my time in: Sydney, Australia
in another life, i'd move here.
hi again! apologies for the hiatus :( i was too busy enjoying all the places i’ve been traveling to be bothered to write this blog, but now i’m back!
synopsis
best for: nature lovers, fitness freaks, surfing & beaches, LGBTQ+ nightlife, walking around
top things to do: Bondi to Coogee Walk, ferry to Manly Beach, happy hour drinks at Darling Harbour, Asian food crawl in Haymarket
top restaurants: Bar Nina, Yo-Chi Froyo, Get Sashimi, Yang Guo Fu Malatang, Glider Garden, Salina Cafe, Anita Gelato
costs: $/$ (with the conversion to the American dollar it’s not too bad, but by no means cheap)
cultural overview: very very fit city, tons of foreigners (especially Brits), lots of city events and community gatherings
favorite memory: any night out at Hotel Ravesis followed by any morning after debrief with Anabel Marré. many mistakes were made, but we survived.
for a good Google Maps guide of places to go in town, check this out, courtesy of a friend from Bermi.
ok. i spent a total of 7 weeks in Sydney. they were some of the best 7 weeks of my life. i will try my absolute best to keep this newsletter short and not bore everyone.
my friend Anabel, from college (since no one seemed to realize that), met me in Australia and we worked as housekeepers at a hostel in a Sydney suburb. Bondi Beach Backpackers, right on the Pacific Ocean, is both Hell on Earth and possibly my favorite hostel of all time. why? because our boss was crazy & money-hungry, but also because the guests at this hostel were all staying long-term, so we made a really good group of friends during our time there. in good conscience i cannot divulge the stories and tales we have from our time in Sydney, but i’ll just say: Anabel and i lived through some really heinous shit and did even more heinous shit. if you are looking for a FUN but also DISGUSTING but also HILARIOUS place to stay in Sydney, Bondi Beach Backpackers is your go to. Bondi as a suburb is known for being bougie, sort of like Malibu, very trendy, super into fitness and health, but also relaxed and laid back.
here is a photo sneak peek for a sense of what life at BBB is like:
we regularly had just strange old men wander in the hostel and crash on a mattress they found.
i promise it was safe to live there. anyways, here’s what i got up to in Sydney, and what i recommend:
around the city
Opera House & Harbour Bridge: this is a given, since when most people think of Sydney, they picture the Opera House. when i flew into Sydney and first caught glimpse of the Opera House, i burst into tears. while i never attended a show at the Opera House, the neighborhood on the harbour is a delight to visit. obviously very touristy, but on a beautiful day you can quickly stroll to the free Royal Botanic Gardens, cross the bridge to the amusement park on the north side, Luna Park, or grab a drink at one of the many bars around. Sydney is a very walkable city, also blessed with a robust tram and train system, so it’s easy to get around anywhere else from the Opera House.
Haymarket: this neighborhood was the first i visited when i landed in Sydney. a sort of melting pot of Asian cultures, Haymarket is open very late unlike other neighborhoods in town. with tons of sit-down restaurants, street food joints, shopping malls, karaoke bars, and arcades to play in, it’s easy to spend a lot of time here. it’s a great, bustling neighborhood to walk around, day or night. places i went include MM Karaoke Bar, Yang Guo Fu Malatang for build-your-own hotpot, and Thai Dessert Corner for mango sticky rice.
Darling Harbour: probably my favorite neighborhood for a happy hour deal, Darling Harbour overlooks the docks of Sydney, and on King Street you can find loads of different cuisines to grab some food and a cocktail while enjoying your afternoon. also, on Saturday nights, the city puts on a free firework show over the harbour!
Glebe Market: Sydney has tons of street flea markets on the weekend, but we heard great reviews about Glebe so we checked it out. they were serving food from multiple trucks featuring various cuisines, and had tons of stalls selling super cheap vintage clothes, handmade jewelry, and more. you can’t beat this for a weekend afternoon activity.
food&bev
Australia LOVES a food&bev deal. tons of pubs and restaurants offer discounted meals and drinks on various days of the week. the best i found was Bar Nina in Darlinghurst, which offers ever changing deals throughout the week. went Anabel and i went, we got burgers for $5AUD ($3) and cocktails for $12AUD ($7). the food in Sydney was good, but nothing superb compared to Melbourne, though. my other favorite eats in town were at Bottega, an italian sub place, Yo-Chi, a gourmet froyo chain, Anita, serving ridiculously creamy gelato, Glider Garden where i ate a delicious soft shell crab egg sandwich, and Get Sashimi, a high-quality upscale grab & go sushi and nigiri joint. also in the Bronte suburbs is Salina Cafe, where i had the best eggs benedict of my life.
honorable mentions (and short overviews) of the following neighborhoods— Potts Point, Newtown, Surry Hills, and The Rocks:
Potts Point: nestled within Sydney’s red light district of Kings Cross, during the day Potts Point is quaint and artsy, a great spot to grab brunch and stroll with friends
Newtown: a bohemian and hipster neighborhood, very reminiscent of Williamsburg, Newtown is great for thrift shopping and trying food from new cultures
Surry Hills: upscale and professional, Surry Hills is a trendy spot amongst working adults in their late 20s, great for grabbing coffee at a café or a beer after work. also home to one of the smaller parks in the city, Prince Alfred Park, which is beautiful to walk around or visit their pool.
The Rocks: a historic precinct at the foot of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, The Rocks featured cobbled laneways reminiscent of its rich colonial past. home to loads of pubs and weekend markets, this is a fun place to spend your Saturday afternoon or night.
nightlife: the nightlife in Sydney is very inconsistent. sometimes i’d have a crazier Thursday night than i did on Saturday; sometimes i’d wake up deeply hungover on Monday morning from going to hard the night before. it’s widely known that the city has strict lockdown laws, but it can be fun if you make do with what you have. here are the spots i recommend.
George Street: one of the busiest and oldest streets in CBD, George Street is super fun to walk down on a weekend night. littered with pubs, cocktail bars, nightclubs and rooftops, it’s just a lively, young feeling neighborhood. places i recommend are Jam Record Bar, a cocktail spot, The Ivy, a swanky nightclub and rooftop, Caterpillar Club, a speakeasy-esque live music spot and Papa Gede’s, an absinthe bar with a super creative cocktail menu.
Hotel Ravesis: literally crawling with tourists, but this place was right across the street from our hostel in Bondi, so we became regulars here. downstairs they play live music, usually a band covering ‘90s and ‘00s rock songs, and upstairs they have a patio and a small room playing EDM and techno. it’s a bizarre mix, and definitely only worth going with a lot of friends, but it’s still fun nonetheless.
Coogee Bay Hotel & Coogee Pavilion Rooftop: every Sunday at our hostel, there’d be a “Coogee send” to the southern beach neighborhood. we’d start off at Bay Hotel before ending the night at Pavilion, if we were sober enough to make it there. lol. i honestly don’t remember much from either of these two venues, but i know i had loads of fun there! one night i harassed everyone in sight to tell me their favorite curse word and made a TikTok out of it. let me let you in a very well-known secret: every British person’s favorite curse word is “c*nt”!
Chinese Laundry: a techno club in Darling Harbour, it’s small and unpretentious which i like. i showed up at 3am and found a good group of people head-bumping to synthetic beats.
Yacht Social Club: Anabel and i splurged and dropped a pretty penny on a harbour boat party. this was actually sick though. about 10 yachts and catamarans get tied together in the middle of Sydney’s harbour and people BYO alcohol and pool inflatables. there were two slides to jump off, and a massive pool float for people to share. it felt bougie and boozey and nice to have a day off in the sun after so many long shifts being housekeepers at Bondi Beach Backpackers.
Darlinghurst and Oxford Street: the LGBTQ+ neighborhood of Sydney, Oxford St is renowned for its gay bars, drag shows and more. i spent Saturday, March 1st bar-hopping on Oxford Street to celebrate Sydney’s Mardi Gras (their version of Pride), and subsequently getting kicked out of every bar because my group was too rowdy. but, the gay parades were quite fun to watch and reminded me of actual Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
as a city, Sydney tourists rely a lot on instagram accounts and TikTok to promote events and neighborhood street parties. i would they are largely hit or miss, but can never hurt to know what your options are. the best we used was @bondi_lines, which didn’t feel like it catered too much to tourists or freshly graduated high schoolers. there are also loads of Facebook and Whatsapp groups that i found catered to different interests, that are good for meeting people or finding out about events.
beaches & nature
Bondi Beach: the most popular beach in Sydney, possibly the best known beach in the country. some call it overrated, but for 7 weeks this beach was my home. the best part about it? the beach is surrounded by a grassy hill, where people will sunbathe, picnic, seek shade under a tree, or throw a ball around. i spent loads of mornings sitting on the grass without having to deal with annoying sand, before walking to the ocean for a quick dip. this is a beautiful place to watch the sunrise, if you can get up early enough for it, and a great place to inspire you get into shape. seriously, 90% of the people on the street are in activewear. everyone here is super fit. people go on runs at like 4am. it’s bizarre. there’s a famous rock pool, but it’s usually overcrowded and packed with tourists, so i’d suggest checking out other suburbs along the coast.
Bondi to Coogee Walk: this is THE walk of Australia. it takes about 1.5 hours and there’s quite of bit of elevation change from ascents and descents in the cliffside geography, but it’s absolutely stunning. you pass through multiple suburbs and beaches on the way, like Bronte, home to the Bronte Baths, an oceanside rock pool, or Tamarama Beach, which is less crowded than Bondi and frequented by pro-surfers. the walk is the perfect activity for a sunny day.
Manly Beach and Spring Cove: Manly Beach is my favorite suburb in Sydney, and also the first beach i visited when i first got there. from the Opera House, you can hop on a 30 minute ferry that will take you across the harbour to Manly. the boardwalk is littered with restaurants, ice cream parlors, bars, and clothing stores, and there are multiple beaches in the neighborhood. my favorite spot is Spring Cove, a 15 minute walk from the docks, where you can hop a fence and do some light climbing to a look-out where there’s a 20 foot drop into the water below. on the left of the jump is an outpost with a staircase leading you back to where you began. There’s also Fairlight Beach Rockpool, a free rock pool where you can get a perfect mix of ocean and pool.
Bondi to Watson’s Bay Walk: not as pretty or as consistent as the Bondi to Coogee Walk, the visit to Watson’s Bay is worth it. this walk takes about two hours, but a good chunk of that time is spent in residential areas, rather than right on the coast. however, there are some gorgeous cliff views along the way and the Watson’s Bay neighborhood is adorable and never too busy. there’s a quaint lighthouse, as well as Camp Cove Beach, tucked away under an overpass of foliage and offering beautiful views of the city’s skyline. it’s a nice visit if you want to escape the general craziness of Bondi, Sydney’s most popular beach suburb.
Blue Mountains: an easy day (or overnight) trip from Sydney, you can hop on one of the commuter trains to visit the Blue Mountains, a beautiful and rugged mountain range in the west of New South Walls. starting in the small town of Katoomba, there are multiple trails you can hike and visit, viewing steep cliffs, dramatic scenery, waterfalls and wildlife. there’s a scenic cableway you can book to ascend the mountain cliff, as well! and at Echo Point, you can climb down some very steep, very rusty stairs to see the beautiful Three Sisters rock formation. these views were seriously breathtaking. Anabel and i actually shut the fuck up for once when we first got to the Blue Mountains.
Royal National Park: another great day trip from Sydney, Royal National Park lies to the east of town. offering tons of trails as well, Anabel and i did the Heathcote Station to Karloo Pools walk, which took about an hour and a half, and ended in a remote and enclosed rock pool, where we took a nice swim.
to top this blog off, i will leave those of you who made it this far with a funny, PG story of the types of hijinks Anabel and i got into in Sydney: it’s a Saturday afternoon. i’m passed out asleep in bed, in the clothes i went out in the night before. a short Dutch-Australian man named Niels comes bursting in to my all-female dorm. he starts accusing me of having stolen his jeans. why would he think that, you ask? i am wearing Abercrombie curve jeans. Niels is not a curvy woman. well he was under the impression we went home together because we made out in the hallway for about half an hour, before i told him i was going to bed, ALONE. thankfully, Anabel, bless her hard working soul, was on housekeeping shift as these allegations were being yelled at me (still passed out dead asleep) and she was vacuuming the room at the time. she told him i was certainly not wearing his jeans and to fuck off. turns out: he had wandered into a random room the night before, took off his pants, and then mysteriously left. weird guy that Niels.
overall thoughts
does my employer have an office in Sydney? yes. do i question every day if i should request an office transfer? also yes. but i haven’t even started my job in New York yet, so i should probably calm tf down. all i’ll say is a lot of Aussies i met traveling told me they HATED Sydney, but i was very happily surprised to fall in love with this city. i feel as if the neighborhoods blend together really well, and it’s super easy to spend an entire afternoon walking from one to the other. people are friendly, relaxed, and you can walk around barefoot without people looking at you funny. sure, it’s overrun by Europeans, who take advantage of the easy-to-get work visa, and sure, it’s expensive, but the friends i made and memories i have of this place will keep me laughing for many years to come.
next stop
Melbourne, Australia. another goated city that i would move to.
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