Luxury travel with Salter Brothers Hospitality
Coolcations: Why Everyone’s Swapping Sunburn for Stargazing This Winter
Move over, tropical getaways. It’s time to embrace the frost, with wine, robes, and roaring fireplaces.
Once upon a time, a winter holiday meant one of two things:
- Escaping the cold entirely (usually to Bali), or
- Crying in thermals at a second-rate ski lodge while someone named Geoff lost a ski and his dignity.
But lately, travellers are embracing a different kind of seasonal escape, one that involves fewer sunburnt shoulders and more misty mornings, decadent slow days, and fireplaces with the kind of crackle that makes you feel instantly more poetic. This is the age of the Coolcation.
Salter Brothers Hospitality (SBH) has jumped on the trend with both booted feet, offering Winter Coolcation Packages across some of Australia’s most breathtaking wintry destinations in New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia. Think boutique accommodation, fireside drinks, and a curated stargazing guide, all designed to make winter feel less like a survival task and more like an event worth celebrating.
Coolcationing Defined: Luxury accommodation in Winter
SBH’s Coolcation approach isn’t about roughing it. There’s not a damp sleeping bag or lukewarm stew in sight. Instead, it’s about luxury with a winter wardrobe: charming lodges, dreamy suites, oversized soaking tubs and steaming cups of something hot and healing. Guests are encouraged to lean into the slower pace, relish the early sunsets, and, crucially, never be more than three metres away from a wine list.
The winter packages include overnight accommodation for two, breakfast, a fireside or in-room beverage experience, and a stargazing guide for celestial escapism (without the risk of your phone sliding into the campfire).
The Line-Up: Chilled Destinations, Warm Hearts
From Queensland to the Blue Mountains and the Barossa, SBH’s Coolcation collection reads like a who’s who of cozy glamour.
Luxury accommodation in Queensland
Queensland Highlights
It may be the Sunshine State, but even Queensland knows how to turn down the thermostat when necessary.
- Spicers Tamarind Retreat in Maleny (from $569) offers the kind of rainforest immersion where guests can meditate, melt into a massage, or simply stare at the steam rising from their hot tub like mystics.
- For those preferring hilltop romance, Spicers Clovelly Estate in Montville (from $499) provides classic French vibes with plenty of fireplaces and less chance of existential dread.
- And at the ultra-luxe Spicers Peak Lodge (Maryvale, from $1,799 all inclusive), guests can experience winter at altitude, with matching wine pairings, of course.
Luxury accommodation in NSW
New South Wales Retreats
If there were a Coolcation capital, NSW would probably claim it.
- Lilianfels Blue Mountains and Echoes (from $445 and $499 respectively) are practically sculpted from fog and rose-scented nostalgia.
- For vineyard views and starlit soaks, Spicers Vineyards Estate (Hunter Valley, from $499) delivers an experience so serene it might convert even the most hardened summer loyalist.
- Milton Park Country House in Bowral (from $279) offers a Downton Abbey meets Ugg Boots aesthetic, ideal for anyone who enjoys heritage glamour with heated towel rails.
- And for urbanites unwilling to go full country, Spicers Potts Point (from $389) offers winter indulgence right in the heart of Sydney, proof that you can be rugged-up and cosmopolitan at the same time.
Luxury accommodation in South Australia
South Australia’s Hero Stay
There’s only one SA listing, and it’s a showstopper.
- Kingsford The Barossa (from $759) is everything a winter getaway should be: old-world charm, firelit intimacy, and wine. So much wine. The sort of place where couples stare into the fire, get existential, then order room service cheese boards and everything feels better again.
For Whom the Coolcation Calls
The Coolcation trend is particularly appealing for:
- Couples needing a grown-up escape (with enough wine and silence to remind them why they like each other)
- Burnt-out professionals who’ve begun confusing their inbox with their personality
- Solo travellers who want to reset without joining a “transformative breathwork retreat” in Bali
- Anyone whose idea of adventure is getting into a hot tub while it’s actively raining
Booking Details
SBH’s Winter Coolcation packages are available from May 2 to June 30, 2025, for stays up until August 30, 2025. All packages include:
- Overnight accommodation for two
- Breakfast
- Fireside or in-room beverage experience
- Stargazing guide (because even existential crises are prettier with constellations)
Prices range from a modest $259 at Bannisters Port Stephens, to the grand indulgence of Spicers Sangoma Retreat at $1,799 per night (worth every cent, just for the look on your partner’s face when they see the view from the tub).
The Takeaway: Winter, Rebranded
In a post-pandemic world where “busy” is no longer a badge of honour and people are remembering how nice it is to just be still, Coolcations offer a rebranding of winter: not as something to survive, but something to savour.
And with SBH’s curated list of locations, there’s no reason winter can’t be your most stylish, slow-paced, and star-studded season yet.
Just don’t forget your scarf. Preferably cashmere. Or at least one that matches your wine.
