Sydney, day by day.
Which Blue Mountains coach actually stops at the falls. What the bridge costs from the top and from the lookout. When the humpbacks come past. Every Sydney tour, read and ranked before you pay for it.
The Blue Mountains are two hours away. That changes every Sydney itinerary.
Almost every visitor ends up choosing between water days and escarpment days, and the two want different amounts of your week. Here is what each one actually asks for.
The harbour, from the water it was built around
Sydney only makes sense from a deck. Sightseeing loops, sunset runs and lunch boats all leave from the same few wharves, so a water morning slots either side of anything else you have planned.
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Katoomba, the falls and the ropeway over the valley
Two hours west the city stops and a sandstone escarpment starts. It is a full day whichever way you go, and the coaches differ mostly on how many walks they fit in before the ropeway.
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The Rocks, the Quay and the lanes in between
The oldest part of Sydney is a twenty-minute walk end to end and almost none of it is obvious from a bus window. Walking days are the cheapest way to make the city legible.
See all 72 →What it costs to get above Sydney.
The city sells its skyline five different ways and the price gap between them is enormous. Same view, wildly different day.
Sydney Tower EyeLift to 250m, indoors, open all day, no booking window to missfrom $22.958 tours
Scenic World, KatoombaThe steepest passenger railway in the world, plus a cableway across the Jamison Valleyfrom $10735 tours
BridgeClimb1,332 steps to the top of the arch at 134m, in a supplied suit, on a timed slotfrom $2107 tours
Scenic flightsFifteen to thirty minutes over the harbour, the heads and the northern beachesfrom $17610 tours
SkydivingTandem jumps over the coast, weather-called on the morningfrom $844 toursPrices are the lowest we currently see on each; every one of them moves with the season.
The Sydney tours more travellers take than any other.
Every review →Ranked by how many people have actually been and left a verdict, not by what anyone is pushing this month.
1
Opera House Guided Tour with Entrance Ticket
Guided tour inside Sydney Opera House in 1 hour. Step beneath the sails, learn design secrets, and enjoy rare photo spots for $33.
From · $33
Read our review →
2
All Inclusive Blue Mountain,Scenic World,Lunch,Koalas,ferry
from $204.41
3
Blue Mountains Full-Day Trip
from $148
4
Sydney Opera House Official Guided Walking Tour
from $34.43
5
Blue Mountains Small-Group Tour from Sydney with Scenic World,Sydney Zoo & Ferry
from $161.38
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
Big Bus Sydney and Bondi Hop-on Hop-off Tour
from $52.36
Nine wharves, one harbour, and a boat for every kind of afternoon.
Sightseeing loops, tall ships under sail, dinner boats that time dessert for the bridge, kayaks out before the ferries build a wake. The water is the cheapest thing to get wrong in Sydney and the easiest to get right.
Humpbacks pass the Sydney heads twice a year, and only then.
All whale-watching cruises →They head north up the coast from about May, and come back south with calves from September into November. Outside that window there is nothing to see and nothing running, so the season is the booking, not the operator.
Sydney Whale-Watching Cruise Including Lunch or Breakfast
Read our review →
The six days most Sydney trips are planned around.
The harbour, the escarpment, the house on Bennelong Point, the beach everyone has seen, the vineyards two hours north and the zoo you reach by ferry.
What a Sydney day actually costs.
Every tour on the site sorted by price, so you can see what your budget buys before you fall in love with something outside it.
Walking mornings, ferry-and-ticket combinations, the house tour, market wanders. The city on foot is the cheap part.
- 1Opera House Guided Tour with Entrance Ticketfrom $33
- 2Sydney Opera House Official Guided Walking Tourfrom $34.43
- 3Sydney The Rocks Guided Walking Tourfrom $32.99
The standard day out: harbour cruises, coach runs to Katoomba, wine tastings, surf lessons, the bridge from the lookout.
Full-day small groups, private drivers, the arch climb, scenic flights and the boats you charter rather than share.
Everything worth leaving Sydney for, and the drive it costs you.
One-way road time from the city centre. Anything past two hours is a whole day whether the brochure says so or not.
Royal National Park
Hunter Valley
Port Stephens
Jervis Bay
CanberraThree things you can only do in Sydney.
Every harbour city sells a cruise and a lookout. The arch, the convict-cut sandstone and a walk on Eora Country do not travel.
The Arch
You are allowed to walk over the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, on the outside, and have been since 1998. It is 1,332 steps to a summit 134 metres above the water, in a supplied grey suit, clipped to a static line the whole way. Nothing personal comes up with you — phones and cameras are locked away at the base and the guide takes the photos. Climbs run in timed groups from dawn to after dark, and the first and last slots of the day are the ones that fill.
- 1BridgeClimb Sydney★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,633 reviews
- 2BridgeClimb Sydney Harbour Summit Night★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 125 reviews
- 3Sydney Harbour BridgeClimb: Summit Twilight★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 118 reviews
The Argyle Cut
The Rocks is where the colony landed in 1788 and it still has the sandstone to prove it. The Argyle Cut, the passage hacked straight through the ridge, was started by convict gangs with hand tools in 1843 and took two decades to finish. Cadman’s Cottage on the waterfront dates from 1816. The whole quarter is about twenty minutes end to end on foot and almost none of it reads from a bus window.
- 1Sydney The Rocks Guided Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,546 reviews
- 2The Rocks 90-Minute History Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,092 reviews
- 3The Rocks Ghost Tours with Guide in Sydney★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 482 reviews
The Harbour Before 1788
The harbour has been lived on for tens of thousands of years, and the evidence is not in a museum — it is engraved into the sandstone on headlands you can walk to. Guided walks on Country read the middens, the rock engravings and the plants along the foreshore, and they change what the ferry ride looks like afterwards. This is the shortest list on the site and the one most worth booking early.
- 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
Book these before you fly into Sydney.
Most of Sydney can be sorted from your hotel the night before. These four cannot — they run on timed slots, capped groups, a migration and the weather.
- 01BridgeClimb SydneyTimed groups, and every climber is breath-tested and suited up before they start. Dawn and twilight slots go first.
- 02Opera House Guided Tour with Entrance TicketThe guided tour is the only way inside without a ticket to a performance, and the daily slots are capped by how many groups the building can carry.
- 03Whale Watching Adventure CruiseThere is a season and there is nothing outside it: roughly May to November, when the humpbacks are actually passing the heads.
- 04Tandem Skydive Experience over BeachJumps are called on the morning’s weather and rebooked rather than refunded. Leave a spare day before your flight home.
Sydney’s wet months are the warm ones, which catches most visitors out.
The heaviest falls come from late summer into autumn, not in the cold months — February through June is the wet stretch, and it arrives as a few enormous days rather than steady drizzle. Sit those out indoors: the house tour runs in any weather, so does the tower, and a studio afternoon is a better memory than a soaked lookout.
By where the day starts
Circular Quay33 tours
The Rocks26 tours
Darling Harbour8 tours
Bondi38 tours
Katoomba136 tours
Sydney Airport54 tours- Everything on the site →
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