After bustling Sydney, the city of Cairns may feel like a sleepy little tropical village. Everything in town seems built for relaxation. The homes are built on stilts to catch the cool ocean breezes. Overhead fans whirl in every room. A licensed local guide leads you to the lively, slightly bohemian Esplanade, the focal point of the city. This is where the city began in 1876 as a gold- and tin-mining port. Wharf Street was once the main drag, at a time when the entire area was known as the Barbary Coast because of its rough, criminal element. Now, it is a thriving port, where big-game fishing is a major industry. The actual center of Cairns is the City Place, the town square and a quaint pedestrian mall. The Cairns Museum includes not only artifacts on the city's history but the story of Aboriginal life in the surrounding rain forests. This city is a great gateway into Australia's natural wonders, with the rain forest and the Great Barrier Reef just minutes away.

Relax on Palm Cove’s gorgeous beaches, where Cairns’ residents and visitors come for fun in the sun.

As natural wonders go, the Great Barrier Reef is impossible to beat. It has a wide assortment of superlatives: The world's largest living organism, the richest marine resource known to man, and the best diving and snorkeling on earth. At more than 1,200 miles long and up to 50 miles wide, the Reef is composed of billions of the bony skeletons of coral polyps knitted together to form one large structure that shelters countless unique plants and animals. Snorkeling equipment is included.

Outside Cairns, the Skyrail Rain Forest Cableway offers a unique perspective on the surrounding forests. The six-seat cable cars carry riders five miles over the canopy to the tiny village of Kuranda.

Get a look at Aboriginal life. Inside the park, you will find encampments illustrating different aspects of tribal life. Overseen by Aboriginal elders, the camps include lessons on fire-making, playing the didgeridoo, and preparing bush food and medicines.

Mossman is a tiny rain forest village at the foot of the incredibly beautiful waterfalls of Mossman Gorge. Here, within the Daintree Rain Forest, new species of plants and animals are still being discovered and the vegetation is every bit as impressive as the Amazon Basin. From here, travel by boat up the Daintree River, a wide, muddy saltwater river and a favorite spot for crocodiles. As you approach the north side of the river, the Cape Tribulation National Park begins. This park is a ecological marvel - with coastal plains, rain forest, mangroves, coral and sea all come together. The forest itself has some of the oldest known flowering plants, many of which are not found anywhere else in the world.

Truly awesome. Ayers Rock (“Uluru” to the locals), the ultimate icon of the Australian Outback, rises 1100 feet above the surrounding plain (and many geologists suspect that it goes down at least twice as far underground). Its sandstone glows bright red in the daytime, fading spectacularly as the sun sets through a range of reds and oranges to a quiet gray.

Explore the daily and spiritual lives of the local Aborigines, the Anangu, at this award-winning cultural center. The building itself is designed in the shape of two ancestral snakes, constructed from traditional mud brick walls and massive tree trunks.

Queensland’s brash, artsy capital city is known as “Bris Vegas.” Get acquainted at the Southbank Parklands, a huge resort that encompasses tropical lagoons and beaches as well as crafts markets and cafes. Bustle through Brisbane’s Chinatown, where stone lions presented as a gift from China guard the shoppers at the traditional stores. Watch out for tame possums in the city’s Botanic Gardens -- slightly more exciting than the squirrels at home!

Once a mining and timber center, Fraser Island reclaimed its natural beauty when declared a World Heritage Site in 1992. The island’s remarkable and immense sand dunes and lush rainforests surround freshwater lakes perfect for relaxing. The S.S. Maheno, wrecked in 1935, stands off the east coast of the island. In 1907 this ship set a record when it crossed from Auckland to Sydney in just under three days.

Spend the day on the Gold Coast, Australia’s top surfing destination, for surf lessons at the appropriately named “Surfers’ Paradise.”

See Sydney, Australia's beautiful waterfront city. A licensed, local guide will take you to Darling Harbor, a bustling entertainment and shopping center. At "The Rocks" see historical and contemporary Australia stand side-by-side. On this stubby peninsula on the western side of Sydney Cove, modern Australian history started with the landing of the first ships in 1788. From here, Sydney evolved from convict outpost to the most beautiful metropolis on the Pacific Rim. Next, visit one of the city's most well-known symbols, the Sydney Opera House, majestically poised between the Harbour Bridge and the Royal Botanic Garden. Then travel to the top of the Sydney Tower, a 1000 ft. golden minaret-topped spike. From the observation deck you can see all 600 square miles of Sydney.

Set on Sydney Harbor, the Taronga Zoo is home to many of Australia's native animals. See kookaburras, koalas, dingoes, red pandas, platypuses, and other fuzzy (and not-so-fuzzy) critters in naturalistic settings, and enjoy a beautiful view of the harbor -- "Taronga" is believed to be an Aboriginal word meaning "water view."

Just 90 minutes from Sydney, the magnificent Blue Mountains National Park has hills that stand at more than 3,500 ft. high. Their distinctive blue color comes from the dense eucalyptus forests. Katoomba is the largest town in the blue hills. Developed in the early 1840s as a coal-mining settlement, it became a tourist attraction in the 19th century. The best view from Katoomba is from Echo Point, which overlooks the forests of the Jamison Valley and the soaring sandstone pillars. These formations are called the Three Sisters, after an Aboriginal legend about three siblings who were turned to stone by their father to save them from a monster. (Fortunately, the mythical monster is currently on sabbatical.) Lunch will be provided on this excursion.

Live out your sports star fantasies as you explore the site of the 2000 Olympics. The enormous complex hosts stadiums, parks, pools, hiking and bike trails, and an expansive Visitor Center to help you make sense of it all.

Dive into the natural beauty of the Blue Mountains with some high-tech help. Scenic world offers visitors a glass-bottomed skyway and cableway for lofty views, a railway to dip deep into the valleys, and a walkway through the rainforest for more a leisurely look at the amazing plants and animals that call this area home.

While today’s mainland tourists come to Honolulu to snap photos and relax on the beach, earlier American visitors came to convert the inhabitants and prohibit the “lascivious” hula. See their work at the Mission Houses, residences built by 19th-century missionaries in the New England wood-frame style—not ideal for the wet and humid Honolulu climate. (Recent renovations were required to evict the termites.) Even if their buildings had problems lasting, their ideology did not. The nearby Kawaiahao Church shows their ultimate success at converting the islands to Christianity. The monarchy didn’t cave in immediately, however. King Kalakalua fought against the religious restrictions by reinstating the hula and building the extravagant Iolani Palace, which had electricity before either the White House or Buckingham Palace—and which bankrupted the Hawaiian government. Oops.