Student Guide to Sydney
Everything we get asked before a student flies out, and everything they wish they had known in week one. Written from ten years of meeting people at the airport.
12 min read · Updated August 2026
Before you fly
Confirm your accommodation before you book the flight, not after. Arriving with nowhere to sleep is the single most common mistake we see, and February in Sydney is the worst possible week to be looking.
Bring documents on paper as well as on your phone: your offer letter, Confirmation of Enrolment, passport, visa grant notice, and OSHC health cover certificate. Border staff can ask for any of them, and airport wi-fi is not a plan.
If you book a room with us, we confirm it in writing before you fly and someone answers your messages while you are in the air.
Your first 48 hours
Get a prepaid SIM at the airport before you leave the terminal — Woolworths, Coles and Optus kiosks all sell them, and you will need a working number for almost everything else on this list.
Open a bank account in your first week. Most banks let you start the application from overseas and finish it in a branch with your passport. Your first rent payment and any casual job will both need it.
Tap on with any contactless card or your phone for trains, buses and ferries. There is no need to buy a separate travel card when you arrive.
Register your address with your university and set up your student portal. Enrolment deadlines are strict and nobody chases you.
Where students actually live
Chatswood and Hurstville suit students who want Asian groceries, food halls and a direct train line. Rents are lower than the inner city and the trip to the CBD is around twenty minutes.
Ultimo, Chippendale and Redfern put you walking distance from UTS and the University of Sydney. You pay for that convenience, but you save it back on transport and time.
Kensington and Kingsford are the UNSW belt — light rail to the city, and a large, settled student community already there.
Money, and what things really cost
Budget for rent plus roughly 120 to 180 dollars a week for food if you cook most nights. Eating out in the CBD every day will double that quickly.
Student concession travel is not automatic for international students in New South Wales — check your eligibility rather than assuming it, because fines for travelling without a valid fare are steep.
Tipping is not expected anywhere. The price on the menu is the price you pay, and service is already included.
University food courts, Chinatown after 8pm, and the fruit and vegetable markets at Flemington on a Saturday morning.
Staying safe and well
Emergencies are 000 — police, fire and ambulance on one number, from any phone, even locked or without credit.
Your OSHC cover includes seeing a doctor. Find a bulk-billing GP near where you live before you need one, and keep your membership number in your phone.
The sun here is genuinely stronger than most people expect. Sunscreen matters even on cloudy days, and heat in January is not something to push through.
Making it feel like home
Join one thing in your first fortnight — a club, a society, a team, a church, anything. The students who settle fastest are the ones who had somewhere to be by week two.
Learn one route properly: home, campus, groceries. Once those three are automatic, the rest of the city stops being intimidating.
Call home on a schedule rather than when you feel homesick. It is easier on everyone, and it stops the difficult weeks from feeling like a crisis.
Ten years of doing this and the pattern never changes — the first three weeks are the hard ones. It gets much easier after that.
“The students who settle fastest are the ones who had somewhere to be by week two.”
Before you fly — the short list.
Need a room in Sydney?
We have housed a thousand students over ten years. Tell us your course, your budget and your start date, and we will tell you what is available.