Looking for things to do on a rainy day in Brisbane? Queensland might be famous for sunshine, but Brisbane definitely gets its fair share of wet weather too… especially when those subtropical downpours decide to roll through.
Luckily, rain doesn’t have to ruin your plans. Brisbane has a surprisingly good collection of museums, galleries, indoor activities, breweries, historic buildings, cafes, arcades, and cozy places where you can happily hide from the weather for an hour or a few.
Whether you want to spend the day exploring the city or completely surrender to the rain and stay inside, here are some of the best things to do in Brisbane when it rains.
Quick Look: What to Do in Brisbane When It Rains
If you don’t feel like reading the entire guide right now, some of my top Brisbane rainy day ideas are:
- Spend a few hours exploring QAGOMA and Queensland Museum Kurilpa in South Bank
- Visit the Museum of Brisbane inside City Hall
- Play mini golf at Holey Moley
- Drink beer and play retro arcade games at Netherworld
- Take a tour of the XXXX Brewery
- See a show at Brisbane Powerhouse
- Wander Brisbane’s historic shopping arcades
- Hide away in one of Brisbane’s cute cafes with an elaborate brunch
- Eat a giant bowl of ramen
- Book a spa treatment or wellness afternoon
- Stay in, watch movies, edit your travel photos, or play games
- Catch up on your travel journal or read while you wait for the rain to pass
Stay In and Have a Proper Lazy Day
There is absolutely no rule saying that because you’re traveling, you have to turn every single day into a sightseeing marathon… although I definitely have a tendency to try.
If it’s absolutely pouring outside and you’ve already been exploring Brisbane nonstop, maybe the rainy day is your excuse to actually rest and stay in for a few hours. Order some food, get comfortable, and enjoy having nowhere you need to be.
Watch Movies or Start a New Series and Order Food In
Rainy days are made for getting some snacks, putting on comfortable clothes, and finally watching that movie or series you’ve been saying you’ll watch for months.
If watching something travel-related makes you feel slightly less guilty about spending part of your vacation in bed, I also have a whole list of my favorite travel movies on Netflix, including quite a few based on true stories. Uber Eats is a typical food delivery service in Australia, so try to order before the downpour and enjoy!
Play Games
If you’re traveling with other people, break out some card or board games, play something on your phone or laptop, or see if your accommodation has a PlayStation or another game console.
There are also endless multiplayer games you can play online, or you could try Australian online casinos if that’s more your kind of entertainment – it’s a perfect day for it!
This is one of the easiest ways to turn a completely washed-out afternoon into something fun without spending half the day trying to figure out how to get from one attraction to the next without getting soaked.
Edit Your Travel Photos and Videos
If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably already accumulated tens of thousands of photos and videos from your trip or just your life in general that you swear you’re going to sort through later.
A rainy afternoon is a good chance to actually do it. Edit some of your favorite photos, put together a video from the trip, post the things you’ve been meaning to share, back everything up, send some to your parents, or finally delete the 37 nearly identical photos you took of the same sunset – gotta keep that phone storage low, right?!
It might not sound like an exciting vacation activity, but your future self will be extremely pleased when you don’t arrive home with 14,000 completely unorganized photos.
Plan the Rest of Your Australia Trip
Or, use a few hours inside to get ahead on the rest of your trip if you haven’t planned it yet r have more to plan. Research your next destination, book accommodation, organize transport, save restaurants and attractions to Google Maps, or download some of the best apps for traveling Australia.
Then when the rain clears, you can go straight back outside feeling much better about having your next moves planned out more solidly.
Explore Brisbane’s Museums and Galleries
Museums are the obvious rainy day solution for a reason. Brisbane has several excellent ones, and conveniently, some of the biggest are practically next door to each other.
Queensland Art Gallery & Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA)
If the weather is properly miserable, head straight for Brisbane’s Queensland Cultural Centre in South Bank.
QAGOMA consists of two galleries, the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, which sit only about 150 meters apart. Between them you’ll find Australian, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific, contemporary, and international art alongside rotating exhibitions, installations, cinema programs, and events.
General admission to the galleries is free, although some special exhibitions require tickets. Both galleries are currently open daily from 10am to 5pm.
Queensland Museum Kurilpa
You can turn a Brisbane rainy day into a full cultural crawl quite easily without leaving South Bank, so if you like museums, this might be the best rainy day idea for you.
Right beside QAGOMA is Queensland Museum Kurilpa, where exhibits cover Queensland’s natural environment, biodiversity, science, First Nations cultures, dinosaurs, ancient life, and the state’s history. The permanent museum is free to visit, while some exhibitions and experiences are ticketed. It’s currently open every day from 9:30am to 5pm.
State Library of Queensland
Also within the Cultural Centre is the State Library of Queensland, which is worth remembering if you want somewhere calm to spend part of a rainy afternoon.
It’s much more than somewhere to borrow books, with exhibitions, Queensland historical collections, creative spaces, reading areas, events, and plenty of places to sit for a while that are light and airy and even great to watch the rain from.
Opening times vary between different parts of the library, with some areas staying open until 8pm Monday through Thursday.
Basically, if the forecast looks terrible, South Bank is one of the easiest places to base yourself. You could spend most of a day moving between these three without having to reorganize your entire itinerary around the rain.
Museum of Brisbane
For something more focused on the city itself, visit the Museum of Brisbane, located inside Brisbane City Hall. The museum explores Brisbane’s art, people, culture, design, and social history through a combination of permanent collections and changing exhibitions. Admission is free and the museum is also open daily from 10am to 5pm.
You can also combine it with a Brisbane City Hall Clock Tower tour. The historic clock tower reaches 92 meters above the city, and the free tours include a trip up one of Brisbane’s oldest working cage lifts. It would still be quite a fun view even on a rainy day! Clock Tower visits require a booking, so check availability before you go.
Do Something Fun Indoors
If you’ve reached your museum capacity (it happens), Brisbane has plenty of rainy day activities that involve fun indoor activities and require significantly less intellectual effort
Play Mini Golf at Holey Moley
Holey Moley is always an easy answer when you need something entertaining to do indoors, which I guess is why it has locations around Australia and now also the whole world!
The Brisbane City location is inside the Wintergarden Shopping Centre on Queen Street and has a nine-hole mini golf course filled with themed holes, pop-culture references, drinks, and plenty of opportunities to become irrationally competitive over miniature golf.
It’s especially handy because you’re right in the middle of the CBD, so you can easily combine it with shopping, lunch, drinks, or another indoor activity on my list!
Play Arcade Games at Netherworld
This would probably be one of my personal rainy day picks. Netherworld in Fortitude Valley is a bar, diner, and wonderfully nerdy collection of retro games all rolled into one.
They have over a few dozen arcade machines, over a dozen pinball machines, classic consoles, and a huge collection of board games. Arcade games cost $1 while the consoles and board games are free to play. There are also 24 taps of beer, cider, and other drinks, plus a full diner menu.
It’s closed Mondays but currently opens from midday Tuesday through Sunday, staying open until late. This is a great pick if you want a one-and-done location for the whole day slash storm!
Tour the XXXX Brewery
If you’re going to be stuck inside, you might as well learn something useful… like how Queensland’s most famous beer is made.
The XXXX Brewery in Milton runs 90-minute brewery tours in the massive brewery, covering the brewing process and history of the brand, followed by a beer tasting session – what could be more ideal on a gloomy day?!
Tours currently operate Wednesday through Sunday and are for adults of drinking age. Booking ahead is a good idea because scheduled tour times vary. This is one of the more distinctly Brisbane rainy day activities on this list rather than something you could do in basically any Australian city.
Explore Brisbane Powerhouse
Another interesting indoor place to check out is Brisbane Powerhouse in New Farm. The huge former power station has been transformed into a contemporary arts center hosting comedy, theater, music, exhibitions, festivals, talks, and other performances throughout the year.
The building itself is open seven days a week, but there are of course different shows and events happening every day, week, and weekend – so check what’s on during your rainy day. There are also bars and restaurants inside, so you can easily turn a performance into a full rainy evening out.
Wander Around Brisbane’s Indoor Shopping Arcades
Rain is also an excellent excuse to browse Brisbane’s indoor shops and historic arcades. Start around Queen Street Mall, where you’ll find several covered shopping centers and historic arcades within a small area.
Make sure to wander through Brisbane Arcade, a beautiful heritage-listed shopping arcade dating back to 1923. Today it’s home to local designers, jewelers, specialty stores, and boutiques. Tattersall’s Arcade is also beautiful.
You can continue through the surrounding shopping centers, stop for coffee, browse shops, or conveniently end up at Holey Moley when you’ve had enough shopping.
Have a Long Brisbane Brunch or Cafe Afternoon
Australians take their cafe culture seriously, and Brisbane is no exception. If it’s raining too hard to sightsee properly, this is an excellent time to settle into a cafe for an unnecessarily elaborate brunch and wait for the weather to sort itself out.
For somewhere cozy in the CBD, John Mills Himself is tucked inside a heritage-listed old brick building and has exactly the kind of atmosphere I’d want for ducking out of a sudden shower for a coffee.
If you’re ready for a full-on brunch, go to Mi Casa Cafè in South Brisbane. Their food is ridiculously colorful and beautifully presented, with the kind of brunch plates that look almost too pretty to eat. This would be my pick for sitting down with a big meal and a journal while watching the rain outside.
Then there’s Coffee Iconic, another adorable little CBD spot hidden away off George Street. There’s a leafy courtyard out the back with a covered patio where you can sit as long as the rain isn’t coming down sideways, or you can duck inside for coffee and a pastry. Their actual brunch dishes are pretty impressive too, and they even offer a coffee tasting board if you want to turn your caffeine break into more of an event.
Pick whichever fits the mood, order a flat white and something unnecessarily Australian involving avocado, and give the rain cloud an hour or two to reconsider its choices.
Catch Up on Your Travel Journal or Read a Book
A rainy cafe afternoon is also perfect for catching up on all that journaling you keep putting off – whether it’s about your travels, recent thoughts, or anything else.
Grab your journal and write down what you’ve done so far while you can still remember the tiny details and how each place made you feel. Those are usually the things that disappear first, so a rainy day is the ideal time to catch up on journaling.
You can also bring a book and read in the window pretending your life is a movie… or send some postcards, work on a scrapbook, or just order another coffee and read for a couple of hours while the rain does its thing outside.
Eat Something Made for Rainy Weather
Brisbane obviously doesn’t get that cold, but give me a chilly, rainy day and suddenly a giant bowl of ramen sounds 400% better.
Ramen Danbo in South Brisbane is particularly convenient if you’ve spent the day exploring QAGOMA, Queensland Museum, or the Cultural Centre. They specialize in Fukuoka-style tonkotsu ramen, and you can customize everything from the richness of your broth and amount of spicy sauce to your noodle firmness (yes, you read that correctly… you get to choose your noodle firmness).
It’s warm, filling, extremely well reviewed, and close enough to the museums that you can get there without getting too wet.
If ramen isn’t calling your name, there are plenty of cozy restaurants, pubs, wine bars, and breweries around Fortitude Valley, West End, South Brisbane, and the CBD where you can turn the rest of the afternoon into a slow food and drinks crawl.
Book a Spa or Wellness Afternoon
Another activity that suddenly becomes much easier to justify when it’s raining: spending several hours in a spa. You could book a massage, facial, sauna session, hotel spa afternoon, float session, or another treatment and emerge several hours later, hopefully relaxed and potentially into completely different weather.
Brisbane has plenty of hotel spas and wellness centers around the city, so I’d look for somewhere close to where you’re staying rather than trekking across town through the rain. If your trip has involved a lot of walking, this can also be a very strategic way to give your feet a day off.
Final Tips for a Rainy Day in Brisbane
Brisbane is generally associated with sunshine and an outdoor lifestyle, but a rainy forecast really doesn’t mean losing a day of your trip.
For the easiest rainy day itinerary, I’d probably start around South Bank and the Queensland Cultural Centre, where you can visit QAGOMA, Queensland Museum, and the State Library within the same small area.
If you’re museumed out, grab ramen or a long brunch, head into the CBD for mini golf or shopping, and finish with drinks and retro games at Netherworld or a show at Brisbane Powerhouse.
Or just stay in for a few hours. Sometimes the weather makes the decision for you, and you can get back to exploring Brisbane when the sun comes out again.
Passionate, full-time travel blogger with over 230k on social media and 150kMPV blog. Extraordinary photographer with two DSLR's + a drone with a love for capturing candid moments, epic drone shots, and magical compositions. I'm a natural-born content creator originally from California, but I've been on the road for 9 years living, working, traveling, blogging, and photographing my way around the world. I recommend the most amazingly adventurous and unique + boutique travel experiences/stays and helpful products to my audience and write comprehensive guides on my website that have helped millions of travelers so far. I love to inspire people to plan their dream trips, and many readers have given feedback as such. The reach on my platforms continues to soar, especially when combining cutting-edge social content with optimized articles on my high-authority website.