Perth

In February 1962, as John Glenn orbited the Earth, the people of Perth switched on their porch lights and streetlights so a lone astronaut could find them in the dark. He did, and the City of Light has been a fitting name ever since for one of the world’s most isolated cities, a place that has always had to work a little harder to be seen.

Visitors still tend to catch it in passing, a sunny waypoint between Rottnest’s quokkas and the wineries down south, and it’s easy to miss how much of the city’s story is written into the riverbank.

VoiceMap’s self-guided audio tours bring that story within reach. Start high on Kaarta Gar-up in Kings Park and descend Jacob’s Ladder to the Swan River, which the Whadjuk Noongar people held sacred for tens of thousands of years before a colony borrowed its name. Then take the train to Fremantle – Freo to locals – where Italian migrants turned South Terrace into the Cappuccino Strip and Bon Scott still holds court by the harbour.