What Summer Bay actually is

Summer Bay is a fictional coastal town that has been filmed at Palm Beach, New South Wales, since Home and Away first went to air on Seven in January 1988. There is no town called Summer Bay and no sign anywhere naming it. What exists is a long surf beach, a headland with a lighthouse at its northern end, a sheltered estuary side on Pittwater, and a handful of buildings the production has been dressing as Summer Bay for close to four decades.

A curved surf beach seen from high above at dusk, a wooded headland lined with houses running out to sea under a pink sky
Pictured: The ocean side of Sydney’s northern beaches at dusk. Photograph: Tours To Go.

That one fact shapes the whole visit. You are not going to a studio, a theme park or an attraction. You are going to a working Sydney beach suburb that happens to be the most filmed stretch of sand in the country — and you can wander it for nothing, at your own pace, with the theme tune stuck in your head.

Real name
Palm Beach, NSW 2108
On screen since
January 1988
Distance from Sydney CBD
About 41 km by road, north
By public transport
Around 90 minutes from the city
Cost to visit
Free. Paid parking at Governor Phillip Park
Interiors
Studio sets at Redfern — not open to visitors

The Summer Bay walk: four stops in order

Everything you will recognise sits at the northern end of the beach, so park once and walk. In this order it is a loop of a couple of hours with the lighthouse climb, or under an hour without it.

  • The surf club. The Summer Bay Surf Club is the surf club at the northern end of the beach, near the headland — NSW National Parks points visitors to it from the lighthouse. It is a working club with real volunteer patrols, so admire the façade, take the photo, and treat it as somebody’s clubhouse rather than a prop.
  • The beach itself. The sand between the surf club and the headland is where the rescues, the arguments and the slow-motion running happen. Walk it barefoot and hum quietly.
  • The Pittwater side. Cross the narrow neck of land to Governor Phillip Park and the calm water on the other side. The boathouse by the boat ramp is the building fans know from the bait shop and the wharf scenes, and the foreshore here is the backdrop for a great many sunsets on screen.
  • Barrenjoey Lighthouse. The sandstone lighthouse on the bluff, built in 1881, is the skyline behind years of establishing shots. NSW National Parks says plainly that visitors may recognise it from Home and Away. It gets its own section below.
Yachts moored on calm water at dusk, seen over the railing of a curved timber lookout with a bronze map on a sandstone plinth
Pictured: Pittwater at dusk, from the foreshore on the Palm Beach side. Photograph: Tours To Go.

The lighthouse walk

Barrenjoey Head is the northernmost point of Sydney, and the view from the top takes in Palm Beach on one side, Pittwater on the other and the Central Coast across Broken Bay. It is the best ten minutes of the day, and it is earned.

Barrenjoey Track
About 1 km, roughly 30 minutes each way from Governor Phillip Park. Moderate fitness
Smugglers Track
Steeper and shorter. Built by customs officers watching for smugglers around 1850
Lighthouse
Built 1881 from sandstone quarried on site, still unpainted
Tours
Most Sundays, on the hour 11am–3pm, 30 minutes. Adult $15, concession $13, child $11. Book ahead
Whales
Humpbacks pass heading north May–July and south September–November

NSW National Parks runs the lighthouse tours and bookings are required, so book before you go and allow at least 40 minutes to walk up from the car park. Without a tour, the track and the view from the top are free.

Can you visit the Home and Away set?

Not the inside. The Diner, the caravan park office, the hospital, the police station and every living room are built sets at Australian Technology Park in Redfern, in inner Sydney. That facility is a working production site: there is no visitor entrance, no tour of the stages and no viewing gallery.

The caravan park is the same story in miniature. There is a caravan park at Palm Beach, but the on-screen version is largely constructed, and what you can see from a public path is a normal holiday park going about its business. And Yabbie Creek, Summer Bay’s rougher neighbour, is fictional all the way down — there is nowhere to go and no sign to stand under.

Home and Away tours, and other ways to see Sydney’s north

Yes, there are Home and Away tours. Private operators run location tours out of the city, typically a half or full day taking in Palm Beach, the lighthouse and the northern beaches drive, and Destination NSW lists Celebtime among them. Prices and inclusions change, so compare current listings rather than trusting a figure in a guide. None of them can schedule a cast sighting — filming days are not published.

A tour buys you three things rather than access: the drive, somebody who knows which building is which, and the backstory on scenes filmed where you are standing. If you have a car and an afternoon, you do not need one. If you are in Sydney without a car, a guided day is usually the better trade against 90 minutes each way on the bus.

We do not list a dedicated Summer Bay tour yet. These Sydney operators are on our books and fit the same day out — the northern beaches coastline, private day tours you can point at Palm Beach, and the whale season that passes Barrenjoey.

EcoTreasures

Narrabean, New South Wales

EcoTreasures operates from Narrabean, NSW, offering guided marine adventures that showcase the natural wonders of Sydney's Northern Beaches coastline. The company specializes in sustainable…

  • Walking
  • Canoeing Kayaking
  • Information Available
PriceOn enquiry
Book with the operator

Runaway Tours

Sydney, New South Wales

Runaway Tours specializes in personalized group excursions throughout Sydney, NSW and its surrounding regions. The company operates with a team of fifteen experienced guides who offer tours…

  • Guided Tours
PriceOn enquiry
Book with the operator

Oz Whale Watching/Sydney Princess Cruises

Pyrmont, New South Wales

Experience the thrill of marine wildlife encounters with Oz Whale Watching, a specialised division of Sydney Princess Cruises operating from Pyrmont, NSW. This established operator has been…

  • Photo Opportunity
  • BBQ
PriceOn enquiry
Book with the operator

Sydney's Wonders Tours

Sydney, New South Wales

Sydney's Wonders Tours has been welcoming visitors to explore Australia's harbour city since 2013, bringing over a decade of local knowledge to every excursion. The experienced team…

  • Walking
  • Information Available
PriceOn enquiry
Book with the operator

Make a day of it

Summer Bay is the end of a long, beautiful road, and the beaches on the way up are worth the stops. One way to run the day, south to north:

  • Morning at Manly. Take the ferry from Circular Quay — about 30 minutes across the harbour — for a three-kilometre beach and the place the world’s first surfing contest was held in 1964.
  • Avalon and Whale Beach. Both have ocean rockpools at their southern ends; Whale Beach’s is 25 metres. Good for a swim with no surf to argue with.
  • Palm Beach rockpool. Fifty metres long at the southern end of the beach, before you walk north into Summer Bay proper.
  • Afternoon on the Summer Bay walk and up the lighthouse, timed so you come down for the light going gold.
  • Sunset on Pittwater. The estuary side faces west, which is why it gets the sunsets the ocean beach cannot.

If you are staying longer, the ferry from Palm Beach Wharf crosses to Ettalong on the Central Coast in about 30 minutes, and another run calls at The Basin in Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, a campground you can only reach by water or on foot.

Getting to Palm Beach

Palm Beach is the end of the road. The peninsula narrows to a single spine, Barrenjoey Road, and everything arrives along it.

  • By car. North over the Spit Bridge or the Roseville Bridge, then up the peninsula — roughly an hour without traffic, longer on summer weekends. The Spit Bridge opens for boat traffic on a schedule and can add a long delay.
  • By bus. Buses run the length of the peninsula from the city and from Manly; Destination NSW puts the trip at around 90 minutes. Route numbers change, so plan it on the Transport for NSW trip planner on the day.
  • By ferry. Palm Beach Ferries crosses Pittwater from Ettalong and Wagstaffe on the Central Coast, an unusual way to arrive from the north.
  • By seaplane. Sydney Seaplanes flies from Rose Bay to Pittwater beside the boat ramp. Its Palm Beach return package gives about three hours on the ground. It is the expensive way, and the one with the view.
Aluminium dinghies stored upright in a row of racks beside a building, against a dusk sky
Pictured: Dinghy racks on the Pittwater side of Palm Beach. Photograph: Tours To Go.

When to go

The beach is at its best from October to April, which is also when it is busiest and parking is hardest. May to September gives you a quieter headland, clearer air for the lighthouse view and water most visitors will not want to swim in — and it is whale season. Humpbacks head north past the headland from May to July and come back south from September to November.

Filming is another matter. Home and Away has filmed on location at Palm Beach for decades and returned to Seven for its 2026 season in January, but production schedules are not published, crews move, and stretches of the year are shot entirely indoors. In 2026 the production also filmed a run of episodes in Western Australia, the first time the show has shot outside New South Wales. Plan the visit around the place, and treat a working crew as a bonus rather than the reason you came.

Common questions

Where is Summer Bay in real life?
Palm Beach, at the northern tip of Sydney’s northern beaches, about 41 km from the city centre. Outdoor scenes have been filmed there since 1988.
Can you visit the Home and Away set?
The outdoor locations, yes: the beach, the surf club, the Pittwater foreshore and Barrenjoey Lighthouse are all public. The interiors are studio sets in Redfern with no public access.
Can you do a Home and Away tour?
Yes. Private operators run location tours from Sydney, usually half or full days covering Palm Beach and the northern beaches. Prices vary by operator, and no tour can guarantee filming or cast on the day.
Can you go up Barrenjoey Lighthouse?
You can walk to it: about 30 minutes each way on the Barrenjoey Track from Governor Phillip Park, or quicker and steeper on Smugglers Track. NSW National Parks runs 30-minute tours most Sundays between 11am and 3pm.
Is Yabbie Creek a real place?
No. Yabbie Creek is Summer Bay’s fictional neighbouring town and has no real-world location to visit.
Will I see the cast?
There is no way to promise it. Filming schedules are not released in advance, and much of the year is shot on interior sets in Redfern.
Does it cost anything to visit Summer Bay?
No. The beach, headland and lighthouse track are public and free. Parking at Governor Phillip Park is paid, and lighthouse tours carry a small fee.

Sources

Where this page states something a reader might want to check — a rule, a schedule, a decision — this is where it came from. Details change; these are the pages that change with them.