Wollongong, NSW 2500

Wollongong has an abundance of beautiful outdoor places to go to. Gorgeous beaches to the East and mountains to the west. There is always something new to discover and northern and southern suburbs are easy to get to. If you know the area you learn where not to go (namely at night time). I lived in north wollongong for 7 years from uni and after and always found it quite safe. It's a close walk to north beach and town, with buses into town. I now live in keiraville and have discovered a new and leafier side to the area. The botanic gardens nearby are stunning and the neighbourhoods feel quite safe and friendly. There is a nice community feel in some of these suburbs. Having moved here for uni, I haven't wanted to leave because it is such a nice place to live. The downside for me is as a young professional it is hard to find many jobs, ESP in some specialist fields and I have always travelled for work. Traveling home down Mt Ousley always brings a smile to my face. It is great for eating out with a large variety if Thai, Italian and many other types of restaurants. A new exciting scene is also evolving - away from the rough pub culture with more trendy bars and cafes opening- something that wollongong was lacking.

Wollongong makes the beginning of the south coast of NSW and the wonderful beaches and scenery. Wollongongs beaches are patrolled which means great swimming and surfing for all with great parklands for picnics in the sun. The area is also home to the largest Buddhist Temples in the Southern Hemisphere. Wollongong has many activities apart from the usually sports, you can go paragliding, try climbing at the Hangdog Climbing Gym, take a canoe or kayak adventure or visit the Illawarra Fly treetop walk. There is accommodation for all as well as some great places to eat for all tastes. Looking further afield take a scenic drive along the coast to the south and enjoy 140 kms of wonderful scenery.

Wollongong is about an hours from Sydney and it never really gets crowded or has any traffic jams on weekends. North Beach is a beautiful beach with excellent facilities. The showers over look the beach so when you are rinsing off, there is the worlds best view there. The waves are also really good for surfing and the food at the beach caf is good value.

City beach is not as nice as North Beach and does not have the beautiful shower facilities. There is also the lighthouse in Wollongong and also markets when you heading into the city centre. Lately though, it seems that there are never any crowds in Wollongong so it is always good to get away but this seems to worry the shop keepers as many of them have worried looks on their faces.

Please, whatever you do, don't move here. Don't waste your money and time.

1. Wollongong has been destroyed by overdevelopment. The council have allowed cash-grab construction companies to exploit the town in exchange for profits. The place is absolutely ruined beyond repair. Wollongong is becoming claustrophobic, real fast.

2. No right turn, no left turn, half hour parking, no parking, no standing, prams only, reserved parking. When a town gets to this point, leave. Just leave. Don't bother. Don't waste your life or money trying to find a park. You could be doing something better with your money and time. Life is short, too short for Wollongong.

3) Burelli Street and surrounding filthy streets is full of full-time drug addicts. The amount of times, I've almost been assaulted or verbally abused there is incredible. The drug problem is real. Don't bring your kids here.

4) The city is dirty, run-down and full of wanna be cyclists who in their minds think they're going to win the next cycle fest. There's nothing wrong with cycling, but these people think they're achieving something great.

5) The place is full of local celebrities whose name constantly enters the local paper for business awards that nobody really cares about except the recipients. Their children infest the place and receive jobs via nepotism arrangements. I won't get to the miserable post-menopausal women in retail with bob haircuts who reek dissatisfaction. You have to feel sorry for them.

6) The shopping is actually not shopping. If you go to Wollongong to shop, you will find more of what you don't want than you do want. It's unshopping. In this sense, you save money. Shops are closing down and the shopping today is far worse than it was years ago, even months ago.

7) Unless you're a toddler or a drunk, there's nothing to do. All activities are geared towards children under 5 or drunks. If you're over 5, you're screwed.

Professional Tip: Use the M1 highway to bypass Wollongong.

Lived here for 7 years. In that time David jones closed it’s food hall and retail has steadily declined in general. I now have to shop in Sydney. It is a developers paradise who have Carte Blanche to build a plethora of defective units. Hoons take to thestreets at night and the police donothing. The blue mile is lovely but getting very busy. Ocean pool a massive plus.

Wollongong has become the ultimate lamentable unmasterpiece. The parking meters wait expectantly in the midst of the night, like hookers waiting for their timed cash. The parking hookers were seemingly installed as diabolical punishment against residents who pay exorbitant rates and support local retail.

Resident-funded parking meters charging residents money for parking. Giving residents the cane for coming back again.

I’ve lived in Sydney my entire life and moved to Wollongong 4.5 years ago for a sea change.

At first I liked it but it’s become increasingly like Sydney in the cbd and hard to get parking.
That’s reason I left Sydney not to see more high rises with little parking going up.
A lot of businesses unfortunately went under with covid but even then you walk down the main strip and it’s pretty sad looking and feeling.
The beach’s are nice. But some of the locals are very small minded.

Apartment buildings are going up faster then you can blink. Wollongong is great for young couples and singles. It is very close to the beach and has lots of cafes, restaurants and nightlife. There is a good sized shopping mall. And also lots of office buildings and jobs available. It also hosts the Wollongong University which is almost a town in itself. This award winning university brings students from all over the globe to the town. It's a much slower paced environment then Sydney, and you can get around town with a great free bus service.

A beautiful beachside suburb just an hour south of Sydney. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else

For the cost of paying for parking in the Gong...... I can get a train to Sydney and spend the day there instead!!

I refuse to spend a cent in this city.

Here's why:

- Junkies everywhere
- Too unsafe to walk around alone
- Getting abused by strangers
- Parking meters everywhere
- Shops closing down
- Poor mall layout
- Nothing worth doing
- Dirty Streets

My family and I moved to Wollongong 3 years ago. Probably one of the worst decisions we've made moving here. Don't get me wrong, the beach's and walking trails are beautiful but that's about it. We live in Wollongong CBD and I find people unfriendly, junkies all over the place in the CBD especially around Crown St and heading up towards Wollongong Public Hospital. I just feel unsafe walking anywhere around Wollongong. My partner was walking home from work and had a crazy lady nearly attack him with a broom. I've been walking with my daughter through the Crown St walk through shop area and had junkies yelling the most disgusting vile language and saying they are going to bash people's heads in, multiple times. I always feel like I've got to have my guard up in Wollongong just in case. The shops are average and finding a job is extremely difficult. We would not recommend this place!

Having grown up here I can really honestly say that it is an optimal place to raise a family. Not only is the landscape beautiful and diverse, but there are so many opportunities, activities and innovations that make this city the amazing place it is. There are a large range of educational facilities for all ages, abilities and ethnicities from the infant to elderly wishing to pursue higher education. The healthcare options available are extensive and specialised with promising results. The social aspect of Wollongong is so lively and diverse for all interests and ages. its is basically a version of Sydney without all of the faults. I can't believe some of the reviews on here because my experiences in Wollongong and the Illawarra have been nothing but positive. we are so lucky to live in such a beautiful, accessible place that makes me thankful every day for the beauty of our world.

So funny to read the wildly diverging opinions here. Nine months in I’m definitely feeling the pull of the extremes in this place…

… on the one hand yes there’s a pretty decent cultural scene centred on the university and the art gallery. There are some fun music festivals, a thoughtful (if small) business community, and a good contingent of socially responsible people and students, good turnouts to climate action protests and progressive, multicultural enclaves.

But for me this is overbalanced by the deplorables who dominate Wollongong’s day-to-day proceedings. This town is rife with the sorts of people you’d just rather not have to deal with - the unemployable deros and junkies, the pathetic emo kids who have already ruined their lives with face and neck tattoos, the insecure little road-raging wife-beating wrap-around-sunglasses-wearing men, the ruined and bitter women still working in retail into their 50s even though the world has turned them into misanthropists, and the Bob Jelly-emulating local officials doubling as developers and real estate agents. There is no old money establishment to keep things on an even keel because anyone who can afford to leaves. The dull, deserted streets are lined with a mix of McMansions, asbestos-infested deceased estates and buffalo grass, the shopping areas are mausoleums to the lives their patrons expected to have, and the whole city is traversed by a main highway and a population of rescue dogs that together provide a 24/7 brain-zapping climate-frying aural accompaniment.

Unfortunately the commute to Sydney is just long enough to be soul-destroying - and yet the only way to survive this place is to get out as much as possible. Your kids will be stuck here all the time of course, and as a result your son will become a moustachioed alcoholic with an estranged offspring by 19 - manifestly the best year of his life - and your daughter will come to rely solely on her sexual attractiveness in order to get ahead. Overall I wouldn’t recommend moving here…

The beach scene is nice enough but found port Kembla beach better than Wollongong beaches, apart from the beach life central Wollongong is the usual hustle and bustle of any city, parking meters every where , rentals are too high.

Living in the southern suburbs from Warrawong where we have all the big shops like domayne, Harvey Norman etc is great, I would suggest there down to shellcove way with other suburbs in between.

The pollution from the steel works is shocking, dust on the cars every day makes it hard to keep clean, who knows what we are actually breathing in!
I would live in Kiama if I could afford it! Apart from beach life I can't stand living here anymore, country life is calling me away soon!

I grew up in Wollongong and do not understand why it's so expensive now there is no jobs there loads of unemployed. Yea beautiful beaches but it's no tourist attraction, I'd love to make a video of the real wollongong, Ugly looking steel works polluting the sea, Ugly run down houses that are far to expensive and far to over valued, full of junkies and drug addicts, alot of run down areas, prostitutes down main streets at night, junkies in kids parks by day hiding needles. Heck even professional workers snort lines of coke in their offices, in their construction building toilets at bbqs. The place is a hole . Full of scummy people why it's so expensive i have no idea, it's an unsafe area with loads of crime, drugs and gang members. That's the truth behind it. Some people are obviously blind or have not looked at wollongong to well. It's a dump. The people saying its beautiful and affordable and safe hahaha you must be walking around with rose petal glasses or are totally blinded or lost the plot.

Overall the town is pretty average.
This all changes at night though, when the drunk derro people come out and seemingly infest Wollongong Mall. I was saw a young innocent yahoo being squared up to by a drunk hooligan of the night. The yahoos found safety in a 7/11 though but still....
Also the buses don't stop at every stop because they're "aren't alowed to stop at those bus stops" even during the middle of the night for a bunch of desperate students

We went to uni here and moved away to Sydney. We always come back and enjoy the lifestyle on offer. Wollongong is growing and flourish again and it will only be a matter of time before it will thrive! The nightlife is good and the restaurants are stepping up there game. It is the 3rd most explensive place to live now and 1st for regional property growth 2017.

First impressions of the coastline are astounding, then you get to Crown St and its junkyville. Trying to sleep is difficult escpecially if you live anywhere near the bluescope area right through to anywhere near the F6 as trucks are running 24/7 as theres no curfew in place. Living in town you have drunken uni students carrying on from Wednesday night through to Sunday. If y oure unemployed and dont have to sleep at night then its great, however trying to hold down a job on minimal sleep is torture. Id suggest either living north of Woonona or South of Dapto as the middle section is lost.

Great place with ocean and escarpment views

Picturesque

Wollongong has become expensive to live in now and doesn't have many jobs here. Wollongong has a very high population of unemployed or Centrelink customers, as well as the crimminals. I mean there isn't much work here and most people either work in Sydney or move away. There is not enough parking in the CBD of Wollongong and they have parking meters. Rent here has become ridiculous, I pay $210.00 per week for a 1 bed unit in Wollongong and the landlord has put it up $20 every year for the last 4 years. It's a bit strange here because the landlords seem to do the maintenance for the properties and they are stingy and don't use fully qualified tradespeople for hot water systems etc. The Landlords try to fix it themselves and use dodgy real estate agents eg. Elders Wollongong ( I will never use again) who allow them to do it. Wollongong is not safe because of the drug/crimminal culture here. 85% people here are unemployed/crimminal, 15% are workers/families/students/greedy landlords. I'm getting out and I know others who have and are too. I wouldn't recommend it for families or people wanting to live in a healthy, safe environment, or anybody really.

For those of us that love the coast but can't afford to be right on it this is an ideal place, with many fantastic beaches nearby Wollongong can certainly provide a good choice of beaches from the sheltered to the more boisterous there's many to choose from.