(image source: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn)
The title In a Sunburned Country is both clever and fitting to the book. Throughout the book, Australia is said to contain both popular tourist destinations and vast expanses of arid land. Despite the variance in topography and popularity among the regions of Australia, the title of the book is well suited because it serves to equally describe both regions.
Australia's status as a growing tourist attraction is presented in the appendix. After the 2000 Sydney Olympics, which Bryson claims to be among the greatest Olympic Games in recent history (SEE CLIP AT BOTTOM OF PAGE!), Australia's economy was heavily boosted after tourists suddenly discovered the continent. When picturing a typical tourist destination, sandy beaches, heavily developed areas, and (of course) sunburn. The title is suited for the developing regions of the country whose economy is becoming centered around tourism. As more tourists come to experience Australia's sites and beaches, the continent is actually becoming more and more covered with sunburned countries. In addition, while Bryson visited some of the Australian beaches, his own sunburn made him clearly stand out as a tourist on a foreign continent.
Despite Australia's growing status as a tourist destination, Australia's expanses of desert still cover a majority of the continent. A few chapters back, when Bryson and Allan were visiting a town called Alice Springs, Bryson heavily emphasized the isolation of the town in his detailed description:
"And so the Doughty Mr. Sherwin and I proceeded through the hot and inexhaustible desert. As we proceeded south from Daly Waters, the landscape became more sparsely vegetated. It began to feel eerily as if we had left planet earth. The soil took on a reddish glow, more Martian than terrestrial, and the sunlight seemed to double in intensity, as if generated by a nearer, larger sun" (247).
Not only is the land in this region of Australia completely arid, vacant, and desert-like, but it actually had a reddish glow, due to the type of soil that exists near Daly Waters. As if a sparsely vegetated desert land does not give enough of an allusion to to a scorching sun or sunburn, the land outside of Daly Waters was actually the color of severely sunburned skin. In this way, the land that does not experience a constant influx of tourists can also be included in the "sunburned" description. Obviously I would consider this title to be a perfect fit for this book, and I don't think that any other title could describe the book in a more clever or suitable way.
The 2000 Sydney Olympics opening ceremony (as discussed in the appendix):
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