$9.99City Highlights
Melbourne Audio Walking Tours
Self-guided, narrated walks through Melbourne. Buy a tour once, download it, and hear the story at each stop while you walk at your own pace.
Tours from $8.99
Friends walk free. One purchase covers everyone on your walk. Start the tour, invite your friends to join, and it plays on every phone in your group.
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Melbourne audio tours
Each tour is a mapped route with narration at every stop. Buy it once and it is yours to keep, no subscription.
$9.99City Highlights
$8.99City HighlightsWhat to expect on a Melbourne audio walking tour
A Melbourne audio walk moves fast between worlds: Federation Square's angular plaza, the lantern-lit gates of Chinatown, grand Parliament House, then laneways thick with coffee, a glass-domed library and a market that's fed the city for well over a century.
The East Melbourne Gardens Walk starts at Federation Square and heads north through Chinatown's lantern-strung lanes, often called the oldest continuous Chinese settlement in the Western world, then climbs past Parliament House to the bluestone spires of St Patrick's Cathedral, 4 kilometers, about 57 minutes in total.
From the cathedral the route crosses the Fitzroy Gardens, past a cottage shipped brick by brick from England, and finishes at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the vast stadium that holds around a hundred thousand people on a big match day.
The Laneways Walk covers different ground, 3 kilometers, about 44 minutes, from Princes Bridge over the Birrarung past St Paul's Cathedral, through the cafe-lined lane of Degraves Street and the glass-roofed Royal Arcade, to the domed reading room of State Library Victoria and the stalls of Queen Victoria Market.
Where to walk in Melbourne
A few of the stops you will pass, and why they are worth slowing down for.
Chinatown
Melbourne's Chinatown is often called the oldest continuous Chinese settlement in the Western world, its story starting in the 1850s when news of gold reached southern China and tens of thousands of men set out for the goldfields. Little Bourke Street became their base in the city, and over time it filled with merchants, herbalists, temples and societies that are still here today. Walk under the strings of lanterns and through the ornate gateways that span the street, and look for the Chinese Museum tucked in a side lane. It's a good place for a snack too, crowded with restaurants of every kind.
Melbourne's Laneways
Melbourne's city grid was laid out in 1837 with narrow service lanes squeezed between the broad main streets, and over the last few decades those lanes have become the city's living room. Shop signs hang from ornate brackets above doorways selling coffee, small bars and specialty goods, and the lanes stay busiest around weekday lunchtime. Melburnians are proud of their coffee culture, brought by postwar Italian and Greek migrants, and a flat white from one of these lanes is close to a local ritual. Wander without a fixed plan and follow whichever lane looks interesting, because that's exactly how they're meant to be explored.
The Royal Arcade
Victorian Melbourne cut grand arcades through its city blocks so shoppers could promenade under cover, and this one is among the oldest and finest, its glass roof throwing long lines of light down a corridor of curved shopfronts. Walk slowly and look up, because arcades like this were built at a time when gold rush money made Melbourne one of the richest cities in the world, and every polished detail shows it. These covered passages let you cross whole blocks without stepping into traffic, ducking from one street into the next, exactly the kind of shortcut a walker on foot gets to use that a car never can.
State Library Victoria
State Library Victoria opened in 1856, just a few years after gold was found in the colony, among the first free public libraries anywhere in the world. Its great octagonal domed reading room, finished in 1913, has desks radiating out from the center like spokes of a wheel, with galleries above where you can look straight down on the whole room. The lawn out front is one of the city's favorite meeting spots, full of students and lunch breaks on a sunny day. Step inside if it's open, because the dome is one of the best interior views in Melbourne and worth the short detour from the lane outside.
Queen Victoria Market
Queen Victoria Market opened in 1878 and has been where Melburnians buy their fruit, meat, cheese and just about everything else ever since, often described as the largest open-air market in the Southern Hemisphere. Walk into the old stone-fronted meat and fish hall, then out through the open sheds where stallholders call out prices and the smells shift every few steps. Part of the market was built over the city's first cemetery, and thousands of early colonists are believed to still lie beneath the sheds and car park. Pick up something to eat, find a spot to sit, and watch the market work around you.
Get the Audio Tour in 3 Simple Steps
All in the free Walk With Me app, and the first stops of every tour are free to try.
Tap the Gold Headphones and Pick a Tour
01
Walk It Solo or Invite Someone
02
Press Play and Walk
03
Handcrafted for Your Time in the City
These tours aren't a checklist of sights. They're made to be walked slowly, headphones on, eyes on the city.
Meditative and Immersive
Each story is told where it happened. The app chimes when you reach a stop, one tap starts the story, and the stretch between stops is yours to take in at your own pace.
Handcrafted With Care
We choose every route and every stop ourselves and shape each story with care, so the time you have in the city goes to the places most worth seeing.
Better With Someone
Every walk is better with someone beside you, so if you can bring a friend, we really hope you do. That's why one purchase covers everyone you invite: they join your tour free.