Rainbow Beach

Chill surf town

Why Rainbow Beach

• Primary launch point for Fraser Island (K'gari) 4WD tours and hire
• Carlo Sandblow — stunning sand blow and coastal lookout, 30-minute walk from town
• The famous rainbow-coloured sand cliffs at Double Island Point

Rainbow Beach is a small coastal town on Queensland's Cooloola Coast, best known as the southern access point for Fraser Island (K'gari) — the world's largest sand island and a UNESCO World Heritage site. But Rainbow Beach is more than a ferry staging post. The town sits beside spectacular multicoloured sand cliffs (the "rainbow" in the name), faces Australia's longest unpatrolled surf beach, and has developed a genuinely good backpacker scene built around 4WD adventures, surf lessons, and the Fraser Island experience. Most travellers stop for one night, realise the beach town is actually excellent, and extend to two or three. The crowd skews young and social — this is a place where hostel common rooms fill up with people swapping Fraser Island stories — and the pace is slow enough to properly decompress after the Gold Coast or Brisbane.