Melbourne is for old friends because it’s an old city. Old-world charm, a synecdoche of Australia’s art culture, and a hipper version of Sydney. It houses one of the oldest free libraries in the world and rewards you with vintage-looking ephemera printed either through dye sublimation or analog cash registers.
Melbourne is for old friends
There has got to be at least one shared lore to make Melbourne worth your time, for you and the people you’ve known forever.
At a glance

Because it’s not Sydney with the Opera House, nor Tokyo with its Disneylands, you can agree, in perfect harmony, that you're not here to tick off touristy items on a bucket list because you’ve got nothing else to do here but bask—backdropping the shared quirks, movie references, and matching trinkets hanging on your bag before Labubus became a thing. At first glance, it looks familiar when you liken it to the melancholic charm of your favorite Western coming-of-age film setting and you are content with both the idea and the feeling of it.

“Here’s a cul-de-sac that looks straight out of our favorite pop punk band’s album cover, or Keith.”
“This one is closer to home.”
“This is all we have for now.”

The city
Melbourne is for old friends because it’s an old city. Old-world charm, a synecdoche of Australia’s art culture, and a hipper version of Sydney. It houses one of the oldest free libraries in the world and rewards you with vintage-looking ephemera printed either through dye sublimation or analog cash registers.
And because there’s a very old photo booth on the sidewalk of Flinders Station where you have to squeeze in five heads to fit in the frame, it’s for old friends who can crowd into a tiny, enclosed space, make silly faces on a small chair half-covered by a curtain, and endure the line of people spilling onto the corner of the busiest subway stop in all of Victoria.


It is for old friends who appreciate art lying around—Banksy-certified gate-crashing vandalism taking precedence over carefully curated wall paintings. Some say a tour of the National Gallery of Victoria feels like a shameful Strava push than museums of its European counterparts when you’ve already walked past Anguish (Schenck, 1878), but a step outside greets you with a sprawling canvas of communal “art hubs” in low-rise buildings housing almost too personal stories and contemporary gimmicks. It’s a city claimed by every artist, big or small, as their own. What sets it apart is its raw resonance: Handwritten poems scribbled on scraps of paper, an artist painting cinematic portraits en plein air for a dollar, or a hyper-pop installation whose only decipherable message seems to be, “It’s Brat. Can’t you tell?”
Fine. Melbourne is also for new friends who can sit quietly in its hidden Parisian cafes, drinking in the sepia hues of its corners, their conversation flowing as easily as the Brick Lane flat whites. They will also love the allure of the promenade flanked by Yarra River and Southbank if it means trudging the duality of a big city. The grand columns of the State Library pull you into six stories of traditional collections and scholarly archives. A stone’s throw away, the Melbourne Central Mall invites you in for a beauty spree at Mecca.
It’s also for newly acquainted friends sitting across from each other, pondering the origins of graffiti streaking past the train window in hopes of cracking something deeper. But “Did you remember when we would carve lyrics on the walls of the abandoned rooftop of our college building” sounds better when you were girls together than “Who’s your favorite artist?”

If new friends want to prolong the spark of their platonic meet-cute, the city-wide free tram also slices through the artery of a Cubao Expo-esque neighborhood. Fitzroy shares indie art galleries with tattoo parlors and bric-a-brac shops, while Brunswick leans into its unassuming coolness with old-school pubs, multicultural eats, and a sense of authenticity that feels grounded in its working-class roots. Here you can talk about your Letterboxd entries without shame.
On your last leg, you might want to swing by the Queen Victoria Market, a community center offering souvenirs at bargain prices and stingy overpriced food. If you’re on a budget and you’re with new friends, do you feel okay splitting for platter packs and feeling the strain of counting every dollar? But with old friends, there’s comfort in the chaos and arguing over who owes what but still ordering dessert anyway.

The Great Ocean Road
The afterparty of a Brighton Beach tour. Now, this scenic coastal road trip is for everyone—surfer dudes and families in rented vans. There are countless spots to stop and soak in the natural beauty, but four stand out as must-sees: the postcard-perfect cliffs of Twelve Apostles, the salty breeze of Apollo Bay, the lush rainforest of Great Otway National Park, and the dramatic London Arch.
This is where the fickle weather of late spring is put to the test, yet the Southern Ocean remains serene with the tides.

But Port Campbell is for old friends. The Sunday stillness looms over the sidewalks of this quaint little beach town where an ice cream parlor sits adjacent to a gas station convenience store that only serves souvlakis and burgers. And because the midday chill creeps in quickly to chase away the remnants of the morning sunshine, the cashier can be pretty sullen and helpless, but one old friend can enter to place orders for everyone without having to note them down. Arjane knows I’ll always go for the burger.

We also have our own slice of the ocean here. An anomaly where the sea seeps into the edge of a gently curved pool, just enough to share its shimmer with the birds and the visitors. Here you can find yourselves caught in the middle of the endlessness and the intimacy of Port Campbell. It's just a short walk to our Airbnb, a modest bungalow with a sprawling backyard where old friends can unwind while firing up the barbecue. But the biting 14-degree chill serves as a reminder that a quintessentially American ritual can feel a bit too cliché for a getaway Down Under.

The Suburbs
This is where the confined, hanged art of Australian realist-illusionist Clarice Beckett feels perfectly at home—the immediacy of a lived moment depicted in Bus Stop or Evening light, Beaumaris. If she’s alive in the present age, can she envision the suburban utopia of your now-local old friend taking you to a nearby trinket store in Preston instead of the largest Pop Mart in the city? Or a fast-food run at 10 P.M., long after the lights have gone out? Only old friends can drive past a “Hungry Jack’s” and think, “That Burger King is not what it seems. We are literally in a simulation,” from something more universally real than any pre-packaged Asian itinerary.

Or maybe this is all too subjective as it's my first trip abroad with my old friends. In some quiet corner of a tucked-away book store, or at a windy tram stop, perhaps Melbourne is for the lone old souls too. Finding meaning in her first 9 p.m. sunset ever, lost in the promise of solitude, and open to whatever the day brings that only you can understand—even if it’s wistful nostalgia for a place that exists only in distant, vicarious memories.