I'm spending August-December in either Canberra, Australia or Salzburg, Austria for college. No one from my school has ever done Salzburg, and the people who visited Canberra just partied on the beach. Anyone have advice? I want to do Austria, but everyone at my college pushes Canberra. My room, board, and plane tickets are fully funded either way.
Any helpful info on:
Cost (local pricing/expenditures for visiting sites/exploring)
Ease of regional travel
Cheap/free things to do/explore
Any other helpful info?
I went to Salzburg for one night a couple months ago. It was nice there, but I noticed there was alot more homeless people there than I had been seeing in Germany.
Also I swear to god that the buildings did not go straight up, they were like fucking lopsided. It was tripping me out the entire time.
There are the ice caves and the salt mines you could go check out. Ive never been to australia though. The whether is probably better there. However if you are in Austria you could go explore other parts of Europe on your weekends. You luck bastard, you will love either decision you make
>>1056698
I know, man. It's just hard because my advisors are like NO NO CANBERRA IS COOL (they do a koala-holding photo op, who fucking cares) but I don't want a college frat experience or go abroad just to show off in Instagram photos. I wanna be immersed, explore, and do my own thing. Maybe I just answered my own question, lol.
>>1056701
it's not fucking cool. And if you're from an english speaking country/english is your only langauge, then you are right, go do something different. Austrian food and culture is amazing, and the proximity to SO MANY other places is great. Australian food and culture can be interesting and mixed too, but not in fucking canberra
fuck koalas too
Canberra is a hole. Don't go there. You will hate everything.
>>1056668
If you want to explore europe pick Salzburg. You have trains to anywhere in europe, a hub for the super cheap long distance buses (https://www.busradar.com) and a airport that is connected by almost all the budget airlines that fly you around starting at 50€ for a return ticket.
It's a small town, so nightlife is rather meh, but the University is pretty good, you can go skiing/snowboarding almost around the year (glacier nearby), god tier nature if you're into hiking/outdoor stuff and have great food even on a broke student budget. It's hard to exceed the 20€ mark for a simple main dish and 1-2 large beer for dinner even in good restaurants. You can get lunch menus from about 5€ or the usual kebab for 3€.
>>1056668
OP, I've been to both in the past year. I was in Canberra for about 2 weeks for work and I was in Salzburg for 3 nights as part of a train trip across Austria to visit some family.
Canberra: Has decent food, really nice people and a few things to see. Important to note the FEW in that last sentence. You're a 3 hour car ride from Sydney (which I thought was fucking awesome, btw), and the only other way to get around is to fly (which is probably cost prohibitive. Probably the biggest benefits right now are a shit exchange rate for Australia compared to a lot of places and everyone speaks English. There are a fair number of young people in Canberra too, but it is a sleepy city. Australia is very cool (especially Sydney), but Canberra is nothing exciting.
Salzburg: great food, great people, great sites, and most people speak decent enough English. SO EASY to get around within the area (european trains FTW) and there is a TON to see in that city alone (castle, old churches, Mozart shit, museums, salt mines close by), not to mention everything within a couple hours' train ride (just within Austria there's tons to see--Vienna, Innsbruck, etc.--not accounting for other countries too). Lots of tourist and young people come in and out so its pretty happening.
TLDR, I say Austria.
If you do go to Canberra I'd recommend Questacon. It's a lot of fun,
Full disclosure, I used to work there.
Apart from that and maybe the Parliament House's there's nothing here.
Canberra is what they come up with as a capital cause Melbourne and Sydney kept fighting over who gets to be more important. So just did halfway and called the buildings there canberra. Its a literal hole and there absolutly no cultural value. Its there so federal politics can have a roof over its head. Some monuments and national museums but thats it.
>>1056668
I've lived in Canberra for the past 18 years (& i'm 18) so I can shed some light on Canberra from the eyes of someone of a similar age group to you.
Canberra is a city filled with greenery (more like brown though because of how hot and dry it can get) and has hence earned the nickname of "the bush capital", so it never feels like you are too far away from nature if you are into that. Cotter dam is a cool place to chill on the weekends with some mates.
Just like with most of the rest of Australia, the pricing is pretty high, which is shit. The main attractions that spring to my mind (which are free/ cheap) are things like the War memorial (sweet place if you are into that sort thing), National museum (it's ok, but generally caters to an older audience. Questacon was fucking sick as a kid (and it still is). The botanical gardens are really pleasant, and offer a range of environments found throughout australia (the mist forest is a nice place)
Stay away from south side, especially tuggeranong, it's full of bogans, and suburban areas in general, there really isn't anything to do.
If you want to hang out with some young people and want to get into the nightlife scene stick to the central area of the city around lake BG like kingston foreshore and civic or some of the bars around the uni suburb of Acton.
In general though, a pretty boring place to go, so I wouldn't recommend it. If I where you I would go to almost any other capital in Australia, or Tasmania, because I like it there despite the bad wrap it gets from other Australians.
(pic related, it is the botanical gardens)
>>1056668
OP Canberra is boring as fuck.
You want to be in Brisbane QLD, Sydney NSW or Melbourne Victoria.
Source I'm Australian
To echo the other Australian's advice, Canberra is notoriously pissed on about how boring it is. If you want to study in Australia, look to other cities. I'm currently in Melbourne for a week and I would love to study here.
Kinda off topic but thinking of visiting Adelaide next year, been talking to a girl who lives there for about 6 months now. Good city or meh? I feel like buying a ticket for her to come here cause she always talks about how deadly hot the weather is.
>>1056668
Austrian here, ask me anything
Dude fuck Canberra, go to Salzburg I mean holy shit this shouldn't be a hard decision at all especially based on what you've been saying. Canberra doesn't have much at all once you start living there, possibly one of the worse capital cities in the world, and I lived there for 2 years.
>Canberra or Salzburg
dude is this a joke?
I'm Australian and I've been to Canberra.
its a nice place, but you'll get bored within a month lmao
>>1056998
>cause she always talks about how deadly hot the weather is.
>hot
>in fucking Adelaide
lmao'd man I live in Northern Queensland, she doesn't know what hot really is.
Adelaide is ok but nothing special.
>>1056668
Canberra is a small city purpose-built as a capital city in the 1920s. It's full of well educated people so if you are into high art and culture, you're pretty well served, but it's not known for its nightlife. Your friends who claimed they went to Canberra to party on the beach would have had a very long drive.
>>1056998
Adelaide's a pretty big city, about 1 million people, known for its arts festivals. It has 4 universities so there's plenty of nightlife but it has a reputation for being quite dull compared to the larger cities. It can get extremely hot in the summer. It gets past 40C increasingly often and there have been some stretches in recent years when the temperature didn't drop below 35C degrees for a week or two at a time.
salzburg is fucking boring.
never been to canberra
