If the best things in life are free, then the second-best things must cost just under ten bucks. To that end, budget travel hound Sarah Tierney has come up with some great ideas for saving money on travel in these lean times.
1. Ride the city circle on Melbourne’s trams
See the famous sights of the city from the inside of the iconic car. The city circle tram stops at sights such as Parliament House and the Princess Theatre. Best thing? It’s free.
2. Drink a beer with Chloe
Visit Young and Jacksons Hotel , one of Melbourne’s oldest and sit in the bar with the legendary Chloe, a nude portrait by Frenchman Jules Joseph Lefebvre that caused scandal when it was shown at the national gallery during the 1800s.
3. Explore the hidden laneways of Melbourne
Find hidden art, little cafes and shops, entries to secret clubs and bars in the little lanes around the city. The most popular is the ACDC Lane, named after the Aussie rockers or visit the Croft Institute, in Croft lane, which is an out of the way quirky bar. One level holds a lab, another is a hospital themed waiting room and the top level is a 1930s gymnasium, which features a grass bar.
4. Choose a weird pizza from Mojo’s Weird Pizza
Okay, maybe this one is $11, but it’s totally worth it if you can scrounge up the extra dollar for Mojo’s Weird Pizza. With names like Dog’s Breakfast (not real dog food), Royale With Cheeze (yes, it is a burger on a pizza) and Go Banana (banana and bacon) how can you go wrong? They even have dessert pizzas.
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5. Go whale spotting
Logan’s Beach at Warrnambool is a great place to see whales from July.
The whales visit Victoria in July and the best place to see them is on Logan’s Beach at Warrnambool , about a 3.5hr drive from Melbourne, or 7hr drive on the Great Ocean Road. Stand on Logan’s Beach and see the whales and the calves as they frolic in the ocean.
6. Try visiting a different museum
Head to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image
The Australian Centre for the Moving Image celebrates moving pictures rather than still ones. They have free entry to the normal museum, plus some exhibitions (Len Lye is free) and the cinemas there show all types of films from $8.
7. See Melbourne from above
To see Melbourne from the sky usually involves paying for an expensive trip up to the top of a building to crowd around with heaps of people, hoping to catch a glimpse of something. We’ll let you in on a little secret. Catch the elevator up to the 35th floor of the Hotel Sofitel on Collins St and go to the bathrooms, where you can quietly take in the view of Melbourne’s south side.
8. Art & Culture walk in Geelong
Head down to Geelong and pick up an arts and culture walking trail map. The map has plenty of walks you can do that go past historic and interesting sites in Geelong –the Old Post Office, Corio Villa, The Carousel (one of 200 wooden carousels in the world), and sculpture trails to name just a few.
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9. Learn all about Melbourne’s history at the Old Treasury
Learn all about Melbourne’s history at the Old Treasury.
From the beginnings of the John Batman settlement, through the goldfields of Victoria and all the way up to the invention of the bionic ear. Entry to the Old Treasury Building in Melbourne is just $8.50 for an adult.
10. Rock along to the Digital Media Street Festival
For the week of July 3-10, Gertrude Street in Fitzroy will become a free gallery at night. The festival will have projections of moving and still images as well as installations designed to surprise the audience. The Digital Media Street Festival runs free from 6pm – 12pm.
If you have a great Victorian experience under $10, share it by adding a comment below.
Abandoned mills and forgotten paper plants are finding second lives – and helping redefine a city long underestimated.
Just 15 years ago, Federal Mills was a very different place. Once among the most significant industrial sites in Victoria, the historic woollen mill was one of a dozen that operated in Geelong at the industry’s peak in the mid-20th century, helping the city earn its title as ‘wool centre of the world’. But by the 1960s global competition and the rise of synthetic fabrics led to the slow decline of the industry, and Federal Mills finally shuttered its doors in 2001. Within a few years, the abandoned North Geelong grounds had become makeshift pastoral land, with cows and goats grazing among the overgrown grass between the empty red-brick warehouses. It was a forgotten pocket of the city, all but two klicks from the bustle of the CBD.
Geelong has shed its industrial identity to become an innovative urban hub with reimagined heritage spaces. (Image: Ash Hughes)
Federal Mills: from forgotten factory to creative precinct
Today, the century-old complex stands reborn. The distinctive sawtooth-roof buildings have been sensitively restored. An old silo is splashed with a bright floral mural, landscapers have transformed the grounds, and the precinct is once again alive with activity. More than 1000 people work across 50-plus businesses here. It’s so busy, in fact, that on a sunny Thursday morning in the thick of winter, it’s hard to find a car park. The high ceilings, open-plan design, and large multi-paned windows – revolutionary features for factories of their time – have again become a drawcard.
Paddock Bakery and Patisserie is housed within the historic wool factory. (Image: Gallant Lee)
At Paddock , one of the precinct’s newer tenants, weaving looms and dye vats have been replaced by a wood-fired brick oven and heavy-duty mixers. Open since April 2024, the bakery looks right at home here; the building’s industrial shell is softened by ivy climbing its steel frames, and sunlight streams through the tall windows. Outside, among the white cedar trees, families at picnic benches linger over dippy eggs and bagels, while white-collar workers pass in and out, single-origin coffee and crème brûlée doughnuts in hand.
Geelong: Australia’s only UNESCO City of Design
Paddock Bakery can be found at Federal Mills. (Image: Gallant Lee)
“A lot of people are now seeing the merit of investing in Geelong,” says Paul Traynor, the head of Hamilton Hospitality Group, which redeveloped Federal Mills. A city once shunned as Sleepy Hollow, and spurned for its industrial, working-class roots and ‘rust belt’ image, Geelong has long since reclaimed its ‘Pivot City’ title, having reinvented itself as an affordable, lifestyle-driven satellite city, and a post-COVID migration hotspot.
And the numbers stand testament to the change. In March 2025, and for the first time in its history, Greater Geelong became Australia’s most popular regional town for internal migration, overtaking Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Current forecasts suggest Geelong will continue to outpace many other Australian cities and towns, with jobs growing at double the rate of the population.
Tourism is booming, too. The 2023-24 financial year was Geelong and The Bellarine region’s busiest on record, with 6.4 million visitors making it one of the fastest-growing destinations in the country. It’s not hard to see why: beyond the city’s prime positioning at the doorstep of the Great Ocean Road, Geelong’s tenacity and cultural ambition stands out.
As Australia’s only UNESCO City of Design, Geelong is swiftly shaking off its industrial past to become a model for urban renewal, innovation, sustainability and creative communities. The signs are everywhere, from the revitalisation of the city’s waterfront, and the landmark design of the Geelong Library and Heritage Centre and Geelong Arts Centre, to the growing network of local designers, architects and artists, and the burgeoning roster of festivals and events. That’s not even mentioning the adaptive reuse of storied old industrial buildings – from Federal Mills, to Little Creatures’ brewery ‘village’ housed within a 1920s textile mill – or the city’s flourishing food and wine scene.
The rise of a food and wine destination
Restaurant 1915 is housed within a restored former boiler house. (Image: Harry Pope/Two Palms)
Traynor credits now-closed local restaurant Igni, which opened in 2016, as the turning point for Geelong’s hospo industry. “[Aaron Turner, Igni’s chef-patron] was probably the first guy, with all due respect, to raise the bar food-wise for Geelong,” he says. “People now treat it really seriously, and there’s clearly a market for it.” While Igni is gone, Turner now helms a string of other notable Geelong venues, including The Hot Chicken Project and Tacos y Liquor, all within the buzzy, street art-speckled laneways of the CBD’s Little Malop Street Precinct. Many others have also popped up in Igni’s wake, including Federal Mills’ own restaurant, 1915 . Housed within the cavernous boiler house, 1915’s interior is dramatic: soaring, vaulted ceilings with timber beams, exposed brick, a huge arched window. The share plates echo the space’s bold character, playing with contrast and texture, with dishes such as a compressed watermelon tataki, the sweet, juicy squares tempered by salty strands of fried leeks, and charred, smoky snow peas dusted with saganaki on a nutty bed of romesco.
The Woolstore is a new restaurant and bar housed within a century-old warehouse. (Image: Amy Carlon)
The Woolstore , one of The Hamilton Group’s most recent hospo projects, opened in February. It occupies a century-old riverside warehouse and exudes a more sultry, fine dining ambience. Much like Federal Mills, the blueprint was to preserve the original brickwork, tallowwood flooring and nods to the building’s former life. That same careful consideration extends to the well-versed, affable waitstaff as well as the kitchen. Head chef Eli Grubb is turning out an eclectic mix of ambitious and indulgent mod Oz dishes that deliver: strikingly tender skewers of chicken tsukune, infused with hints of smoke from the parrilla grill, and glazed with a moreish, sweet gochujang ‘jam’; nduja arancini fragrant with hints of aniseed and the earthy lick of sunny saffron aioli; and golden squares of potato pavé, adorned with tiny turrets of crème fraîche, crisp-fried saltbush leaves, and Avruga caviar, to name but a few stand-out dishes.
Woolstore’s menu is designed for sharing.
Breathing new life into historic spaces
On the city’s fringe, hidden down a winding side road with little fanfare, lies a long-dormant site that’s being gently revived. Built from locally quarried bluestone and brick, and dating back to the 1870s, the complex of original tin-roofed mill buildings is lush with greenery and backs onto the Barwon River and Buckley Falls; the audible rush of water provides a soothing soundtrack. Fyansford Paper Mill is one of few complexes of its time to survive intact. It feels steeped in history and spellbindingly rustic.
“We were looking for an old industrial place that had some charm and romance to it,” explains Sam Vogel, the owner, director and winemaker at Provenance Wines which moved here in 2018. When he first viewed the building with his former co-owner, it was in such a state of disrepair that the tradie tenant occupying the space had built a shed within it to escape the leaking roof and freezing winter temperatures. “To say it was run down would be an understatement,” he notes. “There was ivy growing through the place; the windows were all smashed. It was a classic Grand Designs project.”
Provenance Wines moved to Fyansford Paper Mill in 2018. (Image: Cameron Murray Photography)
The team has since invested more than a million dollars into their new home. Where paper processing machinery once sat, wine barrels are now stacked. Vaulted cathedral ceilings are strung with festoon lights, and hidden in plain sight lies a shadowy mural by local street artist de rigueur Rone – one of only three permanent works by the artist.
While the award-winning, cool-climate pinot noir, riesling and chardonnay naturally remain a key draw at Provenance, the winery’s restaurant is a destination in itself. Impressed already by whipsmart service, I devour one of the most cleverly curated and faultlessly executed degustations I’ve had in some time. It’s all prepared in a kitchen that is proudly zero-waste, and committed to providing seasonal, ethical and locally sourced meat and produce under head chef Nate McIver. Think free-range venison served rare with a syrupy red wine jus and a half-moon of neon-orange kosho, shokupan with a deeply savoury duck fat jus (a modern Japanese take on bread and drippings), and a golden potato cake adorned with a colourful confetti of dehydrated nasturtiums and tomato powder, and planted atop a sea urchin emulsion.
Bell’s handcrafted functional pieces on display.
The complex is home to a coterie of independent businesses, including a gallery, a jeweller, and its latest tenant, ceramicist Elizabeth Bell, drawn here by the building’s “soul”. “There’s so much potential for these buildings to have new life breathed into them,” says Bell, whose studio is housed within the old pump room. “Even people in Geelong don’t know we’re here,” she says. “It’s definitely a destination, but I like that. It has a really calming atmosphere.”
A Melbourne transplant, Bell now feels at home in Geelong, which offers something Melbourne didn’t. “If this business was in Melbourne I don’t think it would’ve been as successful,” she notes. “It’s very collaborative in Geelong, and I don’t think you get that as much in Melbourne; you’re a bit more in it for yourself. Here it’s about community over competition.”
Ceramicist Elizabeth Bell has a store in Fyansford Paper Mill.
