Sydney, Australia is a city on most people’s bucket list. Seeing the iconic Opera House, Harbor Bridge and Bondi Beach makes visiting Sydney a joy. What I didn’t realize before visiting Sydney is how large and spread out the city is. There are many ways to get around Sydney, Australia- trains, metro, buses, a light rail and ferries all within their public transportation system. The transportation system is easy to navigate with many options and is not overly priced. Unless you are looking to travel far out of Sydney’s transportation range, you shouldn’t need to rent a car during your visit. In this post, I will help you navigate around the gorgeous Sydney, Australia.
Download the Opal Travel App
The Opal Travel app is your best guide for navigating around Sydney, Australia. The app is available on Apple and Android app stores. This will make traveling around Sydney a breeze. You can use the contactless payment, top up your Opal card balance, and plan your route on the app.
Sydney’s public transportation system charges you based on distance, not by time or ride. Instead of issuing tickets for their public transportation system they issue Opal cards (like the Oyster card in London). While you can get a physical Opal card for free, within the app you can store a virtual Opal card. The Opal Travel app offers contactless payment to get onto all public transport within city. You can reload this card, again and again by adding credit card in the app. When you get on any public transportation, you just need to tap on when you get on and off when you get out. For example if you’re on a bus, you tap on the bus so your app knows where you got on then you tap off at your exit stop. This lets the app know how much to charge you for your journey.
Using the Opal Travel app also gives you access to plan your route of travel throughout Sydney. You can set a location from where you want to leave and arrive and it will tell you the best way to get there, how much it will cost, what time you will arrive, and even give you a map version of your trip. One of the features I really like about this is if you only want to take buses and not trains, you can refine your search to buses only. The app also allows you to plan in the future. Say you’re in your hotel in the evening and planning for the morning. You can change the trip planner to depart tomorrow morning when you plan on leaving and you can see the exact bus, train, or ferry you want to take.
From the Airport
Getting from Sydney International Airport (SYD) to the city center of Sydney is fairly easy. Hopefully you’ve already downloaded the Opal Travel app for your smartphone. From there, you can add funds to pay for your trip to the city center.
Take the T8 train from the airport to City Circle via Museum to get to Circular Quay station which is one of the main stations for public transport in Sydney. Depending on what time in the day you’re traveling from the airport, this trip will cost from $18.00 – $19.35 AUD ($12.00 – 12.93 USD) as of Feb. 2020.
Getting Around the City Center
Navigating around Sydney is not as difficult as some other major cities, but it does have many options for public transportation which can make things complicated. Sydney is a fairly large city so getting from one side of the city to the other can often take an hour or more. It is wise to plan your trip there by seeing one area at a time.
Traveling during peak times (7am – 9am & 4pm – 6:30pm) are 30% more expensive than traveling during off-peak times when paying with your Opal card. So if you’re a budget traveler like I am, try to plan your public transportation use during the off-peak times.
One of the main stations tourists will use in Sydney City Center is Circular Quay station. It is right by the Sydney Opera House and Harbor waterfront. The station has trains, buses, ferries and light rail routes coming and going from it every minute that can get you anywhere in the city.
For example, say you want to visit Bondi Beach. You would likely go from downtown Sydney station Circular Quay to Bondi Beach. In the Opal Travel app, you can easily see the route on how to get there. You can put this in the trip planner for the time you want to depart, select a route, and see the map with how you’ll be getting there. As seen below, this route will cost $3.73 AUD (about $2.50 USD) for a one way trip during off-peak travel time.
Travel Tip: If you’re planning on going many places or really far within Sydney one day, try to make it on Sunday. Public transportation in Sydney is a maximum of $2.80 AUD (about $1.91 USD) all day on Sunday. So once you spend $2.80 AUD, the rest of your travel that day is free! Budget friendly travelers rejoice!
Taking Day Trips
A lot of people visiting Sydney often take day trips from the city center to surrounding areas. This is really easy to do with the help of the Opal Travel app. One classic trip people visiting Sydney do is to Manly. While you can take the bus from downtown Sydney to Manly, I highly suggest taking the F1 ferry from Circular Quay station to visit Manly. This will give you gorgeous harbor views of the Harbor bridge and Sydney Opera House.
On the app you can put your closest station from your hotel or hostel and route it to Manly to see what time ferries depart to Manly. The ferry trip through the harbor should take about 30 minutes.
Travel Tip: If you’re looking for things to do in Manly, you can read more here: Day Trip from Sydney to Manly.
Hopefully this post will help you navigate Sydney, Australia a little better. Have a wonderful time in Australia! Let me know if you have any questions below and safe travels 🙂
Here are some of my other posts about Australia to help plan your trip!
- 5 Reasons to Travel on a Group Trip
- How to Navigate Around Sydney, Australia
- 10 Budget Friendly Things To Do in Sydney, Australia
- Review of 2019: 26 Countries in One Year
- Day Trip from Sydney to Manly
Travel Tarrah 