Pack the boot, roll down your windows and let gorgeous scenery whizz past – be that soaring coastal cliffs, native bushland, or towering alpine forests. Trust us, no one will be asking if you're nearly there yet.
Whether you've lived in Sydney all your life or you're a transplant from elsewhere, there are a few subtle ways you can tell if you've become a true Sydneysider at heart. Here are the tell-tale signs.
1. You’ve accepted activewear as your weekend uniform.
2. You think it’s completely reasonable to spend 25 minutes finding a glory park rather than park a 10-minute walk away from your destination.
3. You see no reason you should have to cross the bridge, whichever side of it you live on. The massive body of water separating the two is a sign.
4. You think Bondi Beach is the worst, and you proudly wear this relatively popular opinion as a mark of your individuality.
5. You've sprinted to a bottle shop at 10.45pm.
6. You still think there's a chance you'll start surfing.
7. You mourn the demise of independent business when another local pub is taken over by a hospitality conglomerate – and then feel guilty for kinda loving the new décornot hating the new décor.
8. You know that the best dumplings in the city are from the place with the grapes on the ceiling in Haymarket. No, not that place, the other one that looks exactly the same.
9. You've lined up for hot cream puffs from that hole-in-the-wall in Chinatown.
10. You’ve finished two podcasts and started untangling a complex moral dilemma in your life by the time the 370 bus has made its way up King Street.
11. You can correctly pronounce Wynyard, Coogee, Woolloomooloo and Kogarah and know that there are two hs in Leichhardt.
12. You have lived in a falling-down share house with at least four other people plus someone’s boyfriend who also basically lives there, just without paying any bills.
13. You’ve accepted that your rental bond is consigned to the financial netherworld as soon as you pay it.
14. You’ve baulked at the cost of a gym membership and insisted you’ll just “take up running” instead.
15. You’ve conceded and paid for the aforementioned damn membership, though at this point, given how little you’ve gone, it’s more like a non tax-deductible donation to the gym.
16. You use your car's horn to alert people to the fact that the light turned green 3.2 milliseconds ago.
17. You are always in a hurry. Even on Sundays. You are Extremely Busy.
18. You’ve waited 25 minutes for a bus that doesn’t show up.
19. You don’t blink at the fact that a three-stop train ride from the airport costs $20.
20. You can name obscure Thai dishes, order yum cha properly and know your way around all things Korean barbecue, but when someone asks what Australian food is you meet them with a blank stare and then offer to take them to the Bunnings sausage sizzle.
21. You regularly complain about how crap the transport system is and how ridiculous housing prices are, with increasing agitation.
22. You don't own any really thick jumpers because “we barely have a winter here, not like in London” but complain about the cold from March to October.
23. You think slides are appropriate year-round footwear.
24. You wouldn’t dream of braving the crowds of tourists and young families to see the NYE fireworks by the Harbour. Hell to the no.
25. You’ve watched a fight break out at Marly Bar.
26. You're mad at how gentrification pushes locals out of inner-city areas – but sure, you’re down to go check out that cute new café that just opened up in Redfern, you’ll have an oat milk latte, thanks.
27. You don’t bat an eyelid when a giant flying cockroach soars into your kitchen and makes itself comfortable. You just name it and hope you guys have different schedules.
28. You ask people what school they went to at casual social gatherings like it matters.
29. You steadfastly play Wordle on the ferry while all the tourists squeal and take Opera House selfies.
30. You've waited too long in line to get into a mediocre venue only to be told they're charging covers that night.
31. You'll admit that Melbourne probably does have better cafés, culture, music and fashion – but you still wouldn't move there because of the weather.
32. You’ll talk smack about Sydney to your heart’s content but will transform into its staunchest defender if someone else starts bagging it out (especially if that someone is from Melbourne).