Sydney with children

Sydney, the largest city in Australia, has much to offer families with children.

Public transport
Children under 4 years old travel for free in Sydney.

Sydney has a good public transport network of trains, buses, ferries and light rail/trams. It is largely a cashless public transport system, with all travel being paid for by Opal Card. Opal cards are free, with credit added for travel.

Children aged between 4 and 15 years old travel half price with their special Green Opal card.

Children aged 16 and older require an adult Black Opal Card. There are other concession cards available to young people, but these are not typically for visitors.

In an emergency when you really don't want to acquire an Opal card, a white 'one trip' card is available from some stations (i.e. one-way trip to the airport).

The cards can be used very widely, to Nowra three hours to the south, Newcastle two hours north (and there is another two hour spur from Newcastle to Scone), the Bathurst to the west and Goulburn in the south west. From Newcastle, they can be used up to Scone.

Sunday has a daily cap of $2.50 on all travel, making this a very cost effective (albeit busy) day to take advantage of public transport with a family. Using $8 or more within a week means half price off the rest of the week.

Car
For all the sights within the Sydney CBD, a car is not desirable. Traffic is heavy is parking extremely expensive.

If you are staying outside the city centre and want to visit for the day, then many car parks offer weekend deals where you pay a much reduced rate (around $15) to park the whole day until 17:00. This will allow you to drive in, see quite a few sights and then drive back out again.

See and do
The items below have been selected for their suitability for children. More details on them, as well as other attractions can be found in the Sydney articles.



Playgrounds
Although every Sydney suburb has a safe and clean playground, they are somewhat hard to find in the city centre.

Eat
Most restaurants do offer a 'kids menu', which often has a short selection of a small portion of pasta, pizza, chicken schnitzel or fish and chips. These are often price about half an adult meal. Quite often a restaurant will provide crayons and paper for colouring in.

Sushi shops are ubiquitous around Sydney and sushi rolls provide a delicious, good sized and relatively healthy snack for kids for about $4. When eating outside, be sure you can find a shady place to eat outside on days when there is strong UV.

The main museums and galleries in Sydney also have a cafe and/or restaurant appropriate for children. Certain days such as a rainy weekend will make these extremely busy so prepare a backup plan.

Sleep
There are plenty of hotels in the CBD that are close to all the attractions. Possibly those on or near Darling Harbour will work best for families.

Cope
Child-friendly bathrooms can be very hit and miss in the main Sydney CBD. Museums and galleries have plenty of relatively clean bathrooms, sometimes on every floor. Public facilities are on offer in the shopping centres and department stores and are mostly clean. Most train stations have toilets after the gate. Almost all cafes and small restaurants do not have facilities. Outside the CBD is can be very hard to locate a bathroom, but the closest shopping centre will have them.

Family rooms (for breastfeeding, nappy/diaper changing and small toilets) are available many places as well, although they tend to get used as a bathroom for everyone during very busy times.

Stay safe
Sydney is a safe city for children to visit, but precautions should be taken.

Crime
Sydney CBD can be somewhat inappropriate for children after dark, with drunken and rowdy behaviour evident especially around George Street cinema on Fridays and Saturdays. Darling Harbour is generally considered family friendly even after dark, but still recommended to be careful after 10PM.

Playgrounds are generally very safe, but without any security you should still ensure that you keep an eye on your children.

Animals
There are plenty of animals that can give your child a nasty bite (such as huntsman spiders, blue tongue lizards) but only when interfered with and it is anyway an extremely rare occurrence in Sydney. If you ensure that your child doesn't bother any animal then they should be fine.

Although spider bites are very rare, you should nevertheless contact emergency services and try and catch the spider if your child gets bitten. The Redback and Sydney Funnel Web are potentially deadly to people, and especially children.

Snakes are a potential risk, especially the very venomous 'Brown Snake', but they are rarely found in Sydney. They may occasionally encroach the outer and western suburbs the city so be vigilant in those areas. These are also prominent in Sydney Harbour National Park and Lane Cove National Park.

Sun
Sydney is a very sunny place and in summer the UV count can be extremely high causing potential sunburn, as well as the temperature potentially getting as high as 40 °C. This hurts children's skin even more than adults so do ensure when you go out that each child has:


 * A large hat to cover their head
 * High factor suncream over all exposed skin areas
 * Plenty of water to drink throughout the day

Do this in Summer (October to April) and any other hot days.

Water
Drownings are a major cause of child fatalities in New South Wales. Children regularly drown when unsupervised in the many private pools around Sydney, and rivers and the ocean may seem deceptively calm before undercurrents suddenly pull you away.

At the beach ensure that lifeguards are on duty and ensure children do not swim out too far.