MELBOURNE · AUSTRALIA
Laneways, the wild coast, the long way south.
The Great Ocean Road and the Twelve Apostles, Yarra Valley cellar doors, the Phillip Island penguins, and a city of laneway coffee and hidden bars. Every good day in Melbourne, and every road out of it.
Only here
Three experiences that are pure Melbourne.
City walking tours and sightseeing loops exist everywhere. Standing under the Twelve Apostles, watching the penguins ride ashore at dusk, and getting lost in the laneways do not.
The wild coast
The Twelve Apostles
Limestone stacks standing offshore in the Southern Ocean, reached by one of the great coastal drives on earth. The road bends past surf breaks and rainforest before the cliffs open onto the Apostles, best caught in the low gold light of late afternoon. No other city has this two hours from its doorstep.
- 1 Great Ocean Road Small-Group Eco Tour from Melbourne
- 2 From Melbourne: Great Ocean Road, 12 Apostles, Wildlife Tour
- 3 Great Ocean Road Reverse Itinerary Boutique Tour – Max 11 Guests
After sunset on the sand
The Penguin Parade
Every evening at dusk the world’s largest colony of little penguins rides the surf ashore and waddles up the beach to their burrows, while you watch from the sand a few feet away. An hour and a half south of the city, and quite unlike anywhere else on the planet.
- 1 Penguin Parade, & Wildlife Encounters Eco Tour from Melbourne
- 2 From Melbourne: Penguin Parade, Koalas & Kangaroos
- 3 From Melbourne: Penguin Parade and Koalas Tour
Coffee, bars and street art
The Laneways
Melbourne keeps its best in the gaps between the streets: cobbled lanes stacked with espresso bars, hidden cocktail rooms behind unmarked doors, and walls repainted with new street art every week. Hosier Lane, Degraves, the Block Arcade — a city read best on foot, one laneway at a time.
- 1 Ultimate Melbourne Walking Tour: History, Laneways & Culture
- 2 Melbourne’s Living Laneway Scene: Local Bars and Their Stories
- 3 Original Melbourne Lanes and Arcades Walking Tour
The classic day out
The one almost everyone books first.
More Melbourne trips are built around this one day out than anything else on the list.
Where most people start
Melbourne's Most Popular Tours
The Great Ocean Road, the Yarra Valley, the Phillip Island penguins and the laneways. The days most travellers come to Melbourne for.
Where to begin
The trips a Melbourne week is built around.
The Great Ocean Road, the Yarra Valley, Phillip Island, the Dandenongs, the laneways and the Mornington Peninsula. The handful of days most trips are planned around, and the best way to do each.
The big day trip
How to do the Great Ocean Road.
It is a long day on the coast whichever way you run it, so the how matters as much as the if. Three ways to drive the road from Melbourne, depending on how you want to spend it.
Coffee & laneway dining
A city that takes its coffee seriously.
Melbourne turned coffee into a craft and eating out into a sport. Laneway espresso bars and single-origin roasters, the food stalls of Queen Victoria Market, the dumpling houses of Chinatown and long brunches in Fitzroy. The best of it is found down the lanes, not on the main street.
Read the guide: the best food tours in Melbourne →After dark
The city keeps going once the lights come on.
Melbourne saves some of its best for the evening. Rooftop bars looking out over the skyline, speakeasies behind unmarked laneway doors, a ghost tour through the bluestone of the Old Melbourne Gaol, and dinner cruises drifting past the lit-up towers on the Yarra.
See the evening experiences →The river
The city looks its best from the water.
The Yarra threads through the middle of Melbourne, past the boatsheds and the rowing crews, under Princes Bridge and along Southbank where the towers light up at dusk. A lunch or dinner cruise is the slow way to watch the skyline change colour as the day ends.
River cruises & boat trips →Yarra Valley day trip
Cool-climate wine country, an hour away.
An hour northeast of the city the hills fold into vineyards. The Yarra Valley’s cool climate makes some of the country’s finest pinot noir, chardonnay and sparkling, and a day here is built around cellar-door tastings, a long lunch over the rows, and a stop at the sparkling house where Australia learned to make it the French way.
- 1 Laid back, Yarra Valley Wine Tour: Wine, Cider, Gin, Beer + Choc
- 2 Melbourne: Yarra Valley Wine, Gin, Whisky and Chocolate Tour
- 3 Epic Yarra Valley Wine Tour + Lunch, Chocolate & Gin/Beer Option
Plan by distance
Pick how far you want to go today.
Melbourne is the hub. Stay in the city for a day on foot, push an hour out to the wine valleys and the ranges, or commit a full day to the coast and the wildlife.
In the city
Stay in town.Laneway coffee and a street-art crawl, the arcades and the rooftop bars, the MCG and a cruise on the river. Days you never leave the tram lines.
An hour out
An hour from the city.Yarra Valley cellar doors, the steam train through the Dandenong fern gullies, or the hot springs on the Mornington Peninsula. Out after breakfast, home for dinner.
A full day there and back
All the way to the coast.The Great Ocean Road and the Twelve Apostles, the Phillip Island penguins at dusk, or the sandstone peaks of the Grampians. The big days that need an early start.
At first light
Melbourne from a balloon at dawn.
Lift off as the sun comes up and the whole place tilts beneath you — the skyline, the river, the bay catching the first light — or drift over the vineyard rows of the Yarra Valley with the mist still in the gullies, a champagne breakfast waiting on landing. Melbourne is one of the few cities on earth where you can balloon over downtown.
See all 9 balloon flights →Meet the locals
Victoria comes with its own wildlife.
Penguins riding ashore at dusk, koalas asleep in the gums, kangaroos at the fence line and whales off the coast in winter. The animals you came to the other side of the world to see.
By place
The city, and the roads out of it.
Melbourne for the laneways and the river. The Great Ocean Road for the Twelve Apostles. The Yarra Valley for the cellar doors. Phillip Island for the penguins. The Dandenongs for the steam train. The Mornington Peninsula for the hot springs.
By activity
Pick what kind of day you want.
A wine tour if you want the cellar doors. A walking tour if you want the laneways. A cruise if you want the skyline from the water. A balloon if you want the city at dawn.
Plan it
Three days that cover the essentials.
First time in Melbourne? Here is how three days plays out without a wasted hour.
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