Kangaroo Island Wilderness Trail named top new destination by Lonely Planet

The Kangaroo Island Wilderness Trail has been listed as one of the world’s top new travel destinations in 2017 by leading international travel authority, Lonely Planet.

The leading global one guidebook publisher and global authority on travel, has listed the Wilderness Trail as number three on its 2017 new destination list, highlighting the trail to millions of potential travellers around the world.

In October 2016 Lonely Planet named South Australia as one of the top five must-see regions for 2017, describing the state as ‘delicious feast suitable to anyone’s taste’.

This follows Lonely Planet’s endorsement of Adelaide in 2014 when the city was ranked as one of the Top 10 Cities in the world to visit.

The $5.8 million Wilderness Trail was designed to strengthen Kangaroo Island’s reputation as an international tourist destination.

Hundreds have already booked to walk the five-day, four-night adventure which stretches for 61 kilometres along the south-west coast of the Island through Flinders Chase National Park and finishing at the stunning Kelly Hill Caves.

The Wilderness Trail is a key pillar of the South Australian Government’s nature-based tourism strategy ‘ Nature Like Nowhere Else’.

Nature-based trips account for $1.1 billion in expenditure in South Australia each year, and the Strategy aims to inject $350 million a year into the economy and create 1,000 new jobs by 2020.

Opened in October last year, the Wilderness Trail offers hikers the opportunity to see rare and diverse wildlife, pristine bushland, inspiring geological formations and sweeping coastal views.

The listing is seen as providing the trail with a major publicity boost with authorities expecting that it will soon rival other popular walks such as New Zealand’s Milford Track and the Overland Track in Tasmania.

The Island’s tourism industry is worth around $54 million a year and employs 560 people. The Trail is expected to boost those figures by around $4.4 million a year by 2020 and provide up to 30 ongoing jobs for Kangaroo Islanders, as well as 20 on the mainland.

For more information visit www.kangarooislandwildernesstrail.sa.gov.au 

Images: Walkers on the newly opened Kangaroo Island Wilderness Trail (top and middle) and a map of the trail (below)

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