New South Wales is the one Australian state where you can plan a life around trains — and the one where ignoring the toll map will quietly cost you a holiday’s worth of money a year. Both facts should shape where you live.
Sydney: live on a line
Sydney’s rail network — double-deck trains plus a growing driverless metro — is the spine of the city, and the single best piece of relocation advice we give is to choose a suburb on the line to your hospital. A train commute reads, sleeps and costs a known amount; the same journey by road is slower, tolled and parked at a premium.
Everything runs on an Opal card or contactless bank card, with fares capped daily and weekly, and the same system covers buses, light rail and the ferries — which are public transport that happens to be one of the world’s great commutes.
The tolls
The coastal lines
Flying
Distances worth knowing
| Journey | Typical time |
|---|---|
| Sydney CBD → Parramatta | 30 min by train |
| Sydney → Wollongong | ~1 hr 30 by train, ~1 hr by road |
| Sydney → Gosford | ~1 hr 15 by train |
| Sydney → Newcastle | ~2 hr 30 by train, ~2 hr by road |
| Sydney → Katoomba | ~2 hr by train |
| Sydney → Canberra | ~3 hr by road |
| Sydney → Wagga Wagga | ~5 hr by road, or a 1-hr flight |
| Sydney → Byron Bay | ~9 hr by road, or fly to Ballina |
| Sydney → Melbourne / Brisbane | 1–1.5 hr flights, constantly |
Off-peak estimates. Add meaningfully for Sydney roads between 7–9.30am and 4–6.30pm.
Licence conversion, buying and registering a car, and the practicalities of Australian driving are national topics, covered once in the master’s Living in Australia.