I could chalk it up to its large and sumptuously appointed rooms, its team’s attentive service, or its fresh and delicious brekkies that lend credence to the belief that Australians invented avocado toast. But as they say: location, location, location. No matter the occasion, a stay at the Park Hyatt Sydney, I’d venture, gives you the feeling of being exactly where you should be. From $780. Matt Ortile
