The Best Hotels and Resorts in Australia and Oceania: The Gold List 2025
"Located 120 miles north of Cairns, secluded on 1,000 hectares of tawny bush, and ringed by sugar-white beaches, Lizard Island is no hard sell. It’s one of the few luxury resorts in Australia with the bragging rights to being located directly on the Great Barrier Reef. An easy 10-minute snorkel from shore will reveal the alternate, neon-tinged universe of the fringing reef. Silvery slivers of fish reflect the bright Queensland light, and slo-mo turtles glide above gardens of giant purple clams and coral that’s shaped like uncooked spaghetti. There is as much to do underwater—diving, fishing, swimming—as above. Unfussy white-weatherboard villas, with still-wet swimsuits dripping upon timber decks, dot the island. Inside, the rooms are bright and airy and boast high ceilings. Some have with wide-frame views out onto the lapping blue sea, while others are wrapped in a garden that vibrates with scuttling critters. Out of sight, on its own jagged outcrop of granite rocks, is The House, a brutalist concrete and copper three-bedroom private villa, which is surrounded by lonely swaths of white-sand beach. But beyond the island’s obvious charms, it’s the Lizard Island Research Station—headed by a husband and wife duo—that really sets this place apart. Opened in 1973, the station is one of the world's leading reef-research facilities on a luxury resort, which guests can tour (even though it’s not part of the resort)—and they do, quizzing the marine scientists and even rolling up their sleeves to take part in hands-on citizen science initiatives across the endangered reef. It’s an insight into Australia’s changing relationship with tourism and proves that a remote paradise can be both beauty and brains. From $1,655. —Chloe Sachdev" - CNT Editors
