In short
Canberra was designed before it was inhabited. The plan by Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, selected in 1912, organises the city around geometric axes and an artificial lake, Lake Burley Griffin, filled in 1963. Nothing here is accidental, and nothing is dense.
The city has no single centre but town centres — Civic, Belconnen, Woden, Tuggeranong, Gungahlin — separated by green space. You do not wander from one to the next.
Arriving and getting around
A car changes everything here. The tram has a single line, Gungahlin–Civic, and the bus network serves the town centres more than it finely connects them. The distances between institutions do not walk well.
The airport is eight kilometres from the centre. The road link from Sydney takes about three hours.
The Australian War Memorial, the National Gallery, the National Library and Parliament House are free to enter, which makes Canberra a museum city on a low budget.
What it really costs
Housing is expensive for the size of the city: the federal public service holds rents up and prices do not fall in the low season.
Weekends are quiet — part of the working population leaves. Many places close on Sunday.
When to come
Floriade, from mid-September to mid-October, is Australia's largest flower show and the event that fills the city.
Winter is cold by Australian standards: morning frosts are ordinary from June to August. Autumn (March–May) gives the colours and a settled sky.
What nobody tells you
Mount Ainslie and Mount Taylor are climbed in an hour and show the city plan from above: that is where the Griffins' layout becomes legible, and nowhere else.
The Snowy Mountains and the ski fields are two and a half hours away by road, which makes Canberra a credible winter base.