Time Out Australia Travel Awards 2026: Best Attraction Nominees

One of the largest undercover markets in the Southern Hemisphere, this fresh food mecca buzzes with more than 80 traders from over 40 nationalities under the one roof. Eat your way through the stalls, sampling everything from sizzling seafood paella and spicy coconut laksa to delicate canelés and rich chocolate torte. Grab a loaf of freshly baked sourdough, locally-made brie, green ant gin or pastel-pink macarons to take home.

At Araluen Arts Centre in Alice Springs, you can browse more than 1,100 works from the region or check out the latest touring exhibition. From the beginning and continuing development of Australia’s contemporary Aboriginal art movement, its extraordinary collections burst with colour and history, and its Arthouse Cinema screens a fantastic selection of local and international feature films, documentaries and mainstream titles. 

History buffs will love the attention to detail displayed at this museum, which was ranked as one of the top ten best places across the globe by TripAdvisor. It’s the distinctly human angle that makes the Memorial appealing. More than just monuments, the memorial offers a genuine insight into what wartime life was like for Australian women and men, with multimedia displays, documentary footage and a moving Last Post closing ceremony at 4.30pm daily.

The beating heart of the Gold Coast’s arts and entertainment scene, HOTA is the result of an impressive $60 million development that opened in May 2021. The gallery features a 1,000-square-metre special exhibition space on level one for touring shows, a children's activity zone and four levels of permanent exhibition space showing an entertaining and vibrant selection of Australian contemporary art. Beyond the gallery walls, HOTA unfolds as a massive, 17-hectare tropical playground, including a double-decker HOTA Amphitheatre, a free outdoor sculpture walk, a dedicated kids' adventure trail and the swimmable Evandale Lake. Plus, on weekends it hosts a free, five-kilometre community Parkrun and the local Sunday Farmers & Artisan Markets.

Visiting the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) is a tourist must-do, but take it from a local: the place is genuinely that good. Deliberately designed to be disorienting, the dark and cavernous subterranean space is filled with the infamously subversive (past controversies include the poo machine and the wall of vulvas), plus other hidden treasures you can stumble upon yourself. 

Museums aren’t just restricted to four walls, and you’ll find one of Australia’s greatest at the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Port Arthur Historic Site. Just a 90-minute drive from Hobart, this is proudly Australia’s most intact and evocative convict site, with more than 30 historic buildings and ruins to explore. Stroll through the 40-hectare landscaped grounds, join an introductory walking tour, embark on a complimentary 20-minute harbour cruise where you’ll catch glimpses of the Isle of the Dead – and then come back to do it all again, with tickets granting you entry for two consecutive days. Trust us, you’ll need it.

Audible gasps are aplenty as 1,200 drones light up the desert night sky for Uluru’s most breathtaking spectacle, Wintjiri Wiru. Meaning ‘beautiful view out to the horizon’ in the local Pitjantjatjara language, this immersive cultural storytelling experience uses cutting-edge lasers and light projections to share an ancient story of one of the world’s oldest living cultures. It’s an absolutely dazzling affair that’s a must-see for any traveller venturing to Australia’s spiritual heart at Uluṟu.