Updated with latest info and even more of the good stuff May 2026 by Rachel, co-owner of BWT
Everyone knows the East Coast drill. Sydney to Cairns, party hostels, Byron sunsets, a surf lesson in Byron Bay, a 4WD on Fraser Island. Legendary trip. Not disputing it.
But Western Australia is just sitting there. Half the size of Europe. 20,000km of coastline. And most backpackers skip it entirely.
That is wild when you actually think about it.
WA is bigger than the whole of Western Europe. The coastline alone would take three solid months to seriously dent. And because everyone's off doing the East Coast thing, you get to experience it without the crowds. Which is, genuinely, a massive part of the appeal.
Here are 5 experiences that will make you rethink your Australia plans.
Whale sharks are the largest fish on the planet. Up to 14 metres long. Over 20 tonnes. Survive entirely on microscopic plankton. Completely harmless. Also the size of a school bus.
Swimming next to one is hard to prepare for. You're in open water, the visibility shifts, and then this enormous shape just materialises below you. Most people come back completely lost for words. Your best photo won't cover it. (The real thing is better, by roughly ten thousand percent.)
Exmouth, on WA's Coral Coast, is one of only a handful of places in the world where you can do this in the wild. It's also the only reliable spot in Australia. The season runs March to July, when whale sharks gather around Ningaloo Reef to feed on coral spawn.
Tours up to Exmouth from Perth include a spotter plane to locate the sharks before you get in the water. You snorkel rather than scuba, which actually gives you a better full-animal view. Groups are small and strictly managed to protect the sharks.
Exmouth is about 12 hours north of Perth by road, or a 2.5-hour flight. Either way, worth it.
The quokka is a small marsupial found almost exclusively in WA. It looks, without exaggeration, like it is having the time of its life at all times. (Scientists say it's just the natural shape of their face. We choose to believe they're genuinely thriving.)
Rottnest Island sits 19km off the coast of Perth and is home to around 12,000 of them. They roam freely, they're used to people, and they will sometimes just walk directly up to you. The quokka selfie is basically a rite of passage at this point, and Rottnest is the best place in the world to get one.
But the island is more than quokkas. It's car-free, so you get around by bike or on foot. The beaches are some of the best near Perth, with calm, clear water in sheltered bays. And it's a 25-minute ferry from Fremantle, so it works perfectly as a day trip or an overnight.
Go in the morning when the light is good and the quokkas are most active. Bring a wide-angle lens if you have one. And yes, they really do just pose for photos. It's almost suspicious.
If Rottnest has you in the mood for Australian wildlife generally, our guide to Australia's best wildlife experiences is worth a read.
Controversial take. We stand by it.
The Great Barrier Reef is iconic. It's also one of the most visited dive destinations on the planet, which means boats, crowds, and reef that has taken a serious battering from both tourism pressure and climate stress over the years.
Ningaloo is a UNESCO World Heritage fringing reef, 300km long, running close enough to shore that you can snorkel directly off the beach with no boat required. And because it gets a fraction of the visitor numbers, the reef is in remarkable condition.
What you'll find underwater: manta rays with wingspans up to 5 metres, whale sharks, sea turtles, dolphins, reef sharks, and over 500 species of fish. The coral density genuinely surprises people who've only dived the GBR.
Coral Bay and Exmouth are the main base towns. Coral Bay is smaller and more relaxed, better for snorkelling. Exmouth has more dive operators and is the base for liveaboard trips and whale shark tours. If you're a diver, plan at least 3 to 4 days here.
And if you're not a diver yet, Ningaloo is a seriously good place to get your Open Water certification. Check out PADI Open Water courses if you want to sort it before you get there.
WA is not a place you fly in and out of quickly. It rewards people who commit to moving through it slowly.
The classic backpacker route runs north from Perth, covering roughly 3,000km to Broome. The highlights: Fremantle for its market, coffee scene, and colonial prison (yes, really), Margaret River for surf breaks and wine country, Monkey Mia in Shark Bay where wild dolphins have been coming to the beach every morning since the 1960s, Coral Bay for Ningaloo snorkelling, Exmouth for whale sharks, and Broome at the end, where the red dirt meets the ocean and the sunsets look like someone turned the saturation all the way up.
You can hire a campervan from Perth and drive yourself, which gives you total flexibility and works out cheaper than you'd think with a couple of people splitting costs. Or you can jump on a guided Perth to Broome tour that handles all the driving and logistics, which honestly makes a lot of sense given the distances involved.
If you want to push all the way through to Darwin afterwards, that's a whole other adventure. Have a look at Perth to Darwin tours and the Kimberley tours that cover the stretch in between.
Allow at least 2 weeks for the Perth-to-Broome stretch. Three weeks is better. The driving is sometimes relentless, but that's kind of the whole point. You're not rushing through this one.
Yes, this is four things in one section. No, we don't feel bad about it.
Lake Hillier on Middle Island is naturally bubblegum pink. Year-round. Every single day. The colour comes from high salt content, pink bacteria (Salinibacter ruber), and algae (Dunaliella salina). Scientists have studied it at length. It is still completely unhinged. You can fly over it on a scenic flight from Esperance, and the aerial photos look like something out of a graphic design brief.
Wave Rock near Hyden is a 15-metre granite cliff face that has been slowly eroding into the perfect shape of a breaking wave for approximately 2.7 billion years. One of the oldest accessible rock formations in the world. About a 3.5-hour drive from Perth and worth every minute of it.
The Pinnacles Desert in Nambung National Park sits about 2.5 hours north of Perth. Thousands of limestone columns, up to 3.5 metres tall, rising out of yellow sand with nothing else around them. It looks like a post-apocalyptic film set. Go at sunrise or sunset when the light turns everything golden.
Shell Beach in Shark Bay is exactly what it sounds like: a beach made entirely of tiny shells. Not shells mixed with sand. Shells, billions of them, piled up to 10 metres deep along several kilometres of shoreline. One of only two shell beaches in the world. The other one is in France and significantly less impressive.
You can fit all four into a road trip north from Perth without much detour. None of them need specialist tours or advance booking. They're just there. Have a look at our West Coast activities page to start putting it all together, or check out Australia travel deals if you're in the early planning stage.
Been to Western Australia yet? Which one of these is going straight onto your list?
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