Outback towns of Australia

The original Outback Now town directory listed hundreds of towns, from regional centres to roadhouses with a population of single digits. The most-visited pages — Bourke, Broken Hill, Lightning Ridge, Cameron Corner, Kalgoorlie, Longreach and dozens more — are rebuilt here as full travel guides, and pages for the smaller places now point to the right state guide.

Start here

• By state: Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, Northern Territory, Western Australia and Victoria.
• Classic bases: Alice Springs and Broken Hill both have airports, rail links and a full range of services.
• Linking towns into a trip: our road trips join these towns into routes, and our outback pubs guide covers the famous stops along the way.

How to use these guides

Each town guide covers where the town is and how to get there, the history that shaped it, the best things to see and do, nearby day trips, practical information on fuel and services, and the official sources to check before you go. We do not list prices, opening hours or event dates that change frequently; instead we link to the official visitor centre or operator.

Outback towns by state

New South Wales

Outback NSW starts west of the Darling Downs and the central-west wheat belt. It is the most accessible outback in Australia: sealed highways run all the way to Bourke, Broken Hill and Lightning Ridge. Explore the outback NSW guide.

Queensland

Queensland's outback is enormous, stretching from the Darling Downs to the Gulf of Carpentaria and the Channel Country. It is famous for its dinosaur fossils, the Qantas and Stockman's Hall of Fame stories of Longreach, the bore baths of the Great Artesian Basin and remote icons such as Birdsville. See the outback Queensland guide.

South Australia

From the Flinders Ranges north, South Australia is opal and desert country: Coober Pedy, the old railway town of Marree, and the Oodnadatta and Strzelecki tracks. Start with the outback South Australia guide.

Northern Territory

The Territory's Red Centre is built around Alice Springs, Uluru-Kata Tjuta and the MacDonnell Ranges, while Katherine is the gateway to Nitmiluk Gorge in the tropical Top End. Read the Northern Territory outback guide.

Western Australia

WA's outback ranges from the Goldfields around Kalgoorlie-Boulder to the Pilbara iron-ore towns such as Tom Price and the tropical Kimberley around Broome and Kununurra. See the outback Western Australia guide.

Regional Victoria

Victoria has no true outback, but its north-west Mallee and Murray country has the same big skies, salt lakes and small-town feel. Our regional Victoria guide covers the best inland touring.

Choosing your base

If you have limited time, fly or drive to a well-serviced regional centre and do day trips. Broken Hill, Longreach, Mount Isa, Alice Springs, Kalgoorlie and Broome all have airports, hospitals, supermarkets and a range of accommodation. Smaller towns offer more character but fewer services, so plan fuel, food and water between them.

Respecting small communities

Outback towns are working communities, not theme parks. Shop locally where you can, ask before photographing people or private property, stick to marked roads on stations, leave gates as you find them and respect Aboriginal cultural sites. Many towns rely on volunteers to run their visitor centres and museums, so a gold-coin donation goes a long way.

Fuel, water and phone coverage

Fuel is available in every town in this guide, but not always 24 hours and not always diesel and unleaded at small roadhouses. Fill up whenever you can. Town water is generally safe to drink but some bore water is hard or warm; ask locally. Mobile coverage is usually limited to towns and highways near them — Telstra typically has the widest regional footprint — so carry a satellite communicator or personal locator beacon if you plan to leave the main roads.

Towns by theme

Many travellers plan trips around a theme rather than a state. These groupings draw on our town guides:

• Opal towns — Coober Pedy and Andamooka in South Australia, Lightning Ridge and White Cliffs in NSW, and Quilpie in Queensland's boulder opal country.
• Bore-water and spa towns — Mitchell, Cunnamulla, Thargomindah and Lightning Ridge, all on the Great Artesian Spa Tour.
• Gold-rush and mining towns — Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Coolgardie, Leonora, Croydon, Cobar, Broken Hill and Mount Isa.
• Ghost towns and near-ghost towns — Silverton, Milparinka and the Gwalia precinct near Leonora.
• River towns — Bourke, Wilcannia, Menindee and Brewarrina on the Darling and Barwon; Windorah and Innamincka on Cooper Creek.
• Gulf and fishing towns — Karumba, Burketown, Normanton and Wyndham.
• Heritage and museum towns — Longreach, Winton, Barcaldine, Charleville and Hay.

What to expect in a small outback town

Outback towns range from regional cities with tens of thousands of people to settlements with a pub, a roadhouse and a handful of residents. In the smallest places, expect limited opening hours — the store may close at lunchtime on Saturday and not reopen until Monday — and services that double up: the pub may also be the post office, the fuel stop and the accommodation. Cash is still useful, as card systems can drop out when phone lines or internet links fail. Many towns have a volunteer-run visitor centre or museum, often with excellent local knowledge.

Health services

Larger towns have hospitals, while smaller places may have only a clinic or a nurse-led health centre, sometimes visited by the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Carry your own medications and a copy of prescriptions, and know where the nearest hospital is on your route. In an emergency, call 000.

Planning a town-hopping trip

Linking towns is the easiest way to explore the outback. Plan each day around a realistic distance, arrive before dusk, and allow time to stop — the best experiences are often an unplanned conversation at the pub or a sunset over the plains. Our road trips section has itineraries that connect many of the towns in this guide, and our travel guides cover safety, seasons, 4WD driving and camping.

Keeping guides up to date

Businesses open and close, roads are upgraded, and events change dates. We update our town guides regularly using official sources such as councils, state tourism bodies and parks agencies, but always check locally before you travel. If you spot something out of date, please contact us.

Every town guide follows our editorial policy: facts come from official sources and are dated. Learn more about us, see our image credits and read our privacy policy.