Australia
MONA
An underground temple to sex and death carved into a Hobart cliff by a professional gambler.
The museum descends into a sandstone cliff. There is no natural light. The exhibits include a machine that converts food into human faeces, an Egyptian mummy, and walls of LED panels programmed to respond to your movements. MONA was built by a professional gambler who wanted to create a temple to the things museums usually avoid.
The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, Tasmania, is Australia's largest privately funded museum, built into a sandstone cliff face on the Derwent River. Founded by professional gambler David Walsh, MONA's collection spans Egyptian sarcophagi, Sidney Nolan paintings, and confrontational contemporary installations including Cloaca Professional — a machine that replicates the human digestive system. The museum is accessed by the MONA ROMA ferry from Hobart, which serves cocktails and sets the tone for what follows. Dark MOFO, the museum's winter festival, fills Hobart with fire installations, nude swims, and performance art that has made Tasmania an unlikely capital of the avant-garde.
Solo
MONA's O device tracks your path and learns your preferences — the museum becomes a personalised solo experience that argues with your taste.
Couple
The ferry, the cocktails, the descent into art that provokes and disturbs — MONA is a date that tests whether you laugh at the same things.
Friends
Dark MOFO in winter, gallery debates over lunch, and the shared disbelief of a museum that includes a working human digestive machine.
- An underground museum carved into a sandstone cliff, funded by a professional gambler's fortune.
- Exhibits range from an Egyptian mummy to a machine that turns food into human waste — confrontation is the point.
- The MONA ROMA ferry from Hobart serves cocktails as it delivers you to the museum's private dock.
- Dark MOFO winter festival fills Hobart with fire, sound installations, and art that pushes every boundary.
Faro — MONA's own restaurant, where the food is as provocative as the art on the walls.
Salamanca Market on Saturday morning — smoked salmon, Bruny Island cheese, and leatherwood honey in the open air.
Rye
England
Cobblestoned lanes so steep and crooked even the houses lean in to listen.
Shell Grotto, Margate
England
Millions of shells arranged in unexplained mosaics beneath a mundane street — origin unknown.
Abydos
Egypt
Temple paint vivid after thirty-three centuries, concealing an underground granite chamber that still puzzles archaeologists.
Casabindo
Argentina
Argentina's only bull ceremony strips ribbons from horns at 3,400 metres each August.
Strahan
Australia
Cruise the Gordon River past Huon pines that were saplings when Rome was still a republic.
Maria Island
Australia
A car-free island where Tasmanian devils roam free and convict ruins crumble into wildflower meadows.
Dampier Peninsula
Australia
Red pindan dirt meets turquoise sea at Aboriginal communities where the country is still the boss.
Sydney
Australia
Ferries carve blue water between surf beaches and opera sails as cockatoos screech overhead.