Robert Irwin on His Favorite Places in Australia, His Father’s Legacy, and Napping With Kangaroos

Robert Irwin spent three weeks leading up to his Dancing With the Stars debut far from the glitzy Hollywood dance floor. He was covered in mud in the Australian bush on Cape York Peninsula, sleeping on a tent floor surrounded by wildlife, and of course, catching crocodiles.  

“That’s the great part of getting to live here,” the 21-year-old Australian told Travel + Leisure. “It’s so easy to get out in the middle of nowhere and just forget everything. You feel like you’re part of something so much bigger than yourself.”

But for the conservationist, there’s a personal significance to the area—it was a place loved by his dad Steve Irwin, who died 19 years ago this month when he was just two years old. “It is where I feel his energy and his passion more than anywhere else,” said Irwin. The Steve Irwin Wildlife Reserve protects 35 different ecosystems across 330,000 acres. “It’s a real privilege to get to spend time there,” the proud son said ahead of the trip. “But then I leave straight from the crocodile research expedition—neck-deep in mud—and fly directly to Hollywood for Dancing with the Stars! It’s going to be a bit of a culture shock.”

While he claimed he may not have the dance skills, he’s excited to showcase the Aussie passion. “We definitely have that dancing culture, but we’re far less refined,” he said. “Every silly dance move probably came from us—my go-to was always the sprinkler!” 

And he’s got some winning shoes to fill, as his sister Bindi Irwin took home the Mirror Ball Trophy in 2015. “You could hear the screams of excitement from Australia when I told her I was going to do the show,” he said of his childhood goal to compete, having been there for every step of Bindi’s journey. “The first thing she said is ‘make it your own,’ which has stuck with me.” 

Carving his own path has been something Irwin has done all his life, despite “being on camera since I was literally about the size of a loaf of bread.” While very much following in his family’s footsteps as the zoo manager for Australia Zoo, he’s also put a focus on photography (his Instagram account is @robertirwinphotography), and travels to advocate for the Irwin nonprofit, Wildlife Warriors.

But he really veered his own way this July, taking his first solo trip in a four-wheel drive along the south coast of Queensland into New South Wales. “Traveling on your own brings this new dynamic,” Irwin said, admitting that “at first, it was a little bit daunting.” 

Soon, he found his footing, visiting beaches, surfing, skateboarding, and hiking solo. At one point, he hiked to a tucked-away beach and found no one there. “I remember going, you know what I’m going to do? Absolutely nothing,” he said. “I’m not going to go to my next stop. I’m just going to spend the whole day parked here at this beach, watching the world go by.”

Embracing the “freeing feeling,” he did have a small mishap when he stopped at Coffs Harbour’s The Jetty Pavilion for a salad. “A lot of lovely people wanted to say hi and have a picture,” which he was happy to indulge in. “But I left in a bit of a rush and totally forgot to pay!”

As honest as he is positive, Irwin turned back, only to find that word had gotten out and every media outlet in town was waiting to see if he’d come back to pay. “It was absolutely hilarious,” he said. “And I do have to shout out their salad, which was great!”

Despite the mini hiccup, the solo trip was a throwback to his childhood travels. “If there was the option and time to be able to road-trip somewhere instead of fly, we always took the opportunity,” he said.

When he was four, the family drove from Adelaide to Darwin, stopping in Uluru along the way. “It was just the most wonderful time in my life to get out into the Red Centre, where the dirt’s red in the desert—it gets in your nose, in your pockets, everywhere,” he said. “The sunsets are like nothing you’ve seen, like the saturation has been turned way up. It makes you feel like you’re at one with the natural world.”

And as he got older, he also spent time traveling with just Bindi. “It’s the coolest feeling when you start to grow up and do things on your own, you feel like you’re 10 feet tall,” Irwin said. “Having an older sibling was like I had a second mum. Bindi’s only six years older, but is very conscientious and a real caregiver. I could flex my independence, but I also had almost a parental figure being like, ‘Now you’ve got to brush your teeth!’” Still, he said the two always “have a lot of fun and rarely get on each other’s nerves.” 

While his relationship with Bindi has always been “close-knit,” he admitted he was “extremely jealous” when she got to film a documentary at the Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia, where he has yet to visit. “She was sending pictures of her casually chilling out next to a whale shark, and I was internally screaming,” he said. “That’s definitely the next cab off the rank for me!”

Nowadays, family trips include Bindi’s four-year-old daughter Grace, including a recent trip to Disneyland, where she was awestruck by Princess Tiana. “It is the best thing in the whole world, watching your niece do all the things you used to do as a kid,” Irwin said. “Grace has such an incredible energy about her—there is so much of dad’s genetics.”

Those Irwin genes do indeed run deep, as he reflects on his father’s legacy. “He’s the embodiment of passion, of living life to 100 percent,” the TV personality said. “If Australia were a person, it would be my dad. To love your wildlife, to be passionate, to have that spirit of mateship and camaraderie with everyone. He is just a superhero to me.” 

The young Irwin is no doubt his dad’s mini-me, long an unofficial spokesperson for his beloved home. Now he’s teamed up with Tourism Australia, hoping that more travelers will explore the “massive” continent. “People think of it as this little island nation that’s sort of just down, but it’s the same size as the lower 48 United States,” he said. 

The gateway cities of Sydney and Melbourne are the perfect hubs to ease into the Aussie way of life, experiencing both its coffee culture and city buzz, he said. But for Irwin, it’s all about getting out to the beaches in Sydney, where he always goes “straight into the surf.” He also recommends adrenaline seekers go on the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb. Over in Melbourne, it’s all about the “next-level” food and wine.

But Irwin says that “the real heart of Australia is when you get out into the bush, whether that’s into the Outback, up north into the rainforest, hitting up the beaches, or heading down south to somewhere like Tasmania, finding these little hidden gems, connecting with the locals—people, and wildlife.”

There’s no place more dear to him than the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, where he grew up inside one of its most coveted attractions, Australia Zoo, just five minutes from a volcanic mountain range and 15 minutes from the beach.

“I had every kid’s dream come true—I quite literally grew up in the middle of a zoo,” he said. “It’s hard for me to even call it a zoo, it’s like a resort for wildlife and hub for conservation.” Set on hundreds of acres, his favorite spot is the kangaroo paddocks, especially seeing “this amazing little relationship unfold” between young visitors and the “peaceful” animals. After hours, he often revels in “joining the roos for a nap.”

Irwin’s also proud of the “beautiful, sustainable, environmentally-focused luxury accommodation,” The Crocodile Hunter Lodge, which opened in 2022. In fact, chatting to us from the lodge, he marveled when a wild kangaroo jumped over to the window. “He’s watching the interview—that’s absolutely classic,” he said, taking a photo of the moment. “That’s the sign of a good zoo when animals are trying to get in!”

But overall for Irwin, there’s a sense of wonderment for all things Aussie. “Where I live is so much more than just home—it’s really where my heart beats from,” he said. “I’ve been lucky enough to travel to just about every corner of the planet. When you come back to Australia, you’re filled with this sense of warmth. There’s no other way to describe it.”