Why now is the moment for your next remarkable journey

For Australians and New Zealanders, “close to home” is not a compromise. The Asia-Pacific sits at the confluence of the world’s oldest living cultures, its most pristine marine wilderness and landscapes so elemental they feel like the planet before people arrived. Whether you’re considering your first cruise or wondering where Scenic can take you to next, the answer may be closer than you’d imagined.  

Highlights

1. The Mekong at dawn

2. The art of going deeper

3. Where every detail is a discovery

4. Into the earth’s last great wilderness

5. Reefs, peaks & ancient cultures

6. Where home becomes the starting point

7. The journey starts where you are

Light on the Mekong River in the early morning arrives slowly, diffused through river mist, and by the time it catches the gilded spires of a riverside temple the day has already begun to feel unlike any other. Markets stir on the banks. Monks move in silent procession through the streets beyond. A fisherman casts his net without looking up.  

The Mekong has been the lifeblood of this region for thousands of years and travelling it by river remains the most intimate way to understand why. On board the Scenic Spirit, a boutique 5-star ship carrying up to 68 guests, this is not a river cruise where the scenery passes at a remove. You are immersed in it. The river is the story, and it unfolds at a pace that allows the detail to settle.  

The Treasures of the Mekong is the essential introduction – a passage through Vietnam and Cambodia between the kinetic energy of Ho Chi Minh City and the profound, humbling stillness of Angkor Wat. On the Mekong’s most all-inclusive river cruise, everything is taken care of on board, and Scenic Freechoice activities let you shape each day to your own pace and interests – leaving nothing to arrange but the experience itself.  

Those drawn to linger longer will find the Luxury Mekong and Temple Discovery Cruise extends the journey with deeper cultural immersion, while the Grand Indochina & Luxury Mekong moves through Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and beyond in one of the most comprehensive explorations of the region available, tracing a civilisation that has shaped this corner of the world for thousands of years.

Some travel has nothing to do with distance. It takes you further into a place rather than further from home – into its landscapes, its histories, the texture of its daily life. Tasmania is a compelling case in point. Wild in the way that few places within reach of a major airport can genuinely claim to be, it is shaped by a history as confronting as it is fascinating, and a natural environment that ranks among the finest on earth.   

 From the salty energy of Hobart’s Salamanca Point to the extraordinary sweep of Wineglass Bay, the island reveals more the longer you stay. The Ultimate Tasmania handcrafted land journey travels with a group of just 36 guests, taking in four exclusive Scenic Enrich experiences and a cruise through the World Heritage-listed Franklin-Gordon Wild Rivers National Park on board the Spirit of the Wild – an immersion in southern wilderness that stays with you long after you’ve returned home.  

A short flight away, New Zealand compresses an unlikely range of landscapes and cultures into two islands, each with its own distinct character. Ancient kauri forests in the north, geothermal landscapes rising from the heart of the North Island, the Southern Alps reflected in lakes so still they seem impossible – the country has a way of making even the most seasoned travellers pause.   

The Ultimate New Zealand handcrafted journey moves through both islands at a pace that allows genuine immersion, from the cultural richness of Rotorua to the iconic TranzAlpine rail journey and an overnight voyage on Milford Sound on board the Milford Mariner, waking at first light on one of the most extraordinary stretches of water on earth. With eight Scenic Enrich experiences and 42 Scenic Freechoice excursions woven throughout, New Zealand reveals itself fully – so that by the time you reach that famous fiord, the country feels genuinely known rather than glimpsed.  

Just a short direct flight from Sydney or Brisbane, Norfolk Island carries one of the Pacific's most singular stories. Kingston's convict-era streetscapes carry UNESCO World Heritage listing for good reason – the weight of that past is present in every sandstone wall and silent prison yard – while the island's residents, many of them descendants of the Bounty mutineers, still speak Norf’k, a language woven from 18th-century English and Tahitian that exists nowhere else on earth.   

The Historic Norfolk Island handcrafted journey travels with an intimate group of up to 36 guests, including three Scenic Enrich experiences, among them a progressive dinner held across three local island homes: the kind of access no conventional itinerary can replicate.  

Japan defies easy description, and that is precisely the point. Ancient temples sit alongside futuristic cities without apparent contradiction. Extraordinary cuisine materialises in the most unassuming places. An entire philosophy of quiet ceremony is embedded in everyday life – in the arrangement of a meal, the folding of a cloth, the way a door is opened.   

The Classic Japan journey travels through Kyushu and Honshu, from the port city of Fukuoka through Hiroshima, Miyajima Island, Naoshima Island, Kyoto, Osaka, Nara and the commanding presence of Mt Fuji to Tokyo. Scenic Enrich experiences reach beyond the itinerary into the country itself: a private sumo wrestler demonstration, an intimate group dinner hosted by a Geisha and Maiko, a Japanese tea ceremony in kimono. These are not inclusions. They are the reason to go.  

Peak Cherry Blossom season at any single location is a magical short burst of candy pink – intense, complete, and gone. The Japanese have a word for this particular awareness of impermanence – mono no aware – the understanding that fleeting things move us most. Scenic Eclipse II’s new Japan circumnavigation itineraries in 2029 are built around precisely this moment, following Japan’s coastline by sea as the blossoms open, moving through sacred islands and reaching shores most visitors never see. The Circumnavigation of Japan: Icons, Traditions & Coastal Discovery focuses on the cultural heartlands; the Circumnavigation of Japan: Sacred Isles & Northern Shores reaches further into the country’s more secluded north. For those who have explored Japan on land and fallen in love with it, these voyages are not a repeat. They are a revelation.  

Few places stop people in ways that are as difficult to articulate afterwards as the Kimberley. Australia’s ancient north-west coast is defined by vast sandstone gorges carved by seas that no longer exist, waterfalls that surge in the wet season and vanish, and rock art created by cultures whose continuous presence stretches back further than most of recorded human history. It is largely inaccessible by road, and that inaccessibility is the point.   

Scenic Eclipse II will spend an extensive season in the Kimberley in 2028, departing from Darwin and Broome and operating in full Expedition Voyage mode, with an expert Discovery Team who understand this landscape at a level that transforms what you see. The Discover the Kimberley Coastline: An Ancient Wilderness is, by any measure, one of the great Australian journeys.  

Preserved by the very remoteness that makes reaching it so remarkable, East Antarctica and the Ross Sea remain among the planet’s least visited and most pristine marine environments. Scenic Eclipse II departs from Timaru (Christchurch) for Antarctica's Ross Sea: Majestic Ice & Wildlife, with handcrafted New Zealand extensions available to frame the voyage at either end. 

Australians are quietly incurious about the Pacific. They fly over it, look down at the impossible blue of it, and continue on. Yet French Polynesia, Fiji, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea together form one of the most culturally and biologically rich regions on earth – a constellation of volcanic peaks and coral reefs, ancient traditions and marine wilderness stretching across millions of square kilometres of ocean.   

The Journey Across the Pacific: Easter Island & French Polynesia makes landfall on one of the most remote and mythologised islands on earth before continuing west through the archipelagos of French Polynesia. Reefs & Volcanic Isles: Tahiti to Fiji moves through some of the Pacific’s most alluring island groups, each with its own distinct character and colour.   

Venturing into Alluring Solomon Islands, Vanuatu & Papua New Guinea explores a part of the world that is layered, alive and profoundly moving, opening fully only to those willing to look closely. Scenic Eclipse II’s Pacific voyages with two on board helicopters^ and a submersible^ offer further immersive discovery to treat this neighbourhood with the attention it has always deserved.  

Something shifts when a voyage begins in Sydney Harbour – not because it is convenient, but because it asks the traveller to see the familiar through different eyes. Tasmania's Pristine Wilderness follows Australia’s East Coast south into the wilderness of an island that never fails to surprise those who give it time, arriving by sea at a destination this journey has already shown to be among the most rewarding on earth. It is the quietest possible proof of an idea that runs through everything here: that the most remarkable journeys are not always the furthest ones. The ones that change how you see the world are often the ones that begin right where you are.  

Distance has never been the true measure of a great journey. What makes travel transformative is the quality of attention brought to it – the depth of access, the genuine immersion, and the confidence that everything has been considered so that nothing stands between you and the experience itself.  

That is, and has always been, the Scenic difference.