What are the best things to do in Melbourne, Australia?

The best things to do in Melbourne, Australia, include laneway tours, barefoot bowls in St Kilda, the Eureka Tower Skydeck and Federation Square’s museums.

Not too long ago, Melbourne was obsessed with comparing itself to Sydney. But in recent years, the attitude has changed. It’s no longer the little brother with a chip on the shoulder – Melbourne is a genuine world class city on the Yarra and Maribyrnong Rivers.

Once full of bins and seediness, Melbourne’s laneways now brim with semi-disguised bars, hot restaurants and world class street art. Throw in beaches, several cultural attractions, and an excellent, multicultural dining scene, and Melbourne is a destination in its own right.

Things to do in Melbourne: Federation Square

Several museums and cultural centres congregate in Federation Square. This is Melbourne’s great meeting place of weird-looking buildings and people lounging on deckchairs. But the Koorie Heritage Trust delves into what was here before. Indigenous art, shields and firesticks combine with oral histories. These cover everything from creation beings to life in prison.

Amongst Federation Square’s jarringly weird buildings, giant chess sets and art installations, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image deep dives into all things TV and cinema. Amongst touchscreens tracing the history of animation, and Cate Blanchett discussing the art of acting, you can park yourself down and play hot new games from up-and-coming Aussie developers.

Also in Fed Square, the National Gallery of Victoria’s Ian Potter Centre is a fine intro to Australian art.

You can walk from Federation Square to Melbourne Park, where the Australian Open tennis tournament is played, through riverside park Birrarung Marr. The Queen Victoria Gardens and National Gallery of Victoria are nearby, too.

Best museums in Melbourne

Elsewhere, Melbourne’s cultural attractions include the Melbourne Museum. This includes a mind-boggling collection of stuffed animals, including the extinct thylacine and pig-footed bandicoot. There are also skeletons of giant marsupials that once roamed Oz. Also expect time-lapse maps of how Melbourne has grown and 3D grids showing how Victoria’s indigenous people are part of 11 separate language families. The Melbourne Museum is fantastically varied, with genuine “woah!” exhibits coming thick and fast.

The home-made armour of 19th century outlaw Ned Kelly draws people into the Old Melbourne Gaol. But it’s the grim cells and tales of bloodythirsty colonial era justice that ramp up the “rather them than me” factor.

Another historic attraction is Cooks’ Cottage in Fitzroy Gardens, which has a small museum about Lt James Cook. The cottage was transported brick by brick from the UK, despite Cook never having lived there.

But if you’ve time for just one museum in Melbourne, the Immigration Museum tells Australia’s story best. The staggeringly racist dictation test raises a gulp. Would be migrants were required to pass a test in an often vindictively-selected European language until 1958. But there are many more gulps to come. Video screens blaze stories of the people from around the world who came to call Australia home.

More Melbourne attractions

For great views of the city and surrounds, the Eureka Tower’s Skydeck is worth a visit. It’s 297 metres up, and also includes the Edge – a glass box you can step into, and look directly down. It’s not for those with a nervous disposition.

Just outside the CBD, the Melbourne Cricket Ground is enormous. Big games – both in cricket and Aussie Rules Football – pull in up to 100,000 people. You can stroll on the hallowed turf via one of the behind-the-scenes tours. These also delve in the media centre and private members’ areas.

By the Yarra River, you can also try a shark dive at the Melbourne Aquarium.

Things to do in Melbourne: Best tours

If it’s tours you’re after, there are several exploring the city. The $99, three hour lanes and arcades tour from Hidden Secrets is a good starting place. This Melbourne laneways tour is a fine way of digging out the top finds in the CBF. Hosier Lane is the best known street art spot, but quieter AC/DC Lane  and Duckboard Place have higher quality works. The tour also heads inside fab art deco buildings you’d otherwise saunter straight past.

Melbourne is super walkable, but a bike-based orientation tour crams more in. The $120, four hour tour with Rentabike includes lunch. On the way, it spills secrets on the tower coated with gold, a bookshop with over 40,000 cookbooks and a barber’s shop that hands out free beer. Top laneways, hip hoods and the tale of how Melbourne was nearly called Batmania are ticked off, too.

There are also plenty of Melbourne outdoor activities. Kayak Melbourne runs evocative $99 moonlight kayaking tours along the Yarra River from the skyscrapers of the Docklands. These Melbourne kayaking tours take in the city and the flame towers shooting up outside the Crown Casino on South Bank.

Less energetic ways to explore the Yarra include the Spirit of Melbourne dinner cruise. You can also take in the city from above on Global Ballooning‘s hot air balloon tour.

Neighbours fans might want to visit the street where the Australian soap is filmed. Ramsay Street is Pin Oak Court in the Vermont South suburb. Tram 75 heading east from Flinders Street station opposite Federation Square goes close. For those not wanting the DIY method, the $95 Official Neighbours Tour heads out to the fictional Erinsborough, taking in Pin Oak Court and the studio backlot.

Fitzroy and Chapel Street

Outside the Free Tram Zone to the north-east of the city centre, grungy Fitzroy heaves with handsome Victorian buildings and veggie restaurants. Stroll down Brunswick Street and you’ll find global magpie dining, defiantly niche vintage clothing shops, couch style multi-coloured ceramic benches and rejuvenated old pubs such as the live music-obsessed Evelyn. There’s also Naked For Satan, arguably Melbourne’s finest rooftop bar, although the Richmond Club Hotel in Richmond gives it a run for its money.

Chapel Street, south-east of the centre, runs through various flavours of Melbourne cool. The northern end in South Yarra is heavy on chic European fashion and higher end Aussie designers. In the middle, Prahran Market offers top drawer coffee and an overwhelming barrage of specialist food stalls. The edgier southern end in Windsor does clubwear, hip bars and, on Artists Lane, serious street art.

South of Melbourne CBD and St Kilda

The South Melbourne Market has plenty of heart, great delis and some fabulous murals to admire. There’s a mix of stalls such as Agathé Patisserie and restaurants like the hawker-style Bambu.

For an Indigenous perspective, take an Aboriginal heritage walk through the Royal Botanic Gardens. The iced tea’s made with lemon wattle leaves, the map marked with Australia’s native language boundaries is pulled out and guest learn about traditional uses for plants. Melaleuca bark’s good for painting on, bracken resin clears up ant bites, mat rushes make great eel traps. And so on.

Further south in beachside St Kilda, it’s time to go for a swim. There’s the beach, of course, but there’s also the showy heated, saltwater, Moorish palace-style St Kilda Sea Baths. It’s inside a complex full of rooftop bars and cruisy restaurants. The KR SUP Centre inside offers $49 stand-up paddleboarding lessons.

Elsewhere in St Kilda are the Luna Park amusement park and notorious cake shops of Acland Street. But near Albert Park, lawn bowls has developed an unexpectedly cool cachet – largely because it’s something you can play in the sun with friends, drinking beer. The St Kilda Sports Club is the top venue in Melbourne for barefoot bowls. That said, you can also play at the City of Melbourne Bowls Club in lush, green Flagstaff Gardens. There, you can also bring in a picnic from the neighbouring Queen Victoria Market.

At Albert Park, you can also walk the Australian Formula One Grand Prix circuit. The 5.3km track is on public roads and heads past the Albert Park driving range. Fancy cycling instead? The Just Pedal bike shop opposite the park offers 24 hour bike hire for $35.

South-east Melbourne

If you like your beach suburbs a bit quieter, head further south on the train from Flinders Street Station to Sandringham Beach (home of Sandringham Yacht Club) or Mordialloc Beach. There are several beaches along Port Phillip Bay, although you’ll find better golf courses and parks inland throughout the sprawling south-western suburbs. Heatherton hosts the Kingston Heath Golf Club and Capital Golf Course. It’s also just north of Moorabbin Airport, where scenic Melbourne helicopter flights depart from. Even further south, the Cranbourne Botanical Gardens are a great place to learn about Australian plants and ecosystems.

You can also take a street food tour of Dandenong Market, which is famous for the number of nationalities represented on the stalls.

Using Melbourne as a base

There are several excellent day trips from Melbourne. These include the Portarlington ferry to the Bellarine Peninsula, Organ Pipes National Park near Taylors Lakes, the Lerderderg State Park, Phillip Island, the Mornington Peninsula and Torquay. The latter is at the start of the Great Ocean Road, which is better tackled over a few days than as a day tour. Stay overnight in Victorian towns such as Lorne, Port Campbell and Warrnambool.

To the north-east of the city is the Yarra Valley wine region. Get a train to Lilydale Station, hire a bike from Yarra Valley Cycles and visit wineries such as Yering Station. Alternatively, take a Yarra Valley wine tour from Melbourne. Kinglake National Park is also easily reached as a day trip.

Other destinations worth visiting in regional Victoria include paddlesteamer cruise capital Echuca, Ned Kelly heritage town Beechworth and the wildlife-packed Grampians region.

Melbourne accommodation

There are hundreds of hotels and apartments in Melbourne. But Melbourne hotels with a pool include the Intercontinental Rialto on Collins Street, the family-friendly Novotel Melbourne on Collins and the apartment-style Mantra on Russell.