As winter comes to an end in Australia and monsoonal rains make way for tropical sun in Asia, there’s no better time to leave the cold behind and make a quick dash to every Aussie’s favourite island – Thailand.
There’s a lot of upsides to visiting Thailand; sun, sea, a rich culture – not to mention great value for money. The only downside is deciding on which palm-fringed beach to spend your time. Fortunately, Thailand’s leading hotel group, Centara Hotels & Resorts, has a number of four- and five-star properties that span the length and breadth of the island – and value comes in spades. So, if a relaxing week on the beach is your tipple, jump on a plane to the ‘Land of Smiles’ where you have 38 impressive Centara resorts to choose from. Here are three of the most popular.
Centara Villas Phuket
One for the value-conscious romantics; Centara Villas Phuket offers relaxed luxury with sweeping views of the Andaman Sea afforded by the resort’s lofty clifftop perch. Relax in your own private pool or jacuzzi, watch the sunset from The Cliff Bar or indulge in a massage or Ayurvedic treatment at one of the best spas on the island, Spa Cenvaree.
Centara Villas Phuket offers relaxed luxury with sweeping views of the Andaman Sea.
Centara Grand Beach Resort Phuket
For families, you can’t go past the five-star Centara Grand Beach Resort Phuket, with its own in-resort, landscaped water park complete with lazy river, four lagoon-style swimming pools, two waterslides, jumps rocks and waterfalls. Two complimentary Kids’ Clubs (with a packed schedule of daily activities) and interconnecting rooms add to the appeal. All of the 262 rooms, suites and villas face the ocean with private balconies, but the one-bedroom and two-bedroom villas step it up a notch with a private pool and Club access included.
With the kids looked after, adults can slink up to the swim-up bar in the main pool, or head to the private adults-only pool that overlooks the sea. For a quiet evening drink or canape, the COAST Beach Club & Bistro promises sophistication with a relaxed, beachy vibe and for dinner, check out resort eateries, COVE Restaurant or Mare Italian, or pop into Patong, which is only a short 10-minute drive away.
Centara Grand Beach Resort & Villas
Further north, roughly 200 kilometres south of Bangkok airport, lies the coastal town of Hua Hin and the Centara Grand Beach Resort & Villas. Famous as a retreat destination for the royal family and the Thai elite, Hua Hin is the place to be if you’re looking for the royal treatment.
The director of the state railway, Prince Purachatra first built the beachfront resort he called the Railway Hotel in the 1920s to accommodate visitors to King Rama VI’s nearby summer palace, before Centara lovingly restored it to the sprawling colonial masterpiece it is today. Polished teak floors, period furniture and Thai silks hint at the resort’s royal heritage in all 207 rooms and 47 villas, with modern touches throughout – most evident in the Deluxe Spa and Deluxe Pool Villas. Located in the heart of town, you can walk to some of Thailand’s best night markets, visit one of the country’s finest vineyards or play at one of 11 international golf courses during your stay.
The Railway Restaurant takes its design inspiration from Hua Hin railway station originally erected in the early 1920s,
Thailand not on your radar? Centara Hotels & Resorts can be found in the Middle East, the Indian Ocean and Far East, including two properties among the whiter-than-white sands and cerulean-blue waters of the Maldives.
Centara Ras Fushi
Less than 20 minutes away from the airport, and accessed via speedboat in North Malé Atoll, Centara Ras Fushi is a true bucket-list destination. Just don’t bring the kids; this resort is literally made for couples and strictly adults only. Within a dhoni ride of some of the Maldives’ best surfing, and outstanding snorkelling around the island, water-lovers will be kept busy. Accommodation is mostly overwater, too, with a wide choice of dining, including Arabic, Thai, Italian and seafood options.
Centara Ras Fushi is a true bucket-list destination.
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Centara Grand Island Resort Maldives
Unlike almost any other resort in this Indian Ocean paradise, Centara Grand Island Resort Maldives is utterly unique. The resort’s ’Ultimate All Inclusive’ concept means that, along with your accommodation, the daily rate includes three main meals at a choice of Thai, international or fine-dining Italian restaurants, champagne with breakfast, a daily replenished in-villa mini bar, all drinks from 11am until midnight at any bar or restaurant, high tea and evening cocktails.
Remember to leave time to catch the sunset at Centara Grand Island Resort Maldives.
And that’s not all; you can also take advantage of up to three dives per seven-night stay, a spa credit to use at the onsite Spa Cenvaree and up to five excursions (per week) including swimming with whale sharks, fishing, a sunset cruise, island picnic or an island excursion. Meanwhile, at the resort, there’s still plenty to do – paddleboarding, banana-boat rides, hobie cats, tennis, table tennis and more. Just remember to leave time to catch the sunset from the overwater deck.
Head to Northern Thailand, where the Four Seasons has redefined itself on a working organic rice farm where guests bathe water buffalo, plant rice and eat exceptionally well.
After youth-led protests in 2025, this year Nepal elected a 35-year-old former rapper as Prime Minister. In a country where tourism is its biggest industry, what’s next for travellers?
In 1986, Nepal changed its clock. It had used India Standard Time since 1920 so, to differentiate, it wound its clock 15 minutes ahead of, not behind, its big-brother neighbour. Boss move. “Nepal is strongly opposed to the idea that our identity is connected to India,” says Community Homestay Network (CHN) guide Bikal Khanal.
Tharu dance is traditionally set to hand drums. (Credit: Kate Lewis)
Today, Nepal is the only independent country with a 45-minute deviation to universal time; an oddity that’s become a symbol of national pride. The quirk is nearly as endearing as Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan airport where carved varnished wood and shiny red bricks rule. One sign points to a ‘Travelator’ and another to a ‘Grievance Handling Desk’ while visas are noisily stamped at customs for US dollars, cash only. When am I?
Spot the endemic Nepal gray langur. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
The 15 or 45 minute anomaly sees me tap out completely on timezone calculations. Why bend my brain calculating if it’s quarter to or quarter past elsewhere when I’m in the honking here and now of Kathmandu where the air is high-altitude crisp, the prayer flags flutter and the street dogs howl?
How tourism is changing in Nepal
Bardiya National Park is rich with wildlife. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
India is not the only association many Nepalis would like to shake. With eight of the world’s 10 tallest mountains, including Mount Everest and Annapurna, Nepal has long attracted mountaineers and trekkers, and expedition numbers are continuing to rise.
Tourism is one of the country’s biggest sources of foreign currency, so this growth is not negative, per se. But according to Ang Tshering Lama, who co-founded Phaplu Mountain Bike Club, being reduced to a mere trekking destination is limiting.
“Trekking is just one layer of our identity,” says Ang. “When it becomes the dominant narrative, it limits how we’re seen and how we see ourselves.” Nepal’s recent success, however, in diverting trekkers to less-trafficked areas such as Manaslu mofuntain, where visitor numbers rose by 117 per cent last year, offers hope that tourism can diversify even more radically.
Local men in Bhada village. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
The founder of CHN, Shiva Dhakal, wants that change. “The whole idea of the Community Homestay Network is to promote experiences outside of trekking,” he says. “Community tourism changes lives and helps kids stay home instead of coming to the city or migrating to the Middle East.”
Ang grew up seeing people leave, “not because they wanted to but because there weren’t enough opportunities to stay”, he states. Yet from remote villages to living traditions; food, art, music and emerging subcultures, “there’s so much that’s not being seen.”
CHN is opening some of those doors. It doesn’t own, or fund, any homes. Rather, it promotes homestays to travellers on a single, slick platform, while fostering entrepreneurship in places where women, marginalised castes, Indigenous people and the youth stand to benefit the most.
A new generation demanding more
Dalla Town Hall, where volunteers discuss anti-poaching tactics. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
The future prospects of next-gen Nepalis can no longer be ignored. On a Kathmandu tour with 33-year-old guide Monica K.C, we pass buildings torched in the September 2025 ‘Gen Z protests’, including the Supreme Court and Parliament House. Seventy-two people died. “They were anti-corruption protests,” says Monica. “Politicians’ children are living a lavish life but the airports are crowded with youngsters leaving to find work.”
We stop in ‘little Tibet’ at the wondrous sixth-century Boudha Stupa. “The wheel of life is Buddhism in a nutshell,” says Monica. “Things such as hate, ignorance and anger keep you rotating around the wheel, so you must follow the principles of Buddhism to detach. If you can’t, there’s no nirvana for you.”
Boudha Stupa’s prayer wheels are used to recite Buddhist prayers. (Credit: Kate Lewis)
In a sun-drenched twist to the usual temple visit, we ascend the stupa’s sloping plinth and roam its whitewashed dome. Tendrils of diaphanous prayer flags stream from a steeple-like structure where the Buddha’s unblinking eyes stare out. No nirvana for you…
Tibetan-style prayer flags embellish the whitewashed dome of Bouda Stupa, a Buddhist temple. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
The dome is delightfully free of guard rails or chiding from security. There is, however, a stern ‘No TikTok’ sign, perhaps in response to the youth’s newly flexed power. The booted-out Prime Minister, K.P. Sharma Oli, was replaced in a resounding election victory in March by 35-year-old Balendra Shah of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) – a former rapper and mayor of Kathmandu. The RSP’s manifesto indicates tourism is a priority, and that Nepal’s cultural identity in areas such as gastronomy will be strengthened.
Vibrant souvenir shops and cafes around Boudha Stupa. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
A more confronting stop awaits at Pashupatinath Temple. Today is Bala Chaturdashi, a Hindu festival where thousands of devotees gather to honour their dead ancestors. Vendors hauling foam mattresses do a lucrative trade as people set up for a night of vigil. This includes burning the bodies of recently deceased relatives on bamboo pyres in the Bagmati River, which flows into the sacred Ganges.
A woman at annual Hindu festival Bala Chaturdashi, in Kathmandu. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Wrapped in a shroud, the bodies are positioned with their heads facing north to the Himalayas where Lord Shiva resides. They’re covered with flowers and straw and set alight by male family members.
Hours later, the ashes are swept into the river where devotees will take a holy dip the next day. As much as Monica assures us it’s not voyeuristic to watch, I struggle to do so. “Here you see the reality of life because everyone ends up there,” she says, gesturing to the river.
Life unfiltered in the Terai region
Tharu woman and master weaver Parbati Chaudhary in Bhada Village. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
The reality of life needs processing time, which the western Terai region delivers in spades. The Terai is largely separated from India by the Karnali River and Bardiya National Park, where elephants, rhinos and the elusive Bengal tiger roam.
Once a nomadic tribe, the Indigenous Tharu people are now the largest ethnic group here. “They didn’t know their daily life was interesting for international travellers but they’re starting to understand now,” says CHN founder Shiva.
Take a Jeep safari through Bardiya National Park. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
We fly Buddha Air to Dhangadhi airport and drive five hours to stay in Tharu homes. The journey to Bhada village is a blur of roadside fruit stalls, traffic-stopping sacred cows and fields sown with wheat, rice, mustard, spinach, cauliflower and potatoes. Nepal’s agriculture feeds only Nepal.
Marigolds are an important part of Hindu rituals. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
“The only thing we export is young people,” says our guide Bikal. As the light dims and we plunge evermore rural, mysterious mounds of compacted hay – some house-sized – loom like the creatures from Where The Wild Things Are. Even our trusty driver gets flummoxed by a dirt road that abruptly ends and we find ourselves hurtling across a paddock.
On arrival, some are ferried to mud-walled cottages greened by gourd creepers, with thatched roofs and rustic-chic mosquito nets. Myself and two others are ushered to the home of corner store owner, mechanic and mushroom farmer Man Kumar Chilaruwa and his wife Rajkumari.
A warm welcome at a community homestay. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
They escort us to a bunker-esque back building with steel doors and a folding security gate, behind which is gleaming linoleum, dolphin-printed tiles and a shower cavity that must be gingerly stepped through to reach the toilet.
The ceiling lights emit a rainbow of colours (the bathroom light gets stuck in, frankly, a quite frightening red). We’re nevertheless touched that our hosts invested in all this bling when the average salary is around $275 a month.
In the coming days, we participate in Tharu traditions such as making moonshine, dancing, weaving straw handicrafts and gold-panning. We’re fed well with staples of rice, mustard greens, lentil pancakes, daal, curried chicken and tomato chutney served on antibacterial saal leaves.
Dig in. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Sonara community homestay president Indradevi Tharu tells us river snails are often served, and the boiled and pickled flesh of rats hunted in the rice fields. “Perhaps next time?” we say and all have a laugh.
The power of community homestays
Barda community homestay owners Parbati Chaudhary and Ram Krishni Devi Chaudhary. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
Immersing Western visitors in foreign cultural practices is not new. But with the Tharu, I never get that uneasy sensation that I’m being performed for. Despite being the only tourists, there’s no ‘othering’; just warm, composed and ultra-dignified welcomes. Like we’ve always been here.
“I love to have travellers in my village so I can see the world,” says local woman Parbati Chaudhary. “Why would I travel the world when the world comes to me?”
The graceful acceptance the Tharu offer, as well as the slow pace, works miracles on my frazzled nervous system. One day I even take a nap on a vacant homestay bed.
An authentic stay in the Sonara community. (Credit: Kate Hennessy)
Roosters strut and goats bray as we sit on the ground in al fresco kitchens, rolling rice flour into cylinders steamed to make dhikri (dumplings). When water is needed, we fetch it using a hand-operated pump as a family of ducks strolls by, side-eying us like curious neighbours.
Animal lovers will delight in Tharu villages. Kind and resourceful inventions are everywhere, such as snacking stations where two posts lean together, with leafy boughs dangling on rope for baby goats to forage from.
CHN’s CEO, Aayusha Prasain, nods knowingly when one in our group says she cried when she left her host, Shayam Chaudhary, in Bhada. Shayam’s 17-year-old son, Prashant, had translated, which deepened the connection.
“Community tourism turns travel into a relationship, not a transaction,” says Aayusha. “It places decision-making power in the hands of local communities, especially women and youth.” Since 2018, CHN has hosted more than 4000 travellers from 52 countries in 408 households, and estimates women’s participation has increased by 381 per cent.
Elephant watch. (Credit: Simon Urwin)
In the Bardiya community, where vexing human-animal conflict has been a balancing act for decades due to elephants raiding crops, long-time homestay operator Salik Ram Chaudhary says young people keep the older ones on their toes.
Gathering greens. (Credit: Bheem Thapa)
“We can’t keep homestays stagnant,” he says. “We have to upgrade our service and redefine our product or young people won’t see it as an attractive business. If we can keep evolving with this travelling trend we’re confident the youths will stay and continue it.”
Back in Kathmandu, Monica explains that after the deaths of young protestors in September, a determination had spread to not let their sacrifice be in vain. “We want to keep holding the government accountable,” she says. “We don’t know what situation we’re facing, but we’re ready to face it.”
Interested in Nepal but prefer to experience it in total comfort? Read our guide to luxury travel in Nepal.
