Happiness is a hard thing to measure. While the sun and sand light up my day, the snow and slopes might do the trick for another. If you’re anything like me though, it’ll come as no surprise that the Gold Coast – the city famous for year-round sunshine and surfing – was just named Australia’s happiest holiday destination.
We have to admit, the methodology for this study is a little out of the ordinary. The tech-savvy team at InsuranceandGo used facial recognition software to analyse the expressions of visitors in 100 popular holiday spots around the world. They collected more than 3,000 pictures from famous tourist attractions in each location, analysed the facial expressions and assigned each destination an average ‘smile score’.
The Gold Coast tallied more smiles on the dial than any other Aussie city, ranking as the fifth happiest holiday destination worldwide. You only need to lock eyes with the Goldy’s beautiful, long sandy beaches to understand why it’s such a joyous holiday spot.
While the study might raise eyebrows, the Gold Coast wins my vote as the happiest place for a getaway in Australia. I was lucky enough to spend a weekend there earlier this year and was on a high from the get-go.
My calendar told me it was the first week of winter, but the bright blue skies and balmy temperatures told a different tale. Yes, I’d traded a drizzly 13-degree day in Sydney for a gorgeous 24-degree day on the Gold Coast. And it wasn’t just a fluke – this city basks in around 300 days of sunshine each year.
You can bet I made the most of the next three days soaking up the warm weather – whether watching the sunset over the sparkling water, relaxing on the soft sand or running along the perfectly flat Oceanway track stretching from The Spit to Point Danger. Whoever said you can’t buy happiness was onto something.
The warm weather means locals linger later into the night, and considering the Gold Coast has (in my opinion) one of Australia’s most underrated food and drink scenes, they’ve got plenty of reasons to. Check out my top picks in the area here.
Leaving the Gold Coast felt like saying goodbye to a long-time friend. I only wish I’d had an extra day to hit up one of the theme parks. Then again, my happiness might have been overtaken by a thrill-induced fear.
You can find out which other countries made the list of the world’s 25 happiest holiday hotspots here. A special shout out to Byron Bay, which ranked 23rd and Adelaide, which followed at 24th.
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