6 nights

Churchy City Center

7 days

Nicknamed the city of churches - we arrived here on a mission to understand more about the origin of this name. We were told by locals we met in Western Australia that this city would have a very European vibe because of its many churches (more than you can count)!

Truth be told, the church you see in the image in the only one we were ever able to encounter and we walked around quite a lot! But it was definitely an European looking church inside and out! So I guess.. that counts?

Actually, what brought us to Adelaide was New Year's Celebrations as we were curious to how celebrate it in this side of the hemisphere - we arrived by plane on the evening of the 28th of December and we stayed until the 3rd of January before we moved on to our next destination.

Similar to Perth and other city centers in Australia, the city of Adelaide is crossed by a nice river and is also 30 min away from the coast and the beach! Even though we were here through the holidays it was possible to feel the student/young vibe of the city that was a mix of modern spaces, interesting markets, museums and old style buildings with very nice places to brunch!

One very particular feature of the city is that it has a sort of "green fortress" surrounding the city on all corners, so you actually can walk around the center by going from park to park. Again, it goes without saying that Adelaide is super walkable, mostly flat center, with a very accessible public transport system as well - we took the train easily to get to the beach and hike by the coastline.

What's Adelaide Like?

You may say that 7 days is more than enough to see the city and its surroundings but we took the opportunity to recharge and just pretend to "live" there instead of just visiting. But here are some things we did and our thoughts:

• Visit the Adelaide Botanical Gardens (free): we were lucky that there was a special glass sculpture exhibit going on as well, but there is something about Australia and their botanical gardens that just never disappoint - if you're into gardening (especially for veggies), they had a very interesting part about it as well as all kind of seeds

• Visit the Art Gallery of South Australia as well as the South Australian Museum and the Migration Museum (all free entry): the first two were very interesting to visit with their nice and inspiring collections, while the Migration Museum was slightly strange as there was not much connection between the things going on but still it's a clear attempt to talk about the multi-cultural and diverse history of Australia, though we found it less nice to visit

• Take a cruise through the Torrens River: we didn't love this activity, it was a bit on the short side and there is not much to see apart from just enjoying 1h on a boat; the captain was very funny but it was definitely something more directed for parents/grandparents with children

• Mindless chilling and walking through the city parks - a small mention to the Adelaide Himeji Japanese Garden, which was a very cute space that celebrates this city being a twin city of a Japanese city.

• Days hike(s) from the city center: there is a nice circuit of hikes nearby (we discovered ours through a book we brought on our trip but after talking to some locals we found out they had a lot more and had been renovating a lot of tracks) - we took the train and walked along the coastline from Mariot to Hallet Cove and then took a stroll later on by the Brighton Jetty while enjoying the beach on the 1st day of the year - it was really nice, but not so much shadowy spots to chill at the end

• Went to the Movie Theater (Palace Nova East End Cinema) - there were a lot of interesting movies coming out during our holiday and we thought it was a nice way to experience the city as well - turns out sweet popcorn is not really a thing in Australia, be warned! This particular movie theater was quite outdated for the price we had to pay, so all and all, not sure if we would recommend..

• Visit the Adelaide Central Market - this is was a somewhat hip but also honest market hall which we found quite cute to visit

• Watched the live music and fireworks by the Riverside Lawns as a way to celebrate the entry into the New Year! It was a really interesting vibe and quite cool that the city organized such a nice get together for free!

Practical Info

Where we stayed 🏠

We chose a hostel in the city center called Tequila Sunrise Hostel and this was by far one of the BEST deals we had during our stay. We stayed in one of their double pods which was quite comfortable and private (of course, your neighbors do need to be nice/quiet, but luckily for us, it worked out well).

But the best "hack" was the fact that they offered Breakfast AND Dinner - granted that it was not going to be the best meal of your life but it was a great way to save some money and also makes it easy to know a lot of people because EVERYONE is also joining for these meal moments.

240 € p.p

Total costs for 7 days:

Restaurants we liked 🍕

Again, we ate a lot of our meals in the hostel so mostly we went out for lunch/brunch and there were some really cute places we liked. Again, we stayed mostly in the city center because we had so many great options but there seems to be definitely a lot more suburbs to explore:

• Café Troppo: very nice vibes, great food, not too many places to sit and it WILL get full

• Kafi:n : again, super chill vibes and they have an upper floor where you can sit more comfortably, turns into a bar later in the day, a bit more pricey

• Loaded Corner Cafe: here you can indulge in some of the best sandwiches ever and some fun drinks to match! We became big fans!

• Exchange Cafe: this one is more of fancy coffee expert kind of place but we came for lunch and it was divine! Unexpected flavors and twists, plus lovely to sit outside and an adventure on its own to find the toilet

We got the feeling there was a big food scene in Adelaide and most restaurants were fun and inviting, so you can probably not make a mistake there!

South Australia (SA)

Even though we stayed only in Adelaide, SA is actually a very interesting place to visit - we just didn't want to rent a car while staying in the city center. If you haven't been to Western Australia, there are also some cool spots to go swim with the sea lions and a Kangaroo Island with all sorts of wildlife (that at this point we kind of had already seen, so didn't feel worth the money).

You can also kayak/swim with the dolphins in some spots here but we had our share of dolphins already in WA as well. We did hear that the Outback area in this state is also very interesting (though Outback ended up not being really in our plans) and a "quick way" to get to Alice Springs. After we left, we also found out that there is a very beautiful and rich reef area (bigger than the Great Barrier Reef) that is much less visited, therefore a bit less "untouched" - so please go there and let us know how it turned out!

A really cool thing to do, that just didn't make sense with our planning, is to road trip from Adelaide to Melbourne - the travel is much shorter than it seems and if you're in Victoria, you will definitely want to drive along the Great Ocean Road, which you can extend when you go/come from SA and make it even more cool!