Sydney beach accommodation: Should I stay at the beach or in the city?

Don’t stay at the beach in Sydney. A Sydney CBD hotel is more practical than looking for Sydney beach accommodation in Bondi, Coogee hostels or Manly apartments.

Sydney is one of the world’s great beach cities, but the reason for this is that there’s much more to Australia’s biggest city than the beach. A lot of the key Sydney attractions – bars, restaurants, museums, historical sites, gardens and harbourside haunts – are not found by the Sydney beaches.

Sydney beach accommodation: Bondi, Coogee and Manly

It’s perfectly possible to spend a week or so in one of Sydney’s beachside suburbs and have a lovely time. There are holiday apartments, hotels, hostel and other accommodation in Bondi Beach, Coogee and Manly. These are the main three Sydney beach suburbs for visiting tourists, but there are also accommodation options at many of Sydney’s less famous beaches.

But chilling by the beach in Sydney might feel like a waste of holiday time if you’re only in Australia for a limited period. You’re likely to want to venture elsewhere unless all you want to do is spend your time surfing at Bondi or snorkelling at Clovelly Beach.

From Bondi to central Sydney, or vice versa, it takes around half an hour by bus/ train (if you get lucky with traffic). But it is much less tiresome to schlep to Bronte beach one day from central Sydney than it is to schlep to the centre from the beach for several days.

Why stay in a Sydney CBD hotel?

Staying centrally makes it much easier to get to other parts of Sydney, too. Should you want to visit the Rocks Market, climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge, take a seaplane flight from Rose Bay, see Frank Gehry architecture in Ultimo or indulge in a street art tour of Newtown, it is a pain in the backside to get around from Bondi. Getting to the North Shore of the harbour, for attractions such as Taronga Zoo or a Sydney Harbour kayaking tour, is even harder work.

Also, if based in the centre, you can try a different beach each time. Maybe take the ferry to Manly one day, the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk the next and the Hermitage Foreshore Walk after that. Public transport between the beach suburbs if you stay at the beach in Sydney, on the other hand, is frustratingly limited.

The other factor that’s worth bearing in mind is hotel quality. There’s not exactly a surfeit of good Sydney beach accommodation in the coastal suburbs, largely because they’re all sought-after residential areas. And the few places that are good get very, very expensive when the weather’s warm. Stay in a Sydney city hotel, and you’ll have much more choice, as well as better value for money.

Ironically, even though Sydney’s beaches are far superior to Melbourne‘s, staying at the beach in Melbourne makes more sense.

More accommodation in Australia

The crocodile-shaped hotel in Kakadu National Park, Northern Territory.

Stay in a Sydney caravan park.

The Hobart hotel where Roald Amundsen stayed.

Stay in a Noosa caravan park.

What is a roadhouse in Australia.