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Staycation. It’s a word that usually makes me cringe, mostly because it’s about as exciting as binge-watching reruns of Dr Who with your agoraphobic cousin. After all, travel is about exploring new ‘hoods, finding new bars, meeting new people. But here I am, deliberately stranded in my own backyard of Melbourne, attempting the unthinkable: reframing my brain to look at this city like a tourist.
Step one, get out of the damn house. I check myself into the Adina Apartment Hotel on Flinders, specifically one of their loft apartments nestled in Malthouse Lane. If Melbourne had an illicit love child with New York City, this loft would be it. Exposed brick walls, industrial chic fittings, soaring ceilings, and mood lighting that practically demands I pour myself something strong. It feels like I’ve stumbled into a secret, grungy-chic Brooklyn hideaway. Only, thankfully, without Brooklyn’s enormous rats.
After making myself unreasonably comfortable (read: sprawled like Andy Warhol in Studio 54), I head out into the streets as dusk settles. It’s time to actually see my hometown properly. Not as the jaded local who complains about trams and footy crowds, but as the guy who flew halfway across the world to see something cool.
First stop: RISING. Melbourne’s ambitious, slightly chaotic winter festival of art, music, and sensory overload. Think Burning Man meets MoMA but with significantly more coats and scarves. Wandering installations, neon-soaked laneways, and avant-garde performances quickly turn the city I thought I knew into a psychedelic dreamscape. I'm part tourist, part Alice in Wonderland, completely blown away. The streets literally pulse with creativity.
Art absorbed, it’s time to let my stomach do the navigating. I find myself tucked into Pastuso, a hip Peruvian spot hidden away in AC/DC Lane (shaking me all night long), where the smell of ceviche is as intoxicating as the pisco sours they sling. It’s a bustling den of South American exuberance smack in the middle of Melbourne's now famous graffiti-tagged laneways. Eating here feels like an illicit culinary tryst, clandestine yet thrillingly public. Every bite of kingfish ceviche and grilled wagyu rump skewer is a reminder that this city’s palate is wilder than any Uber Eats menu could dream.
Post-feast, my internal compass guides me toward Russell Street’s Heartbreaker. This bar is Melbourne’s unapologetic answer to dive-bar perfection: dim lights, loud music, strong drinks, and zero pretension. It’s the kind of joint Anthony Bourdain would have felt at home in, downing whiskey while ranting poetically about the virtues of Led Zeppelin. As Robert Plant belts out from the jukebox, I nurse a hazy IPA potent enough to make tomorrow morning’s regrets almost certain. I trade stories with bartenders, drinkers, and a few characters who might just have stepped straight out of a Tom Waits lyric. For an hour or so I could be in the West Village of Manhattan.
Feeling a mix of adventure and sophistication I stumble into Eau De Vie, a cocktail bar hidden like a speakeasy behind an unassuming façade and thankfully just a stone’s throw from my “NYC” loft. The bartender, a wizard in a waistcoat, shakes up a Blood and Sand cocktail, blending whisky, sweet vermouth, cherry brandy, and orange juice with the flair of a magician performing his best trick. It’s the nightcap I didn’t know I needed, sophisticated enough to make even my boozy exploits feel classy.
Hours later, climbing the stairs back to my loft feels like summiting Everest. Inside, Melbourne’s skyline flickers through oversized windows, a private show of glittering lights and endless possibilities. Reclining on the oversized couch, booze still buzzing through my veins, I reflect: being a tourist in this town called Melbourne is pretty bloody good.
As I drift into a hazy, contented slumber, I realize Melbourne has tricked me. It’s flipped my perceptions upside down. The place I've casually called home suddenly feels raw, adventurous, even a bit reckless. Who knew a staycation, once the dullest concept ever invented, could make a city you thought you knew feel gloriously unknown again?
Turns out, sometimes all it takes is a reframed brain and maybe one too many hazy IPAs to rediscover the place you never realized you loved.
Stay there
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