Hobart

Hobart needs 3 days: the historic Salamanca Place market, with 19th-century stone warehouses by the harbor, on one, MONA (Museum of Old and New Art), controversial and provocative, reached by ferry, on another, and Mount Field National Park, with waterfalls and ancient temperate forests, on the third. December-March brings the southern summer, the best time. It's mid-priced for Australia, cheaper than Sydney or Melbourne. Its MONA, entirely funded by a professional gambler who made a fortune with mathematical betting systems, became the most visited private contemporary art museum in the southern hemisphere despite being in the smallest of Australia's state capitals.