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If you’re planning a trip to Perth (Boorloo), signing up for an immersive Aboriginal cultural experience while you’re there can enrich your travels and deepen your appreciation of this beautiful city.
These tours, led by traditional custodians, offer authentic insights into Whadjuk and Noongar cultures, and invite you to see some of the area’s most scenic locations through a completely different lens.
Here are two standout Aboriginal-owned operators offering cultural tours in and around Perth.
Walk country and hear the stories you won’t find in books
In Culture Tours offers a memorable way to experience Whadjuk Noongar boodjar (Whadjuk Noongar country) through guided walking tours that blend truth-telling with traditional knowledge, sensory immersion and stunning landscapes. Led by Noongar guides, these tours are designed to connect you to place while sharing stories and perspectives often omitted from history.
In the heart of Perth, the Kaarta Gar-Up Kings Park Cultural Tour offers sweeping views over the city skyline and Swan River (Derbarl Yerrigan) while your guide shares the Dreaming stories tied to this sacred place. You’ll smell and touch native plants once used as bush medicine, hear stories of life before colonisation, and gain a new understanding of Kings Park’s cultural significance. The 90-minute tour is wheelchair- and pram-accessible and suitable for all ages.
Down the coast, the Walyalup Fremantle Cultural Tour takes you on a 90-minute journey through key sites such as Bathers Beach, the Whalers Tunnel and the Round House lookout. You’ll experience a welcome to country and a sand ceremony, learn about the opening of the Swan River from a Noongar perspective, and explore truths behind colonial history that are rarely told. This gentle, all-ages walk is both scenic and thought-provoking, and finishes at the WA Maritime Museum (or the nearby Gage Roads brewery if you’re thirsting for a cold drink).
For those looking to explore further afield, the Boya Kaarla Cape Peron Cultural Tour, about an hour south of the Perth CBD, offers dramatic coastal vistas and cultural storytelling. Your Whadjuk guide will share the significance of Point Peron in Noongar lore, how the area was used for important ceremonies and the ways the surrounding bushland and shoreline continue to play a vital role in spiritual and everyday life for Aboriginal people.
The tour’s ceremonies and teachings about local flora will have you reflecting on the past and seeing the landscape differently, as you walk by rocky outcrops with ocean views stretching out to the horizon.
A deeper connection through bush experiences
In Mandurah, just over an hour south of Perth, Goolamwiin invites travellers to experience culture on country in Yalgorup National Park. Meaning “winds blowing from the south-west”, Goolamwiin is more than a tour company – it was created to provide a space to share stories, and forge understanding and connection between cultures, no matter where in the world you come from.
The Goolamwiin Day Tour is a three-hour cultural journey that begins with a Nyungar welcome to country before heading into the bush. Your guides will share personal stories of growing up on an Aboriginal reserve, introduce you to bush tucker and medicinal plants, and invite you to try your hand at using traditional tools. Over a campfire morning or afternoon tea, guests learn more about Nyungar life, language and lore. Dance and storytelling form a key part of the experience, bringing traditions to life in a way that’s engaging, respectful and inclusive. The tour finishes with the chance to view and buy Aboriginal artworks by the local artist Kerry Stack.
For visitors wanting to deepen their experience further, the Goolamwiin Overnight Camping Tour offers an extended stay on country from 4pm to 9am. This experience includes everything in the day tour, plus a cultural healing ceremony, campfire dinner and an overnight stay in the bush. It’s an opportunity to slow down, switch off from the everyday and connect to the land and stories that have shaped it for generations.
You’ll learn about the importance of freshwater sites, try bush foods, participate in traditional dances, and wake to a bush breakfast and billy tea. It’s an intimate way to experience living culture in a welcoming, hands-on setting that encourages shared learning and storytelling.
Whether you’re fine-tuning your itinerary for an upcoming trip or already on the road, Aboriginal-led tours are easy to book and will be memorable highlights of your trip. And whether you’re interested in walking the city’s most iconic parks, tracing coastal songlines in Fremantle or sitting by the fire in Yalgorup National Park, these tours encourage more than sightseeing – they’re about shifting perspective.
Through storytelling, ceremony and connection, each tour invites you to engage with Whadjuk and Noongar culture in a meaningful and respectful way. They will both lift and deepen your travel experience, and you’ll carry their lessons with you long after your journey ends.
Discover more at westernaustralia.com.
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