If you only have one day in Melbourne, you’ll enjoy your time in this lively city that is a cultural hotspot of Australia. Melbourne is filled with exciting historical attractions, hip dining options, plentiful shopping centers and amazing sports venues.
Melbourne is an amazing city with with an easy to explore Central Business District making it perfect for a day trip. However, with so many things to see and do it’s hard to choose how to spend your time. If you’re short on time, we’ve put together a perfect way to see the best of Melbourne in one day.
When to Visit?
A day trip to Melbourne really is great year round. With mild temperatures year round, there isn’t a bad time to visit. However, visiting in the spring and summer will provide you with an opportunity to see the town with a few less people around.
How to Get Around?
When you’re exploring the city, make sure to take full advantage of the Circle City Tram. This tram runs in a circle around the central business district (CBD). The best part is it is completely FREE! This feature of the city makes Melbourne one of the most amazing big cities to explore for a tourist. The tram runs regularly and frequently and some trams even have an audio tour that plays along.
You can easily fly into the Melbourne airport, take a taxi or a shuttle to the CBD and spend your one day in Melbourne traveling only by foot and by free tram!
Morning in Melbourne
Start your one day in Melbourne with a ride on the Circle City Tram. Take the tram past the Parliament house and explore the area around the parliament buildings. You could even take a free tour of the building if you’re there at the right time.
Hop back on the tram and head to Flinders street and explore this bustling street. Explore the shops as well as the amazing architecture of St Paul’s Cathedral.
Next, hop back on the Circle City Tram and take it to the Queen Victoria Market. This massive open air market is the BEST market we have ever visited. You can prowl for everything here, from clothes to jewelry to food to Australian souvenirs. Our first stop was the food stalls. Rather than eat lunch at a traditional restaurant, prowl the food stall at the market and try one of as many things as possible. The variety of this meal and the shear fun we had choosing foods made this one of our favorite Australian meals.
After lunch continue exploring the market with some shopping. This is a great place to stock up on traditional souvenirs as well.
Afternoon in Melbourne
In the afternoon of your one day in Melbourne, enjoy the full experience of a few attractions. You’ll most likely only have time to explore one or two destinations fully. We choose to visit the State Library of Victoria and the Old Melbourne Gaol.
The State Library of Victoria is an amazing piece of architecture to explore. The library is also home to some amazing special exhibits about Australian history. The best part about visiting this historic library is it is completely FREE.
The Old Melbourne Gaol is one Melbourne’s earliest jails and the site of more than 100 hangings. You can take full tours of the goal, which also include the history of the infamous Ned Kelly. Once done with the gaol, you can visit two other justice buildings, the City Watch house (a newer jail) and the Old Magistrates’ Court.
Before heading to dinner, head over to the Fitzroy Gardens and take a leisurely stroll and reflect upon your day in Melbourne. Our you could walk by the Shrine of Remembrance, the state’s largest war memorial and visit the Royal Botanic Gardens.
Evening in Melbourne
Enjoy dinner at one of the amazing restaurants that Melbourne has to offer. After dinner, hop over to the Melbourne Cricket Grounds and top your night off with a cricket match. For the Americans out there, cricket is most closely compared to baseball. We spent the night watching our first cricket match at the Melbourne Cricket Grounds complete with fireworks and live concert. This is definitely a Melbourne must!
Want to Adjust the Itinerary?
If you have more than one day in Melbourne, we’d suggest taking more time to explore all the amazing things to do in the Central Business District. We would have loved to explore the National Gallery of Victoria and the Melbourne Aquarium if we had had time. We’d also highly recommend taking a day trip from Melbourne.
What to Pack?
Pack your amazing camera to catch all the best shots Melbourne has to offer. We also love packing our backpack style camera case, especially for a day like this with all of the walking.
And speaking of all the walking, make sure to pack yourself some comfortable shoes because no matter how much you think you’ll be hoping on and off the tram, you’ll be doing enough walking to make your feet sore.
As with any other Australian destination, make sure to pack and wear your sunscreen. You’re only spending one day in Melbourne but make sure you don’t burned.
How much to budget?
Melbourne is a large city and therefore tends to be a bit pricier than other Australian destinations. Hotels in the city average around $200 USD each night. We stayed in an AirBnB and were able to find an apartment in the CBD for under $100 USD each night.
The meals we were interested in in Melbourne were pricy. This is no surprise considering Melbourne is quickly becoming a trendy foodie destination. We spent about $30 USD per person on each meal. You could easily find less expensive meals, around $10 USD, if you were interested but it may be worth splurging in this foodie city. One thing we found surprising was that coffee and alcohol in Melbourne were extremely expensive. We simply abstained from these beverages but keep that in mind if you can’t live without one or both. Buying these beverages from markets would be a cost saving option.
Some activities in Melbourne do have high admission prices. However, there are plenty of free activities in the city. This combined with the free Circle City Tram means that you can easily take a one day trip to Melbourne on a limited budget.
We hope this post has helped you to plan your own day trip to Melbourne. If you have any comments or questions, please leave them in the section below.
Next time, come to Melbourne between April & August to catch an AFL (Aussie Rules) game at the MCG.
There’s nothing quite like the atmosphere of a 60-80,000 strong crowd. The ‘G’ has a capacity of around 90,000 people which makes it one of the biggest stadiums in the world.
We’ll definitely catch another game if we come back. It was so much fun learning about cricket and the stadium was amazing when it wasn’t full 🙂
Melbourne Cricket Ground is one of the best cricket stadium in the world.
That’s why we think this is the perfect to place to watch your first cricket match like we did 🙂