Despite a (very disappointing) failed referendum in October that would have given Indigenous peoples greater political representation, Australia hasn’t completely turned its back on the world’s oldest living cultures. Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders have been on the continent for more than 65,000 years, a lasting heritage represented by 250 distinct language groups. Thankfully, Indigenous tourism is alive and well and actively promoted by Tourism Australia, a government agency. Its curated list includes some 168 experiences offered by 45 businesses, a mix of tour operators, storytellers, activities, guides, and accommodations in every region. How to choose?

We know AFAR readers seek meaningful connections to places and people. They want to authentically engage with Indigenous cultures, listen to their stories, and view the world through their eyes. So two of our most frequent Australia travelers reviewed the tourism board’s list, and cross-referenced it with our own, to surface 12 of the best Indigenous-owned, -operated, and
-acknowledged experiences in Australia. Here’s how to enjoy ancient rock-art safaris, bush tucker, Dreaming (creation) stories, desert stargazing, and more.

Northern Territory

1. Check into Cicada Lodge and explore with Nitmulik Tours

Owned and operated by Jawoyn Traditional Custodians, Cicada Lodge, about 215 miles southeast of Darwin in the Northern Territory’s Top End (far north), makes the perfect base for exploring Nitmiluk National Park. The Jawoyn-owned park is an Edenic land of waterfalls, river systems, millennia-old rock paintings, secluded water holes, and 13 gorges. The park’s most famous, Nitmiluk Gorge (formerly known as Katherine Gorge), is marked by towering cliffs and a river wide and deep enough to cruise. The eco-lodge’s 18 rooms have polished timber floors and balconies—some with panoramic views of the sandstone landscape above Nitmiluk Gorge—and also feature paintings and carved works by local Aboriginal artists. There’s an outdoor pool for splashing around after a sweaty day adventuring in the Outback with its sister company Nitmiluk Tours, which offers guided gorge exploration.

2. See ancient rock art with Lords Arnhem Land and Kakadu Safaris

Best known for its beauty, isolation, and outstanding rock art, Arnhem Land (a vast wilderness area in the Northern Territory) is one of the largest Indigenous-owned reserves in Australia. It’s perhaps one of the last few places in Australia where Indigenous culture is still dominant. Like Arnhem Land next door, the UNESCO World Heritage–listed Kakadu National Park is also a place of immense cultural, religious, and social significance to the local Aboriginal people.

The terrain in the Top End switches from floodplains and rock escarpments to woodlands, waterfalls, and vine-filled monsoonal rain forests—and the diversity of wildlife is extraordinary. (To wit: Visitors can encounter wallabies, wallaroos, quolls, dingoes, bats, goannas, frogs, pythons, saltwater crocodiles, and 280 species of birds.)

Sab Lord, owner and expert guide at Lords Arnhem Land and Kakadu Safaris, based in Darwin, provides some of the best tours of this culturally rich destination thanks in part to his strong working relationship with local Indigenous groups. At Injalak Hill, for instance, Lord employs Aboriginal guides who originally hail from the area. The small outfitter offers three-, four-, and five-day private safaris to Arnhem Land and Kakadu National Park. Guests will encounter wildlife—even crocs—up close, discover a pristine waterfall, swim in crystalline water surrounded by towering rock walls, visit an Aboriginal sacred site, and gaze at rock art estimated to be between 6,000 and 9,400 years old, engraved on overhangs and inside caves.

Depending on the length of the safari, accommodations range from glamping tents at an exclusive, permanent bush camp to comfortable private tent-cabins at a luxury safari lodge. All itineraries are bespoke, with prices available on request.

3. Try high-end bush tucker at Ayers Rock Resort

“Bush tucker” is an Aussie term that refers to native foods and medicinal plants that Indigenous peoples in Australia have been eating and using for 60,000 years. Long disparaged by European settlers, dishes made of bush tomatoes, lemon myrtle, kakadu plums, desert lime, quandong, green ants, crocodile, emu, and kangaroo now take center stage in fine-dining establishments across the country. In particular, Uluru, formerly known as Ayers Rock, has been earning a reputation in foodie circles as the bush tucker gastronomy capital of Australia.
Ayers Rock Resort, adjacent to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, offers gourmet bush tucker dinner experiences paired with modern retellings of the Dreaming stories.

The Wintjiri Wiru Sunset Dinner takes place in an open-air theater atop a dune overlooking Uluru and the many domes of Kata Tjuta, a group of rock formations formerly known at the Olgas. It’s an apt name since Wintjiri Wiru means “beautiful view out to the horizon” in the local Pitjantjatjara language. Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia created this experience in consultation with Indigenous chefs. The makers acknowledge that “as custodians of the land, the Anangu hold the Mala story from Kaltukatjara to Uluru. To share their story from Kaltukatjara to Uluru, RAMUS designed and produced an artistic platform using drones, light, and sound to create an immersive storytelling experience.”

During the dinner, guests arrive to cocktails with bush-tucker infusions of lemon myrtle, desert lime, or mulga berries and sit down to a gourmet dinner hamper filled with foods like smoked emu with saltbush chili crust. Once the sun drops over the rocks, it’s time for the show: Wintjiri Wiru is a new state-of-the-art sound-and-light show that tells the ancient story of the Mala (rufous hare-wallaby) people who came to Uluru, with choreographed drones, lasers, and projections creating an immersive and contemporary rendition of the spiritual story.

Western Australia

4. Go on a guided walk-and-talk with Karrke Cultural Experience and Tours

A three-hour drive from Uluru takes you to the magnificent red rock formations of Kings Canyon and Watarrka National Park, parts of which are sacred for the local Indigenous peoples. Established in 2014, Indigenous-owned and -operated Karrkke Cultural Experience and Tours, on the southeastern fringes of the park, offers one-hour guided walk-and-talks about bush tucker foods, dot painting, and Indigenous artifacts. Owners Peter Abbott, his partner Christine Breaden, and his sister Natasha Abbott sit with participants in a shaded area to talk about native foods—edible tree seeds and grass seeds, witchetty grub (moth larva) and honey ants—in addition to medicinal plants and how they’re used by the local Luritja and Pertame peoples of Central Australia. They also explain the cultural significance of the patterns in dot art and show off local crafts made of wood or seeds, such as music sticks, clap sticks, seed necklaces, bracelets, and weapons.

5. Learn about the Dreaming with Wula Gura Nyinda Eco Cultural Adventures

Owned and operated by Darren “Capes” Capewell, a descendant of the Nhanda and Malgana people, Wula Gura Nyinda Eco Cultural Adventures is based in idyllic Shark Bay, 500 miles north of Perth. Translation: It’s a two-hour flight, or an eight-hour drive up National Route 1, or a slightly longer scenic ride along State Route 60, which hugs the Indian Ocean coastline up to the Coral Coast. The “Coral Coast Highway” is said to be one of the most beautiful drives on earth.

Capewell, who also works as a guide, runs a range of outdoor tours: kayaking and wildlife, standup paddle boarding, camping, and an evening experience. The “Didgeridoo Dreaming Night Tour” combines Dreaming stories of how Earth and life on the planet came to be, and the ancient tribal tones of the didgeridoo under a blanket of stars, accompanied by tastings of seafood and bush tucker. (Note that in some Indigenous cultures, only men play the didgeridoo; women and children are offered a traditional conch shell to play.)

6. See the night sky with Wooramulla Eco Cultural Journeys

Wooramulla Eco Cultural Journeys, owned by Yinggarda guide Rennee, is located in Carnarvon, 550 miles from Perth, or a little beyond Shark Bay. Rennee provides a variety of fun, educational tours aimed at sharing Yinggarda culture and customs. One shows visitors how hidden claypans erupt in the spring with the crazed mating of burrowing bees. Another tells the Ant Dreaming story at the spiritually significant Honeycomb Gorge (Mingah Munda), where she also points out hidden petroglyphs and other traces of her ancestors. During her Murroo Nungnah (Go See the Night) experience, she shares Yinggarda Dreaming stories of the night sky accompanied by Billy tea—a traditional Aussie campfire tea blended with Kooloo red leaf tea—and damper, a simple but classic bread.

7. Visit the Ningaloo Coast World Heritage Area with Baiyungu Dreaming

The Ningaloo Coast, 800 miles north of Perth, is the site of the UNESCO-listed Ningaloo Reef, the world’s largest fringing coral reef, as well as the Ningaloo Coast World Heritage Area. It’s a place of impossible beauty and stark contrasts between the parched, rugged landscape of Cape Range National Park’s gorges and escarpments, the white-sand beaches of the coastline, and the clear, highlighter-blue waters of Ningaloo Reef. Home to whales, dolphins, manta rays, orcas, sharks, turtles, tuna, and more, it is also a place of immense biodiversity.

With Hazel Walgar’s tour company Baiyungu Dreaming, visitors to Ningaloo can see the coast through an Aboriginal lens. Launched in 2020, Baiyungu is the first Indigenous tourism operator on the Ningaloo Coast. Having worked on the Ningaloo archaeological project, excavating Indigenous artifacts found in the Western Australian desert, Hazel takes visitors to Coral Bay and into Cape Range National Park to see a shell midden littered with signs of early Aboriginal occupation. She also teaches her clients how to dig for fresh drinking water in the sand dunes, takes them to a sheltered turtle nursery, and tells the Dreaming story of the octopus and how Five Finger Reef was formed. During her Coral Bay sunset tour, guests sit around the campfire sipping Billy tea and munching freshly baked damper (bread) as Hazel recounts Dreaming stories and talks about her work on the Ningaloo archaeological project.

8. Forage for fresh oysters with Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm

The traditional custodians of the Dampier Peninsula, the Bardi (land) and Jawi (island) peoples, have been working with their natural environment for tens of thousands of years, using sustainable hunting techniques, fishing practices, and bush tucker for both food and medicinal purposes. Here, about two hours north of Broome, you can combine a cultural experience with world-class seafood.

Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm’s Borrgoron’s Coast to Creek Tour will open your eyes to the local culture that revolves around the land and sea. A two-hour walking tour (some level of fitness required) takes you through mangroves and over the rocks of King Sound at low tide, where you’ll be able to put your learnings to practice as you forage for fresh oysters. Pair this with a pearl discovery tour, “sea safari,” or sunset dinner cruise.

Tasmania

9. Hike Tasmania’s rugged coast on the wukalina Walk

“Completely owned and operated by Tasmania’s Indigenous palawa community, the four-day, three-night wukalina Walk is a unique way to explore the island’s rugged northeast coast and gain insight into Australia’s Aboriginal heritage,” writes AFAR contributor Eric Rosen. (Note: The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre has reconstructed an Indigenous language, now called palawa kani, using only lowercase.) “My journey began with a hike to the peak of wukalina (aka Mount William). Six fellow travelers and I enjoyed a picnic lunch with views stretching from the Furneaux Islands in the north to the Bay of Fires in the south. A few hours later, we tramped into Krakani Lumi, a secluded camp a few hundred feet from the shore. Eco-chalets were inspired by traditional palawa huts, with pitch-black walls and domed interiors. The next morning, we walked along the white-sand beach to shell middens where ancient clans came to feast.

“Before a final goodbye back in Launceston, I spoke to Clyde Mansell, the community elder who spent over 15 years setting up the wukalina walk. ‘The experience and scenery are just beautiful packaging,’ he said. ‘The real purpose of the walk is to keep the community’s young people engaged with our culture and provide them with jobs in hospitality.’”

Queensland

10. Snorkel the Great Barrier Reef with Dreamtime Dive and Snorkel

• Location: Dreamtime Dive & Snorkel Wharf, Reef Fleet Terminal, 1 Spence St., Cairns City, Queensland | Find on Google Maps
• Book now: $140 adult, $90 children, age three and under free. dreamtimedive.com

“Some 70 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups have a continuing connection to the world’s largest coral reef system, and in 2018, Dreamtime Dive and Snorkel launched trips led by Indigenous Sea Rangers who share cultural knowledge passed down from their ancestors,” writes AFAR contributor Sarah Reid. During the day trips from Cairns to the Outer Barrier Reef, “guests listen to evocative creation stories about how the reef came to be, and learn about hunting practices, such as seasonal harvesting, that have safeguarded the reef’s biodiversity for millennia.” This adventure acknowledges the Gimuy Walubara Yidinji, Mandingalbay Yidinji, Yirrganydji, and Gunggandji cultures.

Victoria

11. Go inside Tower Hill volcano with an Indigenous guide

Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve sits inside a 30,000-year-old dormant volcano about 170 miles southwest of Melbourne, just north of the Great Ocean Road and the iconic Twelve Apostles, a collection of limestone stacks jutting out of the water. The verdant reserve, once a denuded wasteland thanks to the devastation caused by early settlers, is a haven for Australia’s most iconic species: emus, koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, echidnas. Many of the 200-plus kangaroos and koalas live around the visitor parking lot, so they’re not hard to spot. The parks’ boardwalks, nesting boxes, and bird hides make it easy for bird-watchers to get a glimpse of birds like chestnut teals, musk ducks, and spoonbills.

Worn Gundidj, an Aboriginal social enterprise working in partnership with Tower Hill, offers a two-hour interactive tour. Guides lead visitors around the animals’ natural habitat while providing insight into Indigenous traditions like how to identify edible and medicinal plants and how to properly throw a boomerang.

South Australia

12. Experience a “Welcome to our Country” at Wilpena Pound

To the local Adnyamathanha people, Ikara, known as Wilpena Pound in English, is a sacred site. A crater-like elevated basin in the remote desert wilderness of South Australia’s Ikara-Flinders Ranges, Ikara is not as well known or instantly recognizable as Uluru, even within Australia, but it’s arguably just as spiritually moving. And at 800 million years old, it’s 250 million years more ancient than Uluru .
Ikara is remote—not near any major city or airport, about 275 miles north or a five-hour drive from Adelaide. Once there, getting around is a challenge without a four-wheel drive. It’s also possible to travel by small plane from Adelaide, but it may be necessary to change planes in Port Augusta.

Wilpena Pound Resort, located in South Australia’s Ikara-Flinders Ranges National Park, is the only accommodation within the park. While not Indigenous-owned, the resort falls under the aegis of the Traditional Custodians, the Adnyamathanha, who offer guided walks and cultural experiences like a complimentary “Welcome to our Country” ceremony. It is normally performed by an Aboriginal Traditional Owner for people visiting their land; visitors may experience a welcome speech, traditional dance, and a smoking ceremony. Other activities include a rock art tour, a tour of Sacred Canyon, or a sunset storytelling experience.

Read Before You Go

Celebrated Australian Indigenous lawyer and author Larissa Behrendt is brilliant at creating engaging, accessible stories with social justice issues at their core. One of her latest novels, After Story (2021), doesn’t even take place in Australia; it follows an Indigenous lawyer and her mother on a rare vacation together, hitting England’s great literary sites. As their trip unfolds and painful memories come to light, we witness Australia’s worst prejudices—and a funny, hopeful outlook on the future of Indigenous culture.

Jenee Fleenor remembers driving around the roads of Northwest Arkansas as a teenager, dreaming that she might someday hear her fiddle on radio stations like the one playing in her car.

“It still takes my breath away when I hear my fiddle on the radio,” she says, just a couple of weeks after winning the Musician of the Year Award at the CMAs. “To see the dream come alive is sometimes overwhelming.”

On Nov. 8, Fleenor won Musician of the Year from the Country Music Association for the fifth time. She was the first woman ever nominated for the award in 2019, and that year, she became the first fiddle player to receive the award since 1996.

“I can hardly believe I have won one of these awards, much less five in a row,” the Springdale native says. “Honestly, every year is a surprise to me. Every musician in this category deserves this award; they’re all my heroes and friends and play on countless hit records.

“My dream of moving to Nashville was never fueled by having awards on my mantle — though I am obviously humbled and honored! I just had a dream of being a session musician in Nashville someday and maybe hearing my fiddle on the radio.”

Fleenor — then Jenee Keener — started her journey with Suzuki classical violin lessons. She left Springdale in 2001 and quickly became a sought-after session musician, playing on hits like Jon Pardi’s “Your Heart or Mine,” “Heartache Medication” and “Dirt On My Boots;” Cody Johnson’s “‘Til You Can’t” and “Human;” and Carly Pearce’s “29: Written in Stone.” And she’s toured with Blake Shelton, Steven Tyler (Aerosmith), Terri Clark, Martina McBride, Don Williams, Jimmy Fortune and Larry Cordle & Lonesome Standard Time.

On the day she answered questions for her hometown newspaper, Fleenor had “a writing appointment” and was playing fiddle on a couple of sessions.

“I never get tired of session work,” she enthuses. “It’s just so fun for me to be in a room with such amazing musicians, all pushing each other to be better players. And now most sessions I am on are people I’ve worked with for years, so it’s just so awesome to get to do what I love day in and day out with people I enjoy being around.

“My life is filled with so much of what I love!”

Fleenor admits her industry recognitions — she was also named Specialty Instrument Player of the Year at the American Country Music Awards in April — have had an impact on her career.

“For example, I recently signed a publishing deal with Warner Chappell,” she says. “I’ve been a songwriter for many years now, and it was a dream of mine years ago to have a [publication] deal — and it kind of just fell in my lap this past year. I don’t think it would have happened without this beautiful journey I’ve been on.

“I also have a lot of artists and musicians asking me for career advice these days, which I am always happy to give. I certainly don’t know it all, and there has never been a straight line for me to get from point A to point B of achieving my goals, but I think it’s important to share as much information as you can.

“I realize I am in a spot now to cheer other people on and encourage people along with their dreams,” she muses. “I look back to all the people that helped me along my way, and I am forever grateful! I recently heard Tanya Tucker say at her Country Music Hall Of Fame induction, ‘If you see a turtle on a stump, you know he didn’t get there by himself!’ And that is certainly the way I feel!”

Fleenor is also “over the moon excited” about her new all-star bluegrass band, the Wood Box Heroes. They’re “some dear, dear friends of mine and some of the best musicians in the business,” she says, including Barry Bales on bass, Seth Taylor on mandolin, Matt Menefee on banjo and Josh Martin, “one of the best singer-songwriters I’ve ever had the privilege of working with.”

“This is something I didn’t see coming down the pike, but I am so glad it has,” she says. “We made our Opry debut back in August and are planning on hitting the road some this next year.

“Wow — it’s been such an incredible journey,” Fleenor concludes. “Psalms 37:4 has really been ringing in my mind lately: ‘Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.’ That is exactly how I feel. I feel what I do is a gift from the Lord — and I feel so much joy getting to do what I love day in and day out!”

    “I hope when people see my journey — and maybe its a young girl sitting in school in Northwest Arkansas, dreaming big dreams of moving to Nashville someday — I hope it encourages them to lean into those dreams and make some leaps of faith,” says Jenee Fleenor. The Springdale native just won her fifth Musician of the Year Award at the CMAs. (Courtesy Photo/Jenee Fleenor)