Why Byron Bay?
Byron Bay is an hour and a half’s drive from my house on the Gold Coast, and a world away in terms of vibes.
If you’ve never been, Byron sits at the most easterly point of mainland Australia, on Bundjalung Country, and it has spent the past few decades trying to be several towns at once. Surfers and backpackers. Hippies and healers. Wellness founders, a lot of linen, and smoothies priced like a small investment. When Netflix announced a reality show called Byron Baes in 2021, locals paddled out into the bay in protest. Safe to say, Byron has strong opinions about what Byron is.
I have my own complicated history with it. Byron is the town where I got married.
So you can imagine there was a level of spiritual cleansing required. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life driving past a town I loved and quietly flinching.
Places hold on to things, and Byron was holding on to a version of me I no longer am.
So I went back alone, determined to give it a new storyline: my single-gal, indulgent getaway oasis.
Where I stayed
The Bonobo by Rae’s, three nights, $2,193.
I’d been dying to stay at this brutalist jungle escape ever since it landed on my Instagram feed. It comes from the family behind Rae’s on Wategos, and Brisbane architects Richards & Spence built it on Jonson Street, on the site of a long-neglected backpackers. A backpackers turned luxury hotel is, admittedly, the whole story of modern Byron in one building.
I love the hard lines set against the lush gardens. Apparently the locals disagree, and think it’s not very Byron at all.
Maybe from the outside. But when you’re in there, it’s stunning. Especially at night, when dusk settles and the lights glow against the greenery.
Table for one (or, room service)
This is crazy, but I desperately needed the break, so I stayed in.
Room service daily. Oysters on my balcony. Cocktails sent upstairs. Three nights of room service and snacks came to $270.
If I hadn’t been to Byron a hundred times, I’d be ashamed. This time, I was not.
There’s a version of solo travel that’s all itineraries, where you prove you can do everything alone.
This was the other version. Nobody needed anything from me for three days, and that was the whole plan.
The one exception: I splurged on taking a client to lunch at Rae’s on Wategos ($420), the whitewashed, Mediterranean-style icon perched above one of the prettiest beaches in the country. Very indulgent, which is probably why I kept everything else so low-key.
More on eating alone (and actually enjoying it) in Table for one.
What I did
A sunrise horse ride with Zephyr Horses: $359.97.
Zephyr runs small-group rides through sub-tropical woodland and out onto the beach. I highly recommend jumping on a horse as a hack for ‘switching timelines’ when things have gotten a bit stale.
It’s very hard to feel stuck in an old chapter when you’re on a horse on the beach at dawn.
If you only do one thing
The horse ride. Book the sunrise slot, set the alarm, and go.
The nerves
By trip three, being alone didn’t scare me at all. Going back to the town where I got married did, a little.
But I drove home with a new version of Byron: concrete glowing at dusk, oysters on a balcony, a horse at sunrise. The wedding is still part of the town’s history, and mine. It’s no longer the only chapter.
What it actually cost
Three nights, driving down from the Gold Coast, so no flights (petrol not included).
| The Bonobo by Rae’s, three nights | $2,193.00 |
| Room service and snacks | $270.00 |
| Lunch at Rae’s on Wategos (with a client) | $420.00 |
| Zephyr Horses sunrise ride | $359.97 |
| Total | $3,242.97 |
Insane that this was most expensive trip of the series so far, and the one where I left the hotel the least. But I did stay an extra night than the others so I stand by it.
Prices are what I paid at the time, so check before you book.
What I packed
Everything I take on a solo trip lives in The Solo Travel Kit.
Watch the series
xox Meghan
