Frankston City: Beaches, Parks and Culture

Frankston City offers different ways to enjoy a holiday: at Frankston Beach, you can swim, go stand-up paddleboarding or take a walk; paths wind through the grounds of Beauty Park, and cultural venues add their own highlights. You can choose your destination based on whether you and your family would like to focus on time by the water, observing nature, or art and history.

By the water and among the greenery

At Frankston Beach, you can enjoy non-motorised activities such as swimming, stand-up paddleboarding and walking. If you like to spend time by the water, you’ll find different ways to experience the beach here: in the water, on a board or on foot. You can decide which one shapes your day based on your interests, without limiting your outing to a single activity.

Beauty Park offers a different way to enjoy the outdoors. A walking and cycling path runs through the park and around its perimeter, allowing you to explore on foot or by bike. There are raised viewing platforms by the ornamental lake, where you can watch seabirds and waterbirds. The path and platforms offer two distinct ways to experience nature: getting active on the loop or observing wildlife by the water.

The George Pentland Botanic Gardens are also open to the public again. Together with Beauty Park, the gardens provide another green space to explore. If you don’t want to plan your trip around beach activities alone, parks and gardens can also be among the experiences to consider when choosing where to stay in Frankston City.

Art, performances and glimpses into the past

Frankston Arts Centre brings together theatre, live music, exhibitions and community programs. Its theatre has 800 seats, and there are also five exhibition galleries. The venue combines a range of cultural experiences in one place. If you like to include a performance or exhibition in your travels, you can consider the Arts Centre as a cultural highlight alongside beach and nature experiences.

The centre provides accessible parking, lifts, wheelchair seating and assistive listening devices. These specific facilities may be important to visitors who need to take them into account when planning their visit. Old School House Museum offers a different focus: it displays a classroom setting from an earlier era, along with photographs, memorabilia and historic school registers documenting education in the past. These objects and records bring the subject of schooling to life in a distinctive way.

Frankston Street Art Festival is a week-long celebration that transforms the city into an open-air gallery. The festival offers a concentrated art experience, while the Arts Centre brings together several cultural forms in theatre and exhibition spaces. Nearby, the Coastal Arts Discovery Trail features several stops along the municipality’s shoreline, from Olivers Hill to Seaford. It is designed to encourage visitors to explore the cultural heritage by the water and in the surrounding area.

Getting here and finding your way around

Frankston City is directly accessible by road, train and bus, and is about 55 minutes from Melbourne CBD. If you’re planning to travel by train, you’ll encounter the sculpture To The Beach at Frankston Station: it greets people arriving by train and points towards Frankston Foreshore Beach. This brings the beach into view as a destination from the moment you arrive, without the sculpture directing you along a particular route.

When looking for a holiday rental in Frankston City, it can help to first decide which holiday experiences you prefer: beach activities, wildlife watching in the park, a museum visit, or art and performances. The city offers different options to choose from; you can base your selection on which ones you’d like to make the focus of your trip.

If you’d like to explore more destinations, discover Langwarrin too.

More destination pages: Moorabool Shire, Towong Shire, Ballarat City, Whittlesea City, Mansfield Shire, Nillumbik Shire, Gannawarra Shire.

For an overview of the wider region: Victoria.