As we head toward Canberra Day, one thing is clear – Canberra has everything the world has to offer. We’re small for a city but we’re big for a town, we have a great location between the metropolises, less than two hours from the beach and surrounded by open country. Canberra is a bit of everything and it is the best place to live.
In fact, there are so many things that are so much better about Canberra!
Canberra is better than Sydney.
Yep. It is! As a born-and-bred Canberran I can tell you that we’ve got it better. With Sydney so close it is easy to visit, to catch a bus and walk around the city and enjoy everything it has to offer… but then there’s the traffic, the commute time across the city, in this sea of people, something is always happening, which makes for an awesome weekend but it’s hard to take for the whole week leading up to it. We are close enough to be influenced by Sydney but not close enough to be enveloped by it.
If Sydney is busy that is nothing to New York, the city that never sleeps and is not kind to outsiders. Here in Canberra we are much more forgiving – especially to the artistically inclined. Sculptures rule the pavements, waving to drivers on the way to the city and brightening up the Capital. Art, Not apart, Noted and the Fringe Festival are just a few of the events celebrating creativity among the up-and-coming, for an awesome, tight community who inspire and support each other through the arts. We love experimenting with new media and we love giving people a helping hand to make it.
It’s so much better than London; A.K.A. the ramshackle of smaller towns that glommed into each other by roads that are barely big enough for a bike, let alone the double decker buses that tilt slightly when they round the corner. Canberra is majestic, it is beautifully designed and its roads fit modern cars with a safe space for bikes. The design drawn up back in the 60s accounts for life in the 21st Century and, with our new tram, we’re already working on how to build the city of the future.
Canberra has a comfortable vibe and that is why it is better than Tokyo. Japan’s capital city is like Candyland on acid, and its constant buzz of novelty and technology puts it definitively on the list of places I want to visit… but not on the list of place I want to live. Canberra is a great place to be because we thoroughly embrace those couple of days in a month that we fill the city with stalls, lights and all things fantastic. But it is a good place to live because we take down the rides and complicated installations, having a break before the next one.
Here’s to Canberra on it’s birthday this weekend, you can visit anywhere you like and come back with a greater appreciation for the finer points of this fortunate town where we can enjoy the best of international experiences, all in the coolest little capital in the world.
_____________________________
With Canberra Day this weekend, we want to see why you #LoveCBR! Is the hashtag across Instagram and Twitter (or tag OutInCanberra on Facebook) and we’ll profile to best!
Read Maeve Bannister’s article, ‘Why I #LoveCBR’ by clicking here.
