👉 Book Perth city tours and day trips on GetYourGuide →
🗓️ When to visit Western Australia for luxury travel
Western Australia’s size means the optimal travel season varies significantly by region. The Kimberley and the Pilbara (including Ningaloo) are best visited in the dry season between April and October. During the wet season (November to March), the Kimberley receives enormous rainfall, roads become impassable, and most luxury lodges close entirely. The whale shark season at Ningaloo runs approximately March to July, with peak activity in April and May.
Margaret River and Perth can be visited year-round, but spring (September to November) and autumn (March to May) offer the most comfortable temperatures and the most interesting culinary events. The Margaret River Gourmet Escape, held in November, is one of Australia’s premier food and wine festivals and draws international chefs and producers — it’s an excellent anchor for a trip to the region, though accommodation books out very early.
💡 Tips for planning a luxury Western Australia trip
Western Australia’s distances require more planning than most destinations. Perth to the Kimberley is nearly 3,000 kilometres — you’re flying, not driving. Build in enough time at each destination to genuinely settle in and explore. Two nights at El Questro is not enough to see what the Kimberley has to offer. Three to four nights minimum at Sal Salis gives you enough days to have a whale shark swim on a good weather day even if conditions aren’t right on day one.
Combine regions thoughtfully. A WA luxury itinerary that takes in Perth for a few days, Margaret River for three nights, and then flies north to Ningaloo or the Kimberley hits the best of the state without requiring impossible logistics. Charter flights between remote destinations are readily available and worth every cent — they turn impossible journeys into memorable ones.
🔑 Final thoughts on luxury resorts in Western Australia
Western Australia is the Australian destination that most rewards effort. It asks more of you in terms of planning, travel time, and investment, and it returns that effort with experiences that are genuinely rare in the world — ancient landscapes, extraordinary marine life, world-class food and wine, and a sense of solitude and space that’s increasingly hard to find anywhere on earth.
The luxury resorts and lodges of WA — from El Questro in the Kimberley to Sal Salis on the reef to Cape Lodge in the wine country — are among the finest in Australia. They understand the landscapes they inhabit and they’ve built experiences that amplify rather than diminish that extraordinary environment. Travel here with proper time, proper planning, and a genuine sense of curiosity, and Western Australia will deliver one of the great travel experiences of your life.
👉 Book the best Western Australia tours and experiences on GetYourGuide →
👉 Book Ningaloo whale shark and reef experiences on GetYourGuide →
🍷 Cape Lodge — Margaret River’s finest boutique retreat
Cape Lodge is the original luxury wine country retreat in Western Australia — a 22-room boutique property set on its own vineyard in the northern Margaret River wine region, about 30 minutes south of Dunsborough. The property has been consistently ranked as one of Australia’s finest boutique hotels, and it delivers a combination of outstanding food, beautiful gardens, and genuine warmth that larger properties simply can’t match.
The restaurant at Cape Lodge is exceptional. Head chef Clayton Sherwood builds menus around the exceptional produce of the Margaret River region — local marron (freshwater crayfish), South West lamb, Manjimup truffles in season, and wines from Cape Lodge’s own estate and the surrounding iconic Margaret River producers. Dinners here are multi-course affairs that showcase exactly why Margaret River has earned its international reputation. Staying at the lodge gives you after-dinner walk access to the vineyard that’s one of the most peaceful experiences in Australian wine country.
🏛️ COMO The Treasury, Perth — urban luxury at its finest
Perth is often overlooked as an Australian luxury destination, which is a mistake. It’s one of the world’s most isolated major cities, with a beautiful Mediterranean climate, extraordinary beaches at Cottesloe and Scarborough, and a food and wine scene that has improved dramatically in the past decade. The COMO The Treasury is the finest hotel in the city — housed in a stunning restored State Buildings complex in the heart of Perth’s CBD, it combines heritage architecture with contemporary luxury in a way that feels genuinely special.
The hotel’s 48 suites are among the finest hotel rooms in Australia — spacious, beautifully designed, and with service that reflects the COMO brand’s global reputation for excellence. The restaurant Wildflower on the rooftop is a destination in its own right, with panoramic views of the Perth skyline and Swan River, and a menu built on native Australian ingredients that’s one of the most interesting and ambitious dining experiences in the country.
🌊 Longitude 131° — Uluru in luxury
While technically in the Northern Territory rather than Western Australia, Longitude 131° at Uluru deserves a mention for travellers doing a wider WA and outback itinerary. The camp has 16 luxury tented pavilions overlooking Uluru, with floor-to-ceiling windows designed to frame the rock at every time of day — sunrise, sunset, and starlit night. Staying here transforms what can be a crowded tourist experience into something deeply intimate and personal. The guides are exceptional, the food is outstanding, and the experience of watching the rock change colour at sunset from your private deck is unforgettable.
You might also enjoy reading about Western Australian Museum Aboriginal Culture.
👉 Book Perth city tours and day trips on GetYourGuide →
🗓️ When to visit Western Australia for luxury travel
Western Australia’s size means the optimal travel season varies significantly by region. The Kimberley and the Pilbara (including Ningaloo) are best visited in the dry season between April and October. During the wet season (November to March), the Kimberley receives enormous rainfall, roads become impassable, and most luxury lodges close entirely. The whale shark season at Ningaloo runs approximately March to July, with peak activity in April and May.
Margaret River and Perth can be visited year-round, but spring (September to November) and autumn (March to May) offer the most comfortable temperatures and the most interesting culinary events. The Margaret River Gourmet Escape, held in November, is one of Australia’s premier food and wine festivals and draws international chefs and producers — it’s an excellent anchor for a trip to the region, though accommodation books out very early.
💡 Tips for planning a luxury Western Australia trip
Western Australia’s distances require more planning than most destinations. Perth to the Kimberley is nearly 3,000 kilometres — you’re flying, not driving. Build in enough time at each destination to genuinely settle in and explore. Two nights at El Questro is not enough to see what the Kimberley has to offer. Three to four nights minimum at Sal Salis gives you enough days to have a whale shark swim on a good weather day even if conditions aren’t right on day one.
Combine regions thoughtfully. A WA luxury itinerary that takes in Perth for a few days, Margaret River for three nights, and then flies north to Ningaloo or the Kimberley hits the best of the state without requiring impossible logistics. Charter flights between remote destinations are readily available and worth every cent — they turn impossible journeys into memorable ones.
🔑 Final thoughts on luxury resorts in Western Australia
Western Australia is the Australian destination that most rewards effort. It asks more of you in terms of planning, travel time, and investment, and it returns that effort with experiences that are genuinely rare in the world — ancient landscapes, extraordinary marine life, world-class food and wine, and a sense of solitude and space that’s increasingly hard to find anywhere on earth.
The luxury resorts and lodges of WA — from El Questro in the Kimberley to Sal Salis on the reef to Cape Lodge in the wine country — are among the finest in Australia. They understand the landscapes they inhabit and they’ve built experiences that amplify rather than diminish that extraordinary environment. Travel here with proper time, proper planning, and a genuine sense of curiosity, and Western Australia will deliver one of the great travel experiences of your life.
Pair this with Eco Lodges Ningaloo Reef to round out your trip.
👉 Book the best Western Australia tours and experiences on GetYourGuide →
Western Australia is vast — larger than Western Europe — and it rewards travellers who make the effort to explore it properly. From the red rock gorges of the Kimberley to the turquoise waters of the Ningaloo Reef, from the extraordinary wildflower blooms of the Midwest to the world-class wine country of Margaret River, WA has a natural spectacle for every kind of traveller. And in recent years, the state’s luxury accommodation scene has finally caught up with what the landscape has always deserved.
I’ve travelled extensively through Western Australia, and what consistently strikes me is the sense of scale and solitude. You can be the only person at a beach that would be famous if it were in Europe. You can camp — or glamour, with the right operator — under skies so clear and unpolluted by light that the Milky Way looks painted. The luxury resorts and lodges that have emerged across WA in the past decade lean hard into this sense of wilderness access, combining genuine comfort with experiences that feel genuinely remote and extraordinary.
Here’s my guide to the best luxury resorts in Western Australia — covering the coast, the Kimberley, and the wine country, with practical advice on how to plan your trip.
📋 TL;DR — the quick version
- ✅ Best overall luxury lodge: El Questro Homestead in the Kimberley is one of Australia’s finest wilderness lodges — remote, extraordinary, and genuinely world-class.
- 🌊 Best coastal resort: The Ningaloo Reef Drive area near Exmouth offers access to the world’s most accessible whale shark swimming experiences alongside excellent luxury accommodation.
- 🍷 Best wine country resort: Aravina Estate and Cape Lodge in Margaret River are exceptional bases for exploring Australia’s finest wine and food region.
- 🏙️ Best Perth base: The COMO The Treasury in Perth is the finest hotel in the city, housed in a stunning heritage building with exceptional dining and service.
- 🦈 Don’t miss: Swimming with whale sharks at Ningaloo — it’s one of the world’s great wildlife experiences and is only reliably accessible here and in a handful of other locations worldwide.
- 🗓️ Best seasons vary by region: The Kimberley is dry season only (April–October). Margaret River is best in spring (September–November) and autumn (March–May).
- ✈️ Getting there: Perth is the gateway — direct flights from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and multiple international destinations.
🌏 Why Western Australia is a luxury travel destination like no other
Western Australia’s appeal to luxury travellers rests on several factors that are hard to find in combination elsewhere. The state has genuine wilderness at a scale that’s almost impossible to comprehend — the Kimberley alone is larger than Germany. It has marine environments of global significance, including Ningaloo Reef (which has better snorkelling access than the Great Barrier Reef for most visitors) and the extraordinary whale shark gatherings that make Exmouth famous among wildlife travellers worldwide.
WA also has Margaret River, which has emerged as one of the world’s finest wine and food regions. The combination of clean ocean air, ancient forests, outstanding surf beaches, and a culinary scene built on the region’s exceptional produce makes it a destination that competes with Napa Valley and Burgundy as a food and wine traveller’s destination. Luxury resorts and estates here have invested heavily in farm-to-table dining, cellar door experiences, and vineyard accommodation that integrates the landscape beautifully.
🦁 The best luxury resorts and lodges in Western Australia
🌄 El Questro Homestead — Kimberley wilderness luxury
El Questro Homestead sits on a 700,000-acre station in the East Kimberley, overlooking the Chamberlain River gorge with views across ancient red rock escarpments that look like they belong on a different planet. This is one of Australia’s finest remote luxury lodges — there are only nine rooms, the food is excellent (everything possible is sourced locally, including fresh barramundi caught in the station’s river system), and the activities available are extraordinary.
Guided walks into remote gorges, helicopter flights over the Bungle Bungles (officially called Purnululu National Park), fishing expeditions on the Chamberlain, and guided stargazing sessions under skies that are among the darkest in Australia — El Questro puts together experiences that genuinely couldn’t happen anywhere else. The homestead is adults-only, and the atmosphere is that of a private house party where the host happens to have access to some of the most extraordinary landscapes on earth.
Getting to El Questro requires either a long drive on unsealed roads or a charter flight from Kununurra — neither is easy, but the remoteness is part of the point. This is a place where the journey itself becomes part of the story.
🐋 Sal Salis Ningaloo Reef — glamping on the reef
Sal Salis is one of Australia’s most celebrated eco-luxury camps, situated in Cape Range National Park right on the edge of Ningaloo Reef. Sixteen wilderness tents are tucked into the coastal dunes, each with private decks overlooking the Indian Ocean, surprisingly comfortable beds, and en-suite bathrooms. Walk 50 metres from your tent and you can be snorkelling on the reef — no boat required, no crowds, just you and some of the most extraordinary marine life in the world.
The whale shark season (March to July) is when Sal Salis is at its most spectacular. The camp organises whale shark swims for its guests — guided, in small groups, with an exceptional snorkelling brief beforehand — and the experience of swimming alongside the world’s largest fish in gin-clear water is one that fundamentally changes your relationship with the ocean. Manta rays are present year-round, and humpback whale sightings are common between June and October.
👉 Book Ningaloo whale shark and reef experiences on GetYourGuide →
🍷 Cape Lodge — Margaret River’s finest boutique retreat
Cape Lodge is the original luxury wine country retreat in Western Australia — a 22-room boutique property set on its own vineyard in the northern Margaret River wine region, about 30 minutes south of Dunsborough. The property has been consistently ranked as one of Australia’s finest boutique hotels, and it delivers a combination of outstanding food, beautiful gardens, and genuine warmth that larger properties simply can’t match.
The restaurant at Cape Lodge is exceptional. Head chef Clayton Sherwood builds menus around the exceptional produce of the Margaret River region — local marron (freshwater crayfish), South West lamb, Manjimup truffles in season, and wines from Cape Lodge’s own estate and the surrounding iconic Margaret River producers. Dinners here are multi-course affairs that showcase exactly why Margaret River has earned its international reputation. Staying at the lodge gives you after-dinner walk access to the vineyard that’s one of the most peaceful experiences in Australian wine country.
🏛️ COMO The Treasury, Perth — urban luxury at its finest
Perth is often overlooked as an Australian luxury destination, which is a mistake. It’s one of the world’s most isolated major cities, with a beautiful Mediterranean climate, extraordinary beaches at Cottesloe and Scarborough, and a food and wine scene that has improved dramatically in the past decade. The COMO The Treasury is the finest hotel in the city — housed in a stunning restored State Buildings complex in the heart of Perth’s CBD, it combines heritage architecture with contemporary luxury in a way that feels genuinely special.
