By Leigh O’Connor.
There’s something gloriously Australian about trading tinsel for turquoise seas and polished floors for red dirt. Christmas Down Under isn’t about roasting chestnuts or crackling fires - it’s about suncream streaks, sandy feet and the scent of salt lingering in your hair.
Yet, this year, the call of the open road has been reimagined. You can be sunburnt and unbothered, adventurous and still indulgently comfortable. This is Christmas on the road - without the compromise.
Picture it: the boot packed not with sleeping bags, but with linen sheets, French rosé and a Bluetooth speaker tuned to coastal anthems. The hum of the highway becomes your festive soundtrack as you chase the horizon from Byron to Broome, Margaret River to Mission Beach. Instead of queues at the airport or forced family lunches, you’re unwrapping a slower, sleeker way to celebrate.
Luxury, after all, isn’t about marble bathrooms or five-star receptions - it’s the freedom to wake up where you please, with ocean air in your lungs and time on your side. This is for the sun-chasers who want to sip Champagne under paperbark trees, dine barefoot by the beach and fall asleep beneath skies so wide they swallow your worries whole.
Imagine pulling into a hidden bay fringed by eucalypts, where boutique campervans boast polished timber interiors, rainfall showers and crisp linen. Your ‘room’ opens onto a view that hotels could only dream of - azure water lapping at the shore, kookaburras laughing in the distance. Breakfast is local sourdough piled high with avocado and lime, eaten off a bamboo board while your feet dangle from a deck built by the waves themselves.
As midday stretches into golden afternoon, the road calls again. You detour through vineyards in the Barossa or stop at Hinterland distilleries where gin is infused with native botanicals. Maybe you book a night at an eco-lodge where the pool overlooks nothing but desert and sky, or pull up to a luxury glamping site that feels more like a resort than a campsite.
In the evening, the air hums with cicadas and the lazy crackle of a campfire. You unwrap prawns instead of presents, toast marshmallows instead of toasting speeches and let the Milky Way be your fairy lights. There’s no rush, no noise, no list of things to do - just the rhythm of nature and the gentle satisfaction of knowing you’ve escaped the chaos without sacrificing a single comfort.
The new Australian Christmas isn’t about excess - it’s about experience. It’s about finding opulence in simplicity, beauty in stillness and luxury in the freedom to roam. To be sunburnt and unbothered is to let go of what Christmas ‘should’ be and embrace what it can be: wild, radiant and gloriously your own.
So, this year, swap the stiff collars for kaftans, the carols for crashing waves and the shopping malls for open skies. Fill your esky with oysters and sparkling wine and chase the sun until the year melts into memory. On the road, Christmas shines brighter - unwrapped by the wind, kissed by salt and made utterly, unforgettably Australian.
