I am a war historian - here are the 10 battlefields every Australian should visit

My favourite battlefield in the world is the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea. While it may seem strange to have a favourite battlefield (let alone a top 10), battlefield tourism is older than both modern warfare and the idea of a family holiday.

It started with the pilgrimages that followed ancient and medieval wars, when veterans and widows, the pious and the curious would make their way to repent or pray at monuments such as Battle Abbey near Hastings (my fifth favourite battlefield) in England.

Today the World War I battlefields of Flanders and Gallipoli continue to draw thousands of Australian pilgrims into journeys to honour and remember an Anzac ancestor.

But I've been on a few battlefield tours, and I've noticed that some family members are less interested than others, and even the hardiest of taphophiles (look it up: I had to) sometimes wearies of the endless tombstones.

So for more reluctant travellers, I've offered something less military to do near each of my top 10 battlefields...

The Demilitarised Zone is a 250-kilometre long, four-kilometre-wide strip of land that divides North and South Korea. Despite its name, the DMZ is actually one of the most militarised locations in the world, with amassed armies on both sides ready to swarm across the border as soon as the enemy starts World War III.

During the 1950-1953 Korean War, the area that was to become the DMZ was the site of a succession of oddly named battles, from Pork Chop Hill to Old Baldy. The Korean Armistice Agreement led to the creation of the Joint Security Area at the former site of the village of Panmunjom, which is best visited via the fascinating tour offered by the United Services Organisation and led by a serving US soldier.

During the 1960s the DMZ saw ambushes, raids and an axe murder by North Korean soldiers, but no return to full-scale fighting.

The frozen conflict is best symbolised by the elite South Korean soldiers frozen in threatening taekwondo poses and facing their counterparts in the North. They are twice as unflappable as the Grenadier Guards at Buckingham Palace and it's just as tempting (but considerably more inadvisable) to try to make them laugh.

But if you don't want to go there: Stay behind about 50 kilometres away in Seoul, the world's newest and least likely pop culture capital. Go shopping south of the river and get Gangnam style in the Coex Mall, and visit the incredible Bongeunsa Temple nearby.

The defeat of Nazi Germany and the liberation of occupied Europe began with the D-Day landings on June 6, 1944, when more than 156,000 British, US and Canadian troops stormed five beaches in Normandy in Northern France. They left behind the wreckage of two giant, floating "Mulberry harbours" that were used to supply the advancing armies.

But if you don't fancy touring the absorbing D-Day Museum at Arromanches, as a holiday destination, the Normandy Beaches have the obvious advantage of being beaches rather than cemeteries. They are very popular with British tourists, and one of the better places in France to buy fish and chips. You could sit on the sand or go swimming in the sea and never think about the war - except when trying to mentally account for the Mulberry harbours.

Anzac Day was born out of the military disaster at Gallipoli, where British and Commonwealth armies hoping to help conquer Istanbul ended up instead spending a horrific eight months under enemy fire on the small and impossibly crowded beachhead in the Dardanelles. The first troops arrived on April 25, 1915, and the bodies of many remain buried in Turkish soil.

A monument at Anzac Cove bears the Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk's famous promise that there would be "no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours" - which is a nice sentiment, although there's no evidence at all that Ataturk actually said it.

The ferry ride to Gallipoli from Canakkale offers humbling views of the peninsula, the "Dur Yolcu" Memorial to its Turkish defenders, and the 15th-century Kilitbahir Castle.

Every couple of years, backpackers feed the manufactured outrage of talkback-radio windbags by apparently partying on the beach at the cove - as if the first Anzacs didn't drink and smoke and sing and sleep in the sand when they returned to the killing grounds to remember their mates.

So, go for your life.

But if you'd rather stay close to your hotel: Enjoy the cafes on the waterfront in the lively and historic student city of Canakkale. And pay lip service to the idea of war tourism by casually glancing at the replica of the Trojan Horse (actually a prop from the Brad Pitt movie, Troy) as you pass on your stroll along the esplanade.

The bloody and protracted Battle of Guadalcanal, in which the Allies attacked Japanese occupation forces in the Solomon Islands, is barely remembered in Australia, even though it took place on our doorstep.

The Vilu Military Museum in Guadalcanal, about 30 kilometres from Honiara, actually looks like a battlefield. It's an open-air assemblage of US and Japanese war planes, armour and artillery left behind after the Guadalcanal campaign.

But if you'd prefer to visit a beautiful nearby island: Do yourself a favour and take a vacation on Uepi Island in the Solomons' Western Province. You will never experience better snorkelling anywhere. Ever.

The keys to a great battlefield include the presence of both a commanding vantage point and a dramatic monument. The battlefield at Waterloo in Belgium has the 45-metre-tall Lion's Mound, which both looks out over the combat zone and has a 28-tonne cast-iron statue of a lion on top.

About 12,000 men lost their lives at Waterloo on June 18, 1815, and the bodies of the dead were looted not only for their possessions but for their very bones, which were ground into char to add white food-colouring to otherwise unappetising-looking brown sugar.

If that sounds unappetising to you: Stay behind in the Belgian capital of Brussels, only 30 minutes' train ride away. Eat chocolate in the Grand-Place and drink some of the best beer in the world.

The battlefield at the town of Battle near Hastings may not actually be the site of the 1066 Battle of Hastings - in 10 centuries since the clash between Norman and Saxon armies, not a single battle-related artefact has been found in Battle (or anywhere else in the area) - but the grounds of Battle Abbey have certainly been landscaped with battlefield tourism in mind.

The abbey was built on the order of William the Conqueror as William's penance for the blood shed during the Norman invasion of England, and the monks came to claim that the high altar was the spot where the Saxon King Harold fell (mythically, with an arrow in his eye).

The haunting ruins of the abbey house are an absorbing museum, and tourists can walk the adjacent alleged battlefield. In a spot where the Saxons might have defended a mighty shield wall (but almost certainly didn't), there is a small row of large and colourful shields. At a place where Norman archers might more likely have drawn back their bowstrings, there is quite a large arrow.

All along the perimeter of the field stand rugged, life-sized, hand-carved timber figures. It would be tempting to ask them directions, if they weren't waving swords and axes.

Or you could just walk around Battle, a lovely, small, historic English town, which grew up to service the abbey.

The Battle of Fromelles in 1916 was an Australian and British military disaster that claimed the lives of about 2500 Commonwealth troops (including perhaps 1950 Australians) in just 14 hours.

But if bloodbaths aren't really your thing: Next year, Mat McLachlan Battlefield Tours introduces a portfolio of military-history river cruises in partnership with AmaWaterways. These could prove to be a gamechanger for mixed-interest couples, as they will allow one person to stay on board the ship - or enjoy food and wine tastings or cultural excursions - while their partner walks in the boot prints of soldiers.

All excursions for both itineraries are included in the single fare, so passengers can mix and match, and even choose on the day whether they feel like war, wine or water. Various cruises will take passengers to World War I battlefields, the Normandy beaches and Waterloo.

We may not yet know the full story of the Battle of Long Tan, where 19 Australians and perhaps 250 Vietnamese were killed in an apparent attempt to overrun the 1st Australian Task Force HQ at Nui Dat. The commonly held picture of the fighting on August 18, 1966, is probably closer to the Bayeux Tapestry's portrayal of the Battle of Hastings - semi-mythical and embroidered from the victor's point of view.

The Battle of Long Tan was fought in a rubber plantation in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province. The plantation is still cultivated. Three years after the battle, 6RAR erected a concrete cross to remember the dead, which for many years was kept at a local museum but is now in the collection of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The cross that stands in the rubber fields today is a replica. It's sometimes said that the Vietnamese allowed the Australians a memorial because they respected them as soldiers - but, in fact, the Vietnamese prefer to pretend that Australians were never there.

But if that doesn't appeal: Enjoy Ho Chi Minh City. Stay 90 kilometres from Long Tan at the centre of the Vietnamese capital in a hotel that was once filled with diplomats, war correspondents and spies. Try the Continental, where Graham Greene wrote his classic novel, The Quiet American; or the Caravelle opposite the Opera House, where journos once drank with spooks at the Saigon Saigon rooftop bar.

While oddly motivated people dress up as soldiers and nurses and reenact history's biggest land battles all over the world, there are far fewer opportunities to witness a dramatisation of an air raid.

But every year on February 19, active ADF personnel man anti-aircraft guns and pilot fighter planes to re-create the atmosphere and action of the Battle of Darwin, when two Japanese bombing raids claimed the lives of an estimated 250-300 Australian servicepeople and civilians.

If bombing's not your thing: I'm a sucker for a reptile tour, and the NT loves its crocs. Try the Spectacular Jumping Crocodile Cruise on the Adelaide River.

Dr Mark Dapin is a war historian whose books include Lest: Australian War Myths (Simon & Schuster) and Australia's Vietnam: Myth vs History (UNSW Press)