Bowen Queenslander near Horseshoe Bay

This 100 square-metre high-set Queenslander stands on a breezy block in Bowen, the mango-and-tomato town on the north Queensland coast between Airlie Beach and Townsville. The house is the archetype: timber frame lifted on stumps, VJ-lined walls, casement and louvre windows, a wraparound verandah on three sides and a fully usable space underneath for a car, a workshop and a hammock. Three bedrooms, one bathroom, a big central living room and a kitchen with an original servery to the verandah. Ceiling fans throughout, split-system air-conditioning in the main bedroom, and a tropical garden of mango, poinciana and frangipani.

Bowen's appeal is simple: it has the beaches of the Whitsundays without the Whitsundays' pricing. Airlie Beach is an hour south, and equivalent housing there costs two to three times as much. The town of roughly 10,000 people runs on horticulture, fishing, salt and tourism, which keeps it working year-round. Freehold title and straightforward Queensland conveyancing; foreign buyers require FIRB approval and pay the Queensland additional foreign acquirer duty. Insurance in North Queensland carries a cyclone loading, and it is worth confirming the roof tie-downs and any cyclone certification during building inspection.

Bowen has eight beaches, and Horseshoe Bay — six hundred metres away — is the famous one: a compact horseshoe of white sand between granite headlands with coral and reef fish snorkellable straight off the beach. Rose Bay and Murray Bay next door are quieter, with the same clear water and fringing coral. Queens Beach is the long, flat, walk-for-kilometres option, and Kings Beach is where you go at low tide for the rock pools. Flagstaff Hill lookout above town is a five-minute drive for a 360-degree view of the Coral Sea and, in season, humpbacks.

Everyday life is easy. Bowen has a Coles and a Woolworths, a hospital, medical and dental clinics, a state high school and primary schools, a cinema, a library, a marina and a hardware store. The Grand View Hotel — the oldest licensed hotel in North Queensland — sits on the waterfront, and there is a good seafood scene, plus the mango stalls and the roadside produce that made the town's name. The Sunday markets run on the foreshore in the dry season.

Getting here: Whitsunday Coast Airport at Proserpine is 70 minutes south with daily Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne flights; Townsville Airport is two and a half hours north. The Bruce Highway runs past town and Queensland Rail's Spirit of Queensland stops at Bowen on the Brisbane–Cairns line. Within town everything is a short drive or a flat bike ride.

For the price of a small apartment in a capital city you get a genuine Queenslander, tropical winters in the mid-twenties, and coral snorkelling in walking distance.