Perth: the Swan River and the port of Fremantle

Kings Park, over four hundred hectares of urban park larger than Central Park in New York, blends manicured botanical gardens with vast stretches of native bushland still practically intact, overlooking the downtown skyline.

The port city of Fremantle, a half-hour ferry ride from Perth, preserves Victorian limestone buildings along streets hosting every weekend a historic market active since 1897.

The Perth Mint, a working mint continuously operating since 1899, allows viewing of gold ingot casting and houses the world's largest gold coin ever minted.

The beach of Cottesloe, minutes by train from downtown, remains the place where Perth residents go to watch the sunset over the Indian Ocean on nearly every evening of the year.

The semi-wild bushland of Kings Park, steps from the financial district's skyscrapers, reminds us how little the city had to move away from original nature to build itself around it.

At Cottesloe, with the sun dropping straight into the ocean before you, that same geographic isolation that weighs on a world map suddenly ceases to seem like a disadvantage.