The harbour is the easy part. Then the cliffs, the vines and the dunes.
Which cruise gets close enough to the sails to be worth the fare. What a Blue Mountains day really costs once Scenic World is added. Whether the Hunter Valley works as a day trip or needs the night. Reviews of every tour you can book in Sydney and the coast around it.
The sails, a ferry deck, the Three Sisters and a humpback off the heads.
The five bookings a first Sydney week hangs off. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The one you came forOpera House Guided Tour with Entrance TicketInside the sails with a guide, through the concert hall and out onto the northern foyer. Take the first slot, before the forecourt fills.
02Two hours, no planMorning or Afternoon Harbour Sightseeing CruiseCircular Quay out under the bridge and back past Fort Denison. The cheapest way to work out how this city is arranged.
03The day out westBlue Mountains Full-Day TripKatoomba, the Three Sisters, and the valley floor by cable car instead of by knee. Back in the city by dark.
04The splurgeBridgeClimb SydneyUp the outer arch on a clipped line, 134 metres over eight lanes of traffic. Nothing loose goes up with you.
05May to NovemberWhale Watching Adventure CruiseHumpbacks migrate straight past the heads, close enough that the skipper cuts the engine. Out of season it simply does not run.
Sydney first, then the cliffs, the cellar doors and the dunes up the coast.
A harbour city with four proper day trips hanging off it. Where each one starts, how long the road takes, and the day out that justifies it.
Sydney’s most-booked days out.
The whole Sydney list →The tours more travellers take than anything else here, and what earns each one the slot.
1
Opera House Guided Tour with Entrance Ticket
Tour Sydney Opera House interiors, theaters, and foyers with a guide, hear its dramatic story, and enjoy rare views for $33.
From · $33
Read our review →
2
All Inclusive Blue Mountain,Scenic World,Lunch,Koalas,ferry
from $204
3
Blue Mountains Full-Day Trip
from $148
4
Sydney Opera House Official Guided Walking Tour
from $34
5
Blue Mountains Small-Group Tour from Sydney with Scenic World,Sydney Zoo & Ferry
from $161
6
Blue Mountain Small Group Scenic World, Wildlife, Waterfall
from $148
7
Big Bus Hop-On Hop-Off Tour with Optional Cruise
from $51
8
BridgeClimb Sydney
from $213
In Sydney the good day starts at a wharf.
Ferries that cost less than the coffee at the terminal, catamarans that hold still under the sails long enough for the photograph, kayaks out of Lavender Bay before the ferries start, and humpbacks past the heads from May. The harbour is the reason the city is where it is.
Ferry, dinner table, open swell or a hull that goes sideways. Four ways to spend a day on this harbour.
The water is the point of Sydney. Four kinds of day afloat, what it costs to board each one, and which part of the harbour it actually shows you.
Sydney: the sails before ten, the sandstone lanes after.
Everything in Sydney →
The Opera House opens its doors before the crowds reach Circular Quay. The lanes behind it hold the oldest pubs in the country and the stairs convicts cut into the rock. The tower puts the whole basin, heads to river, in one frame. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
Inside the sails, or just the forecourt
The guided hour goes into the concert hall and the rehearsal rooms the public never sees. Worth it if the building is why you came, skippable if you already hold a ticket to a performance.
The Rocks, before the market fills
Convict-cut steps, the one-room cottages at Susannah Place and pubs that have been pouring since the 1840s, all inside a few hundred metres behind the terminal.
Sydney Tower, and what it is actually for
From the top the harbour finally reads as a map: the heads, the bridge, the river running west into the plain. Go on a clear afternoon and stay through the light change.
What a day out in Sydney actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. A good number of the best Sydney days come in under the price of dinner.
Harbour ferries, the walk through the Rocks, zoo and aquarium entry, the fish market before the auction ends.
The full days out: Katoomba and Scenic World, whale watching past the heads, a Hunter cellar run with a driver.
The bridge arch, seaplanes over the heads, private wine days and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
The Blue Mountains are two hours west and a different climate.
Sandstone cliffs, a valley you can drop into by cable car instead of by knee, and the eucalyptus haze that gave the range its name. Most people take it as a day from the city. The walks are better if you sleep in Katoomba and start before the coaches.
Every Blue Mountains day →
The Hunter is old Semillon, a cheese room, and somebody else holding the keys.
Two hours north sits the oldest wine country in Australia: Semillon that ages like nothing else grown here, Shiraz off warm red soil, and cellar doors close enough together to do four before lunch. Take a driver, or book the night in Pokolbin and walk between them.
- 1Snapshot Half Day Hunter Valley Wine Tourfrom $78
- 2Uncork the Hunter Full Day Hunter Valley Winery Tourfrom $157
- 3Hunter Valley Half-Day Tour with Cheese and Winefrom $77
Semillon, oysters and a cheese room: the eating end of a Sydney trip.
The fish market opens at dawn and the auction floor is the real show. The Hunter cellar doors are pouring before eleven. The small bars behind Wynyard still do not put their names on the door. Book the ones that fill.
Three things that only happen in Sydney.
Beaches and observation towers exist everywhere. Walking the outer arch of a working steel bridge, a whole harbour used as a projection screen in midwinter, and sandstone engravings still on the headlands do not.
The BridgeClimb
The bridge was riveted together from both ends between 1924 and 1932 and the two halves met within millimetres. Climbers clip onto a static line and walk the outer arch to 134 metres while eight lanes of traffic and two rail tracks run underneath. Nothing loose goes up: no cameras, no phones, pockets emptied at the door.
- 1BridgeClimb Sydney★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,633 reviews
- 2Guided Daytime Summit Climb of Sydney Harbour Bridge★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 817 reviews
- 3BridgeClimb Sydney Harbour Summit Night★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 125 reviews
Vivid Sydney
For about three weeks from late May the sails of the Opera House, the bridge pylons and most of the buildings around Circular Quay are turned into projection screens and the foreshore closes to traffic. It runs after dark in the coldest weeks of the year, which is exactly why the crowds thin out after nine.
- 1Tall Ship Vivid Dinner Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 272 reviews
- 2Vivid Festival of Light Harbor Cruise with Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 120 reviews
- 3Vivid Harbour Cruise with Canapes★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 119 reviews
Country under the harbour
The Gadigal of the Eora nation fished this harbour from bark canoes and cut engravings into the sandstone above it, some of which are still on the headlands at North Head and above Bondi. Guided walks read the rock, the shell middens and the plants, and put the last two hundred and fifty years back into proportion.
- 1Blue Mountains Tour from Sydney with an Aboriginal Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 104 reviews
- 2illi-Langi The Rocks Aboriginal Dreaming Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 90 reviews
- 3Aboriginal Experience Day Tour from Sydney★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 15 reviews
Four Sydney bookings that will not wait.
Most of this city can be sorted the night before from a pub table. These four run on capped climb slots, a migration timetable and a three-week calendar that takes no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01BridgeClimb SydneyClimb groups are capped and everybody wants the twilight slot. Weekends go weeks ahead of the day.
- 02Whale Watching Adventure CruiseHumpbacks pass the heads from May to November and not otherwise. Outside those months there is no boat to put you on.
- 03Tall Ship Vivid Dinner CruiseVivid runs about three weeks from late May. The cruises that sit inside the light show sell out before the program is announced.
- 04Opera House Guided Tour with Entrance TicketTours run in the gaps between performances, so the schedule moves with the program. The early slots are the quiet ones.
A southerly change can take the afternoon boat with it.
Sydney ends its hot days with a southerly that arrives inside twenty minutes, drops the temperature ten degrees and puts enough chop on the harbour to cancel the smaller craft. Book the water for the morning and keep the afternoon for things with a roof over them.
By place — the harbour city and the country around it
By kind of day — deck, cliff, cellar or road
Harbour, cliff walk, mountains, vines: the week almost everybody does first.
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