This is where you get to crush that beach holiday Aussie-style. No shit. Just pop over to Surfers Paradise, the long-running hub of this sun-drenched coast, and you’ll find broad strips of golden sand littered with beach bums and board-toting surfers, and bustling beachfront markets, a thumping nightlife, and a sky-high (okay, not quite that!) observation deck with sweeping all-round views. Adjacent Broadbeach is just as much of a tease with, yes, its wide beachfront and lively clutter of restaurants, cafés and uppity shops, while in nearby Burleigh Heads you’ll get that coastal village vibe, and along the Southern Gold Coast you’ll discover a string of in-your-dreams surf beaches and binge-worthy bars where you can go seriously rogue. And you know, if you go inland a wee bit, to, say, Mt Tamborine, you can even get a lick of handmade liqueur chocolates at the Tamborine Mountain Distillery, and a whiff of a realtime Queensland rainforest. So, yeah, grab that sunscreen and surfboard, and hit it!