Australia is a super safe place, and even though Sydney is a big city it still feels very safe to me. When I decided to study here, my mom and I had a conversation about how safe it was and how happy she was that I was moving somewhere that had a low crime rate and that had strict gun regulations. I’ve hardly ever been in a situation here where I was apprehensive or scared for my safety.
That being said, people get hurt even in ‘safe’ countries. So I’ve outlined a couple safety tips for travelers in general, but also specific to Australia.
1. Don’t walk into traffic. This seems obvious, but if you’re coming from Boston you know that pedestrians definitely have right-of-way. That’s not the case in Sydney. Cars will run into you, so wait for the light.
2. Don’t rent a car alone. Driving on the left side is weird, and you’ll probably drift to the left side of the road without noticing, so you need a passenger to yell at you.
3. Plan your trip ahead. This is especially important if you don’t have/use data while abroad, because if you plan your route on Maps or something else before you leave you can pull it up as you go and not get lost.
4. Don’t walk alone at night (especially women). I hate saying this, because we should be able to walk by ourselves at night, but the street harassment here is pretty bad. The only times I’ve felt unsafe here are from street harassers.
Those are my biggest ones, and they’re the rules I try to follow for myself when I travel. In general, have a buddy, think before you act, and you’ll be fine.
The best tip that I’ve gotten here for travel has been to find a local and ask them for all the local discount travel sites. Every country has their own, for flights, hotels, cars, and everything else. In a lot of countries there are sites like Skyscanner that are specific for the country, or there’s sites like Craigslist where you can find ride-shares, etc. The problem is, without knowing a local, a lot of these are hard to find by yourself. A Google search will show you some, but you can never get all of them. Happy hunting!
