Here in Melbourne, we're lucky enough to have some pretty epic spots to see the sunset (if you haven't sat on St Kilda Pier with some fish and chips and watched the sun slowly fade away, you can't call yourself a true Melburnian). But even we reckon that when it comes to gorgeous sunset locations, Uluru in the Northern Territory is hard to top. And it seems everyone else agrees.
In a recent survey collected by the folks over at Bounce, Uluru has been ranked the best place in the whole world to see the sunset – which is a pretty big deal, given how many places there are to see the sunset worldwide (read: infinite).
After examining things like light pollution levels, expert travel recommendations and Instagram data (yes, perhaps not the most factually sound – but still, there are a lot of folks on there), Bounce have come through with a list of the world’s ten best sunset destinations – and Uluru has been ranked number one.
To most Australians, it’s probably no real surprise that Uluru has taken out gold for being the best sunset-watching location on Earth. Our nation’s real and proverbial heart, this mammoth crimson rock in Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is steeped in ancient stories, sacred meaning and eons of powerful connections that can be felt just as strongly today. Watching the sunset there (for all those that luckily have) is a transcendent experience.
Bearing witness to the colossal rock turn countless shades of deep orange, red, pink, purple and blue throughout the duration of the sun’s descent is truly mind-boggling, and we aren’t surprised that this very special place has been ranked number one when it comes to sunset travel destinations.
Using Bounce’s metrics, Uluru scored a hefty 9.3 out of 10 for its extremely low levels of light pollution (0.973 μcd/m2), its over 30,000 ‘sunset’ mentions on Instagram, and for having the highest volume of internet travel recommendations on the list.
The Maldives came second with a score of 9.7, followed by Haleakalā (also known as the East Maui Volcano) with a score of 8.86.
The full ranked list is:
- Uluru, Australia
- Maldives, Maldives
- Haleakalā, United States
- Santorini, Greece
- Angkor Wat, Cambodia
- Grand Canyon, United States
- Bali, Indonesia
- Serengeti, Tanzania
- Boracay, Philippines
- Key West, Florida
Australia. We've got it going on.