Byron Bay is the most eastern point of mainland Australia and the NSW Tropical North, also known as the Northern Rivers Region, is one of Australia's most scenic and tranquil areas. The region has been a focal point for those seeking alternative lifestyles for many decades and has experienced tremendous growth recently with people seeking a sea-change from the cities.

This provides visitors with many self-healing opportunities from massage, yoga or meditation to spas, gourmet organic foods and produce and an esoteric variety of shopping and local arts and crafts including quality furniture and fine arts. See Danish artist Kim Phillipsen's Tribal Portraits.

The town centre has many excellent restaurants, healthy snack food shops, quirky book stores, local boutiques and some great entertainment venues with live music most nights often featuring international artists. The annual Byron Bay Blues Festival at Easter draws huge crowds.

Far North NSW has some of the best surf beaches in Australia. Byron is on a peninsula so at least one side of Cape Byron will have clean surf most days.

Breaks are a bit offshore so the inner waters are safer for swimming and body surfing or for children to body board. Byron Bay has many board hire and water sports hire outlets and if you have never tried surfing, there are surf lessons available daily.

On calm days there is interesting snorkeling with stingrays quite common. Deeper dive locations are accessible by boat or dive tours.

Tropical NSW has clean white beaches, beautiful forests and mountains and many large rivers and unique and friendly villages to explore and enjoy. Many have weekly markets.

To the north of Byron Bay towards the Queensland border is Tweed Heads and the Tweed River Valley. This area has great fishing and boating. Inland of Byron is Lismore and Nimbin, once a centre of the hippy scene, Nimbin is now a bit of a parody of itself with a Marijuana Museum but is still well worth a visit. Many of the locals are trying to promote the town as a place of natural healing and it is in a beautiful setting.

Mt Warning, near Murwillumbah, is in the largest Volcanic Caldera in Australia and is covered in temperate rainforest. The mountain is stunning with excellent views on clear days and the climb up is strenuous but only takes a couple of hours each way. It is best to start as early as possible.

Yamba and Angourie are at the mouth of the Clarence River about half way south of Byron towards Coffs Harbour. This is a considerably drier area dotted with beaches, bays and inlets and many small towns and is very picturesque.

Ballina is a fishing town and also serves as a service centre for the coastal region with many larger chain store outlets. It has some excellent value seafood retailers.

As the region is sub-tropical there are many farm stores with all sorts of produce from bananas, pineapples, tea plantations and macadamias to cheeses and organic specialist meats.