Which is the best thing to do in your city?
Because I live and work in a university residential college, there are always students coming and going.
They come from rural towns, interstate, and all over the world. They arrive with suitcases, excitement, uncertainty, and sometimes homesickness. They have come to study, meet people, begin a new phase of life, and live in a new city.
Often they ask, “What is the best thing to do in Sydney?”
There are obvious answers.
You can catch the train into the city in about twenty minutes. Get off near Barangaroo and walk along the water towards the Harbour Bridge. You pass the arts precinct, with Bangarra Dance Company on one side and Sydney Theatre Company on the other. Some students go there for dance lessons, as a way of unwinding when they need a break from study and life becomes too much.
Keep walking and you come to The Rocks, the old quarter where Sydney was first settled by Europeans. There are cafés, restaurants, bars, laneways, sandstone walls, and tourists with cameras. Some of our students work there. For them, this part of the city is not just a place to visit. It helps pay the rent.
Then there is the Harbour Bridge, that huge steel span over the water. Nearby are the ferries. One can take you to Manly for the beach. Another can take you to the zoo, where you can see Australian fauna without driving out into the bush.
Walk past the ferries and the restaurants, and you come to the Sydney Opera House. There is almost always something happening there: theatre, concerts, opera, talks, festivals. If you are new to Sydney, it is worth looking through the program until something catches your interest.
Keep walking and you come to the Botanic Gardens and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. On a sunny day, it is a good place for a slow walk, or just to sit for a while. Each summer, we usually go there for the outdoor cinema.
It is only about three kilometres. You could walk it in forty minutes if you did not stop. But of course you do stop. That is the point. In that short stretch, so much of Sydney gathers itself: water, work, theatre, history, ferries, sandstone, restaurants, tourists, commuters, buskers, office workers, students, and people just looking for somewhere to sit. And that is before you even think about the nightlife, the bars, the music, the late meals, and the conversations that begin after dark.
So yes, I can answer the question.
I can give students directions. I can tell them where to get off the train, which way to walk, where to stop, what to notice.
But I am less sure now that “best” is something I can decide for them.
Who gets to decide what is best in a city? Travel guides? Influencers? Locals? Tourists? Children? Dog walkers? Commuters? Students? The lonely?
The best thing for one person may be the Opera House. For another, it may be a ferry ride with the wind in their face. For another, a shift in a restaurant where the tips are good. For another, a quiet bench where they can sit in silence for a while.
Perhaps the best thing in a city like Sydney depends on what kind of hunger you bring to it.
The Afterword 
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