Where To Go in Sydney
27 places across 9 categories — the landmarks on the postcards, the observation decks, the museums, the parks, and the neighborhoods where the city actually lives.
Landmarks
TODO — what landmarks in Sydney are actually worth the time.
Sydney Opera House
A building that took sixteen years, ten times its budget and its architect's career, and is worth every part of that.
Sydney Harbour Bridge
Fifty-three thousand tonnes of steel, six million rivets, and three quite different ways to get on top of it.
Bondi Beach
A kilometre of sand, a surf club that invented lifesaving, and a coastal walk that is better than the beach.
The Rocks
The oldest European quarter in Australia, saved from demolition by a builders' union in the 1970s.
Manly
A ferry ride through the middle of the harbour to a beach town with surf on one side and calm water on the other.
Museums
TODO — what museums in Sydney are actually worth the time.
Art Gallery of New South Wales
Free, doubled in size in 2022, and holding the best collection of Aboriginal art in any state gallery.
Australian Museum
The oldest museum in Australia, with a First Nations gallery that has been substantially rethought.
Museum of Contemporary Art
An Art Deco maritime services building on the quay, full of contemporary art, free, with a rooftop café.
Australian National Maritime Museum
A submarine, a destroyer, a replica of the Endeavour, and a serious attempt at telling the story from both sides of the shore.
Chau Chak Wing Museum
Three university collections — antiquities, natural history and art — in one 2020 building, free, and almost unvisited.
History
TODO — what history in Sydney are actually worth the time.
Hyde Park Barracks
A convict dormitory of 1819 that became an immigration depot and an asylum, and is now the best museum of any of it.
Cockatoo Island
A convict prison and then Australia's biggest shipyard, on an island in the harbour where you can camp overnight.
Barangaroo Reserve
A container terminal turned back into a sandstone headland, named for a Cammeraygal woman who refused to wear English clothes.
Parks & Outdoors
TODO — what parks & outdoors in Sydney are actually worth the time.
Royal Botanic Garden Sydney
Thirty hectares wrapped around the harbour beside the Opera House, free, open every day since 1816.
Sydney Harbour National Park
Bushland, islands, gun emplacements and rock engravings, scattered around a working harbour and reached by ferry.
Centennial Parklands
Two hundred hectares of ponds, fig avenues and horse tracks, laid out in 1888 and saved by a strike in 1972.
Food & Drink
TODO — what food & drink in Sydney are actually worth the time.
Sydney Fish Market
The largest fish market in the southern hemisphere, with an auction at half past five in the morning and a new building next door.
Chinatown and Haymarket
Dixon Street, the night markets, and some of the best and cheapest Asian food in any Western city.
Coffee and Brunch in Sydney
Australia exported the flat white and the avocado on toast, and it takes both more seriously than you expect.
Culture & Music
TODO — what culture & music in Sydney are actually worth the time.
Vivid Sydney
Three weeks of light projections, music and ideas across the harbour, in the coldest and least likely part of the year.
Carriageworks
Nineteenth-century railway workshops turned into the largest contemporary arts precinct in Australia, with a Saturday farmers' market.
Shopping
TODO — what shopping in Sydney are actually worth the time.
Queen Victoria Building
A Romanesque Revival market hall of 1898 that was nearly a car park, restored with Malaysian money and a great deal of stained glass.
Paddington Markets
A Saturday market in a churchyard since 1973, where a good number of Australian fashion labels started.
Day Trips
TODO — what day trips in Sydney are actually worth the time.
Neighbourhoods
TODO — what each part of Sydney is like to walk around, and who lives there.
