Melbourne is the coffee. Victoria is the day trip.
Which Great Ocean Road tour turns back before the good bit. What a Yarra Valley day costs once lunch is in. Whether the penguins are worth getting home at midnight. Reviews of every tour you can book out of Melbourne.
A laneway morning, the coast road, a cellar door, the penguin beach.
The four bookings a first week in Melbourne is built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first morningUltimate Melbourne Walking Tour: History, Laneways & CultureArcades, laneways and the coffee that made the city, on foot before the shops fill up.
02The day westGreat Ocean Road Small-Group Eco Tour from MelbourneThirteen hours down the coast road for koalas, rainforest and the stacks at golden hour.
03The day eastLaid back, Yarra Valley Wine Tour: Wine, Cider, Gin, Beer + ChocFour cellar doors in the Yarra Valley with cider, gin and chocolate between them.
04The late onePenguin Parade, & Wildlife Encounters Eco Tour from MelbourneKoalas and kangaroos in daylight, then the penguins coming up Summerland Beach after dark.
West to the limestone, east to the vines, or south to the penguins.
Almost every Melbourne itinerary comes down to which direction the spare day goes. Three roads out of the city, what it costs to get on each one, and how long you are gone.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Great Ocean Road Small-Group Eco Tour from Melbourne
West: the Great Ocean RoadSurf coast, rainforest, then the Twelve Apostles at the end of the light.
East: the Yarra ValleyAn hour out. Sparkling before eleven, a long lunch, gin on the way home.
South: Phillip IslandKoalas and kangaroos by day, then the parade up the beach at dusk.
All 179 guided days out of Melbourne →
Melbourne is the base. Victoria starts an hour past the ring road.
The coast road west, the wine country east, an island of penguins south, a steam line into the mountain ash, hot springs on the peninsula and sandstone ranges four hours out. Six places to point a day at, and the best tour into each.
Melbourne hides its best rooms up stairs and down lanes.
Everything in the city →
The grid is only nine blocks, and almost nothing worth finding faces the street. Arcades cut through the middle of it, bars sit behind unmarked doors, and the coffee is taken seriously enough to argue about. Walk it first, then climb something.
Laneways, arcades and the coffee argument
Degraves and Centre Place for the coffee, the Block and Royal arcades for the tiled floors and the hat shops, Hosier Lane for the paint. A guide is worth it here because half the doors give nothing away from outside.
The MCG, walked from the rooms out
A hundred thousand seats, the players’ race and the dressing rooms, told by people who were in the building for the games that matter. Check the fixture before you book: match days close the tour.
Southbank from eighty-eight floors up
The whole grid, the bay and the You Yangs on a clear day, with the Dandenongs going blue behind it. Worth timing for the last hour of light rather than the middle of the afternoon.
Twelve Apostles, penguins, cellar doors: the days everyone takes.
Every tour we have reviewed →The tours more travellers book than anything else here, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Great Ocean Road Small-Group Eco Tour from Melbourne
Review of Melbourne’s 14-hour Great Ocean Road eco tour, with koalas, rainforest walks, the Twelve Apostles, guide tips, costs, and practical advice.
From · $106
Read our review →
2
Great Ocean Road, 12 Apostles, Wildlife Tour
from $94
3
Laid back, Yarra Valley Wine Tour: Wine, Cider, Gin, Beer + Choc
from $93
4
Great Ocean Road Reverse Itinerary Boutique Tour – Max 11 Guests
from $106
5
Penguin Parade, & Wildlife Encounters Eco Tour from Melbourne
from $118
6
Yarra Valley Wine, Gin, Whisky and Chocolate Tour
from $93
7
Great Ocean Road Tour w/ Deluxe Minibus & Top-Rated Guide
from $105
8
Melbourne Great Ocean Rd Reverse Tour London Bridge Wildlife
from $46
The Yarra Valley is an hour out and pours before eleven.
Sparkling houses on the flats, pinot on the hill slopes, a gin still in a shed and a chocolaterie the kids negotiate for. Nobody drives themselves back, which is the whole reason these days come with a bus.
Melbourne drinks well before it eats, and it eats late.
Queen Victoria Market at opening, a valley cellar door by noon, a still in a Brunswick shed, and a room upstairs behind a door with nothing written on it. Booked, these run together into one very good day.
A tram-stop walk or thirteen hours on the coast road: the Melbourne price range.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. Plenty of the best days here come in under the price of dinner at Southbank.
Laneway walks, ticketed entries, the steam train and the river cruises.
The full-day standards: the coast road, the valley cellar doors, Phillip Island at dusk.
Small-group coast tours, helicopters, dawn balloons and private drivers.
- 1Puffing Billy & Healesville Sanctuary Scenic Tourfrom $162
- 2Puffing Billy and Penguin Parade Combo Tourfrom $165
- 3Yarra Valley Wine Day Tourfrom $222
The coast road is a full day, and the good part is at the far end.
Torquay, then Lorne, then the Otways with the tree ferns and the koalas overhead, and only after all that the limestone. Tours that run it in reverse reach the Twelve Apostles in the late light with the car parks empty. That is the whole trick.
Every Great Ocean Road day →
Penguins at dusk, a steam line, and Melbourne bars with no sign on the door.
Beaches and rooftops exist everywhere. A colony that walks up the sand on a timetable, a 1900 narrow-gauge railway still run by volunteers, and a drinking culture built entirely behind other buildings do not.
The Penguin Parade
Little penguins spend the day at sea and come ashore together after sunset, because arriving in a group is safer than arriving alone. The stands fill an hour before, the time shifts with the season, and no camera is allowed once the birds are on the sand. Bring more layers than the forecast suggests: the wind comes straight off Bass Strait.
- 1Penguin Parade, & Wildlife Encounters Eco Tour from Melbourne★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,774 reviews
- 2Penguin Parade, Koalas & Kangaroos★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,932 reviews
- 3Phillip Island Penguin Parade & Koalas Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,408 reviews
Puffing Billy
A narrow-gauge line built in 1900 to serve the hill farms, closed by a landslide, then dug out and put back by volunteers who are still running it. The carriages have open sides and children sit on the window sills with their legs out, which is the one detail everybody remembers. It climbs through mountain ash and tree ferns the whole way.
- 1Puffing Billy & Healesville Sanctuary Scenic Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,220 reviews
- 2Puffing Billy Railway: Heritage Steam Train Journey★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,195 reviews
- 3Puffing Billy and Penguin Parade Combo Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,184 reviews
The laneway bars
A licensing quirk in the 1980s made small bars viable in spaces nobody else wanted, and the city filled its service lanes with them. The good ones have no sign, a single bulb over a doorway and a room upstairs. A walk is the sensible way in: the doors are genuinely hard to find on your own.
- 1Ultimate Melbourne Walking Tour: History, Laneways & Culture★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,451 reviews
- 2Melbourne’s Living Laneway Scene: Local Bars and Their Stories★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 542 reviews
- 3Original Melbourne Lanes and Arcades Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 389 reviews
Phillip Island is two hours south and the point of it happens after sunset.
Little penguins come out of the surf at Summerland Beach in the last of the light and walk up to their burrows past the stands. Everything else on the island, the koala boardwalk, the seals off the Nobbies, the kangaroos, is what you do while you wait for it.
- 1Penguin Parade, & Wildlife Encounters Eco Tour from Melbournefrom $118
- 2Penguin Parade, Koalas & Kangaroosfrom $112
- 3Phillip Island Penguin Parade & Koalas Tourfrom $123
Four things around Melbourne that run to somebody else’s timetable.
Most of this can be arranged over breakfast the same morning. These four run on tides of daylight, heritage rosters and a ski season, none of which care when your flight lands.
- 01Penguin Parade, & Wildlife Encounters Eco Tour from MelbourneOne showing a night, seating is capped and the start time moves with sunset. In summer the stands sell out well ahead.
- 02Yarra Valley Sunrise Balloon Flight with GoPro PhotosFlights leave before dawn and only in still air. A cancelled morning rebooks to another day, so leave a spare one.
- 03Puffing Billy & Healesville Sanctuary Scenic TourA volunteer-run heritage roster with a fixed number of carriages. Weekends and school holidays go first.
- 04Day Trip to Mt Buller by Premium Tour CoachThe snow runs roughly June to September and nothing goes up the mountain outside it.
Melbourne can do all four seasons before lunch. Keep an indoor plan.
A cold front off the Southern Ocean can take fifteen degrees out of an afternoon with no warning, and it will do it in November as happily as in June. The city is built for it: the arcades are covered, the good bars are underground, and a tasting room is never far away.
By place — the city and the belt
By kind of day — coast, cellar, lane or lookout
Two days in the grid, then one road out for each of the next four.
The cityNewly reviewed around Melbourne and Victoria.
The rest of the new ones →
Mornington Peninsula Self-Guided Bike Tour | Food & Wine Region
Read our review →
3-Hour Dolphin and Seal Sightseeing Cruise, operated with swim tour passengers
Read our review →
Great Ocean Road & Beyond 4 day Adventure Melbourne to Adelaide
Read our review →
Melbourne to 12 Apostles VIP Helicopter Tour (1 hour Flight)
Read our review →
Melbourne to the Great Ocean Road & Grampians 3 Day Original Tour
Read our review →
Melbourne Vampire Quest: Self-Guided Gothic Adventure
Read our review →