Sydney is a fantastic city and a major tourist destination. Although it sits across a large geographic area, the major attractions tend to be located within a reasonable distance from the CBD (or downtown for those of you from the USA).
When people talk about Sydney, it pretty much encompasses Sutherland all the way north to Palm Beach and all the way west to Penrith, the Greater Sydney Area covers over 12,000 square kilometers so if you want to see it all you have a bit of ground to cover.
There are some awesome travel apps out there that can help you find attractions, and travel between them.
TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor is the go to place for a lot of travellers, it is a veritable mountain of data. It is a great place to start when looking for a general overview of accommodation and experiences.
This is the large picture but something that will provide you with genuine answers and reviews across a wide cross section of Sydney services, and the rest of the world. If you don’t have the app get it!
Zomato
We all love to eat right? I mean that’s one of the great joys of travelling and Sydney has loads of really amazing restaurants. I know everyone says that about their home town. But in Sydney you are spoilt for choice. From great cheap eats at food trucks to chinatown to mind blowing degustation at the opera house, or some incredible pub food in Newport – there are huge amounts of choice and you need help to choose it.
There are a few great apps out there but the one we have always loved has been Urbanspoon, which has now morphed into Zomato. It will help you find the great restaurants to a budget where you want. For overall coverage this is one of the best.
Time Out
Maybe you are looking for a nice quiet bar, or a loud one to meet new people and make a few friends, I mean who isn’t? There are quite a few specific bar apps that have popped up but with volume it is difficult for them to keep up to date and keep operating. Some have come and gone.
For a great overview of bars, clubs, and what’s happening, Time Out is hard to go by. It is a great app that allows you to search by event or geographic area, a must have for Sydney and just about any other city.
Google Maps
All this running around is great but you need to get there somehow. This is the most obvious of all and we are sure you have it, but if you don’t absolutely download the Google Maps app, it will get you where you need to go.
TripView
Public transport in Sydney is probably not as sophisticated as other cities, but it still provides an easy and affordable option to get around. There are a lot of apps that have been developed but the stand out one for us is an app called TripView. There are two versions, TripView Lite which is free and the TripView (full version) is $4.99.
All of the apps we looked at have problems staying up to date with time tables as they change but this seems to be the best.
Rydo
Taxis are still the most used personal point to point transport service in Australia. Somewhere around 410,000,000 passengers use them every year.
The great thing about taxis is that you can hail them when you are in a hurry or book them for later. The latest app on the market closes the gap between other ride share options and provides a great app for pre-booking a cab, or even grabbing one straight away.
Rydo lets you choose the type of taxi you would like and order immediately. Great for getting around Sydney, and also available in other major cities.
Eventbrite
If you like giving things a good shake and are looking for a concert, party, live music, or any other form of fun times – you will find a great deal of them on Eventbrite. It will let you purchase tickets in-app and is a great up to date source of information.
Old school 🙂
Ok it’s not an app but if you would like to meet some locals, put down the phone and get out and about. Sydney people are pretty easy going, so put the phone away and have a chat to a taxi driver or a bar tender.
There are millions of apps out there some good some not so good. Sydney is a big city with some wonderful beaches, amazing restaurants and great bars. So pick a destination grab a ride from Rydo and have an awesome time!
