Hello,
The wife and I will be moving to Melbourne in the near future with our little one who is 2 years old. Can anyone recommend a good area to live (schools, parks, shops) with good links into Melbourne city.

Thank you in advance

Martin

Albert Park, St Kilda, Port Melbourne are all good, but there are too many to mention. It depends which area of Melbourne you want to be in and what you are looking for. Melbourne is 10,000 square km, a huge area - almost ten times larger than London.

Hi, welcome.

Much will depend on your budget and whether you want to rent or buy. St Kilda for example is lovely, but I wouldn't recommend it for someone with very young children moving into school age, and Much of the rental stock is apartments rather than houses.

If you can provide a rough housing budget, we can certainly suggest some options.

What visa do you have?

I lived in Carnegie, South East. Some very nice spots around that area with good amenities close. Good train link, had a tram which was the end of the stop.

But getting expensive to rent, and apartments being built constantly.

Bayside is very nice and family orientated - have a look at the suburbs down from Mentone to Edithvale and beyond.

Just throwing in a cheer for the inner to mid east - Hawthorn, Hawthorn East, Camberwell, Burwood, Hartwell, Glen Iris. These are 5 to 15 kms from the CBD, and depending on precisely where you are, you may have access to train, tram (and bus*) links. There are plenty of parks in these suburbs and good every day shopping (eg, Camberwell fresh food market).

These suburbs are very family oriented, but also some of Melbourne's most expensive for housing! Houses predominate, although there are plenty of flats, particularly along the busier roads and tram roads.

* There are buses in Melbourne, although often much derided because of weird timetabling in the past, they do fill in some of the PT gaps for trips in between the hub and spoke tram and train network.