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September 16, 2026 — 5:00am
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Earlier this year, I wrote an article about how, despite being a travel writer, I had never been to Melbourne. This was less about throwing shade at what is an already sun-deprived city, and more about my woeful attitude to domestic travel.
Well, some people took that personally; none more so than the folks at Visit Victoria, who offered to bring me down to Melbourne to eat, drink and show me what I had been missing out on.
It should be said that I don’t normally take these sponsored trips (or “famils” as they’re known in the parlance of the trade – short for “familiarisation tour”). It’s not the most financially sensible move of my career but I’d rather experience somewhere as most people would – at my own expense, without the obligation and expectations of the media tour.
But I couldn’t resist the temptation to write a joke about how you had to pay me to go to Melbourne, so here I am, in Melbourne, sipping an incredible coffee, nursing a terrible hangover, and all I can say is that the joke is on me.
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Melbourne is awesome.
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And that’s coming from a guy who had to make an emergency trip to the dentist on a casual Friday afternoon, all thanks to a suspected cracked tooth. After spending my life thumbing my nose at domestic travel, the irony of being able to walk into the dentist, wave my private health insurance card around, and walk out of there with my weekend saved was not lost on me.
Dental work aside, Melbourne is the kind of city that I would swoon over if it was in any other country in the world. The coffee I’m drinking isn’t from anywhere trendy, nor does it have a name that makes me think that I’m about to suck the ink out of a fountain pen, but it is the best coffee that I’ve had all year (thanks Commune). All the meals have been exceptional, including a tiramisu from Rocco’s Bologna Discoteca that has ruined tiramisu for me, and a beef and tripe pho from Uncle The’s that was just as good as any I had while I was living in Vietnam.
And the pubs?
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My God, the pubs in Melbourne are like lightning in a bottle, and the reason why I feel so deplorable today is because the pubs here are the kind that make you wilfully ignore tomorrow.
But you already know all this. Everyone will tell you that Melbourne is the place to go if you want to eat, drink, and have a good time. The thing that I didn’t know about Melbourne, and the thing that now brings me the most shame for not coming here sooner, isn’t the food, nor the coffee, but the people who call it home.
Melbournians seem to exude charm, and enjoy life without letting their good times come at the expense of those around them. People here actually made eye contact with me (shocking, I know), and no matter where I went, I’d always end up talking with the strangers sitting next to me.
It is a refreshing change from what I’m used to in Sydney, where so much of life is lived with the kind of blinkers on that make you blind to everything other than the race that you’re running. Hell, even my dentist was giving me tooth-appropriate restaurant recommendations while she was digging around in my skull, and it was people like her that made Melbourne so memorable.
For someone who travels as much as I do, I’ve been oblivious to how beautiful people can be in my own backyard. They might look like me, talk like me, but they’re not like me; they’re nicer than me, and it shouldn’t have taken a hundred passport stamps for me to see that some of the best people I’d meet were only an hour-and-14-minute flight from home.
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I’m sure when Visit Victoria sent me to Melbourne, they didn’t expect the star of my article to be a random dentist (shoutout to Dr Tikku), but then life is full of surprises and the people of Melbourne have been one of them. They’ve shown me that Australia is not the monolith I always thought it was, and how a domestic trip can be just as eye-opening as an international one.
THE DETAILS
STAY
The only thing better than the location of The StandardX was the awesome staff at the front desk. Rooms from $190 per night. See standardx.com/melbourne
DRINK
Of all the (too many) beers I had in Melbourne, the beers at Molly Rose were the best. Pull up a seat at the bar and have a guided tasting for $60 p/p. See mollyrosebrewing.com
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The writer travelled as a guest of Visit Victoria.
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Paul Marshall is a Sydney-based travel writer who got lost on the Banana Pancake Trail and never found his way back. A champion of backpacking and budget-savvy travel, he specialises in B-side destinations and learning just enough of the local language to order a beer (but no follow-up questions, please). Follow him on instagram.com/paulmarshalltravelsConnect via email.AdvertisementAdvertisement