VacationSelector

Australia

Melbourne

Match

60

  • Beach first61
  • Culture first60
  • Food & nightlife65
  • Family trip58
  • Nature first57
  • Good weather61
  • On a budget58

The nine measures

Each scored 0 to 100 against fixed anchors, so a score means the same thing on every page. Open a row for the figures behind it.

Beaches & swimming. Scores 55 out of 100.55
Score55
Swim season months0
Beaches 10 km19
Coast distance4 km
Water distance4 km

Sea reaches 21 °C or more in 0 months, 19 beaches lie within 10 km, and the water is 4 km away.

Places to eat. Scores 75 out of 100.75
Score75
Restaurants within 2 km of centre1,888
Effective number of cuisines within 2 km29

1888 restaurants within 2 km of the centre, spread across an effective 29 kitchens.

Museums & heritage. Scores 49 out of 100.49
Score49
Museums within 10 km42
Museums within 2 km of centre24
Share of museums within 2 km %57
Unesco sites within 50 km1

42 museums mapped within 10 km, 57% of them within 2 km of the centre, and 1 whole UNESCO inscription within 50 km.

Nightlife. Scores 74 out of 100.74
Score74
Drinking venues within 4 km1,921
Drinking venues within 2 km of centre1,200
Share of drinking venues within 2 km %62
Nightclubs within 4 km124

1921 places to drink within 4 km, 124 nightclubs among them, and 62% of the drinking venues within 2 km of the centre.

Nature & day trips. Scores 43 out of 100.43
Score43
Protected land share 50 km %6
Landscape blanket share 50 km %0
Land share of disc %81
Park area within 2 km166 hectares

6% of the 50 km disc around the city is protected land, and there are 166 hectares of park within 2 km of the centre.

Good for families. Scores 60 out of 100.60
Score60
Tourist attractions within 2 km26
Park area within 2 km166 hectares
Theme parks within 30 km1

26 tourist attractions within 2 km beside 166 hectares of park, and 1 theme park within 30 km.

Sights concentration. Scores 57 out of 100.57
Score57
Notable places within 2 km103
Min wikipedia languages5

103 notable places within 2 km of the centre, counting places with a Wikipedia presence in at least five languages.

Value for money. Scores 50 out of 100.50
Score50
Price level global90.2
Daily budget

National price level of 90.2 against the United States at 100, scored on a fixed scale from 20, the cheapest countries anyone travels to, to 160, the most expensive.

Year-round weather. Scores 76 out of 100.76
Score76
Monthly daytime high13.6 °C to 26.8 °C
Monthly rainfall45 mm to 69 mm
Dry months0

Daytime highs run 14-27 °C across the year, with 0 month(s) at 40 mm of rain or less.

0255075100

When should you go?

The figures behind each month, shaded against this city's own year: the deepest cell is its best month for that measure and the palest its weakest.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Daytime high, °C
Melbourne
27
27
24
20
17
14
14
15
17
20
22
25
Sea temperature, °C
Melbourne
20
21
20
18
15
13
12
11
12
14
17
19
Rainfall, mm
Melbourne
46
48
45
58
50
58
46
52
60
56
69
65
Daylight, hours per day
Melbourne
15
14
12
11
10
10
10
11
12
13
14
15
Sunshine, hours per day
Melbourne
9
7
7
6
5
4
4
6
6
7
7
9

Temperature and rainfall are thirty-year climate normals, averaged over the years shown. Melbourne: 1991-2020 normals, Latrobe University / Kingsbury (13.1 km from centre).

WorseBetter

Getting there

Flying fromMelbourne
Denpasar (Bali)DPS
5 h 50 m
€420-587
MEL · 19 km
SingaporeSIN, XSP
7 h 45 m
no fares
MEL · 19 km
BrisbaneBNE
2 h 15 m
no fares
MEL · 19 km
AdelaideADL
1 h 25 m
no fares
MEL · 19 km
SydneySYD, WSI
1 h 30 m
€119-126
MEL · 19 km
QueenstownZQN
3 h 10 m
no fares
MEL · 19 km
IstanbulIST, SAW
17 h 55 m
no fares
MEL · 19 km
Los AngelesLAX, BUR, SNA, VNY
15 h 40 m
no fares
MEL · 19 km
SantiagoSCL
13 h 55 m
no fares
MEL · 19 km
DohaDOH
14 h 45 m
no fares
MEL · 19 km

The busiest departure cities for Melbourne, with a place kept for each other part of the world. Busiest means arriving passengers where an official count exists, and where none does, the number of non-stop services flown: official route statistics are published by the European reporting countries and by nobody else, so a table ranked on them alone would offer a reader in New York or Tokyo ten European cities. Flying times are estimated from the distance between airports, and every row is a city flown non-stop. Where the typical offer connects anyway, the stops are shown. Under each figure is the airport the flight lands at and how far that is from the centre, because the nearest airport is not always the one a route is flown to. Typical return fares for 2026-09 to 2026-10, cached market data up to 7 days old. The figure is the middle half of the offers found, so a single price means they agreed and a range means they did not; for a typical route that middle half spans about a quarter of the median, and for the least settled routes rather more than the median itself.

Before you go

MeasureMelbourne
Official languageEnglish
CurrencyAustralian Dollar (AUD)
SocketsI230 V, 50 Hz
Driving sideLeft
Time zoneUTC+10, UTC+11 in summer
Emergency number000
Elevation31 m
Main airportMelbourne Airport (MEL)19 km from centre66 non-stop destinations
Public holidays this year13 days

By the numbers

MeasureMelbourne
City population5,350,705
People per km²535
Museums within 10 km42
UNESCO World Heritage sites within 50 km1
Distinct cuisines in the centre86
Swim season, months above 21 °CNone

Compare Melbourne with

Every comparison with a written verdict behind it.

Sources

Structured data from Wikidata (CC0). Weather data by Meteostat. Meteorological data provided by NOAA, DWD and others. Sea surface temperature from NOAA OISST v2.1, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory. Airport data from OurAirports (public domain). Public holidays from Nager.Date (MIT). Exchange rates via Frankfurter, based on European Central Bank reference rates. Non-stop route lists from the "Airlines and destinations" tables on English Wikipedia airport articles, by Wikipedia contributors, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0. Currency from the ISO 4217 register maintained by SIX, cross-checked against country data from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0). Price level from World Bank open data (PPP conversion factor for private consumption and official exchange rate), CC BY 4.0. Time zones from GeoNames (CC BY 4.0); clock offsets computed from the IANA time zone database.

Scores follow rubric v2; snapshot generated 2026-09-01. Every destination we have measured.