Tasmania

Tasmania sits apart from mainland Australia both geographically and in character, its interior given over to rugged wilderness protected within national parks and reserves. On the Tasman Peninsula, the 19th-century convict settlement at Port Arthur survives as an open-air museum, its ruined buildings set against the coastline in a way that makes the history feel close rather than distant. Few Australian states pack so much contrast, historical and natural, into so compact an island.