Adelaide Is Having a Moment. Here’s Why You Should Finally Pay Attention

For years, Adelaide has occupied a strange spot in the Australian travel conversation – the city everyone flies over on the way to somewhere else, mentally filed under “nice enough, I suppose” and rarely given the standalone trip it deserves. I’ve been guilty of this myself. It took an actual visit, rather than another flyover, to understand quite how wrong that instinct is.

Here are five things to do in the city itself, followed by five more within a few hours’ drive that, frankly, might be reason enough to fly there on their own.

Five things to do in Adelaide

1. Lose several hours in the Adelaide Central Market

I don’t say this lightly: Adelaide Central Market was recently ranked the third-best food market in the world, beating out famous names in Paris, Valencia and New York. It’s been feeding the city since 1869, houses more than 70 traders under one roof, and pulls in over eight million visitors a year – numbers that sound implausible until you’re standing inside it.

Go hungry. Start with freshly shucked Coffin Bay oysters from Angelakis Brothers for a few dollars each, work your way to Lucia’s for a proper Italian panino (the “Number Two,” stacked with mortadella, provolone and green olives, has been drawing loyal fans since 1957), and finish at Saudade for a Portuguese custard tart good enough that visitors reportedly beg them to open a Melbourne branch. The market is currently mid-way through a $600 million redevelopment, so expect a few new faces alongside the old favourites when you visit.

2. Eat your way down Gouger Street

Running along the market’s southern edge, Gouger Street is Adelaide’s most celebrated dining strip, a tight concentration of Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Indian and Italian restaurants that comes properly alive at lunch and dinner. It’s the kind of street where you could eat a different cuisine every night for a week and still not run out of options.

3. Book a table at Africola

If you want one proper sit-down dinner while you’re in town, make it this one. Africola puts a bold, modern spin on African cuisine, and it’s popular enough that you’ll want to book ahead. Order the feed-me menu and let the kitchen do the work – the tahini-drenched cauliflower steak and the peri peri chicken alone are worth the reservation.

4. Wander the Botanic Garden and Adelaide Oval

Adelaide’s compact CBD makes it an easy city to explore entirely on foot, and the Adelaide Botanic Garden remains one of the loveliest green escapes in any Australian capital. Pair it with a wander around the historic Adelaide Oval, whether or not there’s a match on – the heritage scoreboard and grandstands are worth seeing regardless of your interest in cricket.

5. Take the tram to Glenelg

Adelaide’s beachside suburb Glenelg is a short, scenic tram ride from the CBD, and makes for an easy half-day of beach walks, seaside dining and watching the sunset over Holdfast Bay – a proper change of pace from the market crowds without requiring a car.

Five things to do within a few hours of Adelaide

1. Kangaroo Island

Australia’s third-largest island sits a short ferry ride from Cape Jervis, itself about a 90-minute drive from Adelaide, and it is every bit the wildlife spectacle its reputation suggests. Flinders Chase National Park delivers kangaroos, wallabies, seals and echidnas wandering wild bushland, while Seal Bay’s sea lion colony and the wind-sculpted formations of Remarkable Rocks and Admirals Arch are genuinely spectacular. Vivonne Bay, rated among the best beaches in the entire country, is worth the drive on its own. A day tour will show you the highlights; staying overnight opens up the parts of the island most visitors never see.

2. Barossa Valley

Australia’s most famous wine region is about an hour’s drive from the city, home to more than 80 cellar doors and the birthplace of Penfolds Grange, this country’s most celebrated wine. Beyond the tastings, don’t miss Maggie Beer’s Farm Shop for a lakeside lunch and a jar or three of her famous quince paste, and the genuinely bizarre Whispering Wall at Williamstown, a curved dam wall that carries a whisper from one end to the other across more than 100 metres.

3. McLaren Vale

Thirty to forty-five minutes south of the city and often overshadowed by its more famous northern cousin, McLaren Vale offers more than 70 cellar doors of its own alongside spectacular coastal views. The architecturally eccentric d’Arenberg Cube is worth the visit for the building alone, before you’ve even started on the Shiraz. My favourite is Angove, the food on the day I went was amazing.

4. Hahndorf and the Adelaide Hills

Australia’s oldest surviving German settlement, tucked into the Adelaide Hills around 30 minutes from the city, is the kind of town that sounds like a cliché until you’re actually walking its tree-lined main street. Old-world cottages, artisan food producers and craft shops sit alongside genuinely excellent German fare – a plate of sausage and sauerkraut at one of the historic inns is close to mandatory.

5. Victor Harbor

A charming coastal town on the Fleurieu Peninsula, roughly an hour south of Adelaide, Victor Harbor combines heritage charm with genuine natural beauty, including horse-drawn tram rides out to Granite Island and excellent whale-watching in season. It’s an easy, unhurried day out for anyone who’d rather swap wine tastings for sea air.

Book with Travel at 60

Adelaide has spent long enough being treated as a stopover rather than a destination. Between a world-class food market, some of the country’s best wine regions on its doorstep, and an island genuinely worth crossing water for, it’s overdue the standalone trip most travellers have skipped past for years.

Ready to see it for yourself? Contact the team at Travel at 60, who can arrange your flights, hotels and tours across Adelaide, the Barossa and Kangaroo Island.