While Perth’s city centre, or Perth Central Business District (CBD), doesn't have many traditional tourist sights, it’s home to plenty of lively bars, cafes and shops, as well as Perth Town Hall, a structure of historic importance built by convicts in the 1860s.

For Perth’s safest swimming beach head to Cottesloe, where you’ll find golden sands and lush pines, as well as a good selection of cafes and pubs that are perfect spots for watching the sunset.

Kings Park in the west offers unrivalled views across the city and the Swan River, as well as an incredible Botanic garden featuring thousands of indigenous plants and wildflowers. Don’t miss the Lotterywest Federation Walkway, which allows you to walk through the treetops on a stunning glass and steel bridge.

The neighbourhood of Northbridge is the heart of Perth’s arts and culture scene, where you’ll find buzzy bars, vintage stores and the Perth Cultural Centre, home to galleries and live performance spaces including the Art Gallery of Western Australia. Founded in 1895 this gallery houses the state’s best art collection, with works by Australian luminaries such as Arthur Boyd, Arthur Streeton and Sidney Nolan.

Another must-see is Fremantle Prison, which offers a fascinating insight into the lives of the convicts where made to build their own jail on arriving in Australia in 1850. Constructed from beautiful pale limestone sourced from the hill on which it’s built, a total of 350,000 people were incarcerated here between 1855 to 1991. Choose from guided tours including the Doing Time tour, which visits the kitchens, men’s cells and solitary-confinement cells and the Torchlight Tour, an eerie evening journey which explores some of the prison’s darker tales.

Also in Fremantle is the Western Australian Museum – Shipwreck Galleries. Considered the finest display of maritime archaeology in the southern hemisphere, exhibitions documenting shipwrecks and their relics are housed in a restored 1850s-era commissariat building.