From our sun-drenched beer gardens to our dreamy stretches of sand, you can't deny that Sydneysiders are afforded easy access to some pretty epic relaxation stations. But even we admit that we’re somewhat surprised to hear that Sydney has been named "the most chilled-out city" in the whole world.
Sydney is Australia’s largest city, and (when you're not worrying about things like rental rises, parking fines, and the downward spiral of late-stage capitalism) there is whole lot to love about the Emerald City – like all the great things to do and our amazing options to get out to eat, drink, play and engage with culture. Which is why we’re pretty proud to take the crown, beating well-known chill-out zones including Honolulu, Amsterdam, and even our neighbours across the ditch.
The news comes courtesy of a recent survey by insurance company PayingTooMuch, which analysed and ranked the most laid-back cities in the world based on a variety of metrics. These key factors included noise and pollution, the number of walking trails, happiness scores and the quality of green spaces. Sure, we'll take it.
Thanks to our abundance of walking trails (an amazing 681), extensive outdoor spaces (the Harbour City is home to 917 parks), and high happiness rating (Sydney ranks as the third-happiest city in the world) Sydney came out as number one. If that doesn’t prompt you to take an hour out this weekend for a slow schooner in the sun, we don’t know what will. The other factors analysed in the study include the quality of our green spaces (here we scored a respectable 77.3 out of 100) and our traffic index, where our score was, unsurprisingly, less impressive.
Coming in second place was Vienna in Austria, which had the lowest noise and light pollution score among all the contenders. Third place went to our friends down in Melbourne, who have the highest quality parks compared with all other Australian cities, and scored extra points for their low population density. Rounding out the top five was Honolulu in the US (duh, nothing screams R’n’R like sun, surf and endless Pina Coladas on the sand) and Amsterdam in the Netherlands (c’mon, you know why).
According to the study, almost 50 per cent of people around the world go on holiday to find a space for relaxation – so the fact that we can access the most chilled-out city in the world without leaving our street is a pretty lovely reminder of how lucky we are to be here.
The top ten most chilled-out cities in the world:
- Sydney, Australia
- Vienna, Austria
- Melbourne, Australia
- Honolulu, USA
- Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Kyoto, Japan
- San Diego, USA
- Berlin, Germany
- Dublin, Ireland
- Prague, Czech Republic
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