Some say they’re shocked, others over the moon.
The biggest tourist guide on the planet has named Newcastle as the ninth best city in the world.
The ranking by travel writers from the Lonely Planet Guide is expected to see backpacker numbers more than double in the city.
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you have got to be joking – it’s a dump. Wollongong is far better, so is Cairns, Townsville, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, in fact every other city in Australia.
How did it even get into the top 100?
lol what a joke.
Hey ppl lay off newy. It’s Awesome with a capital A. Your just jealous cause you live in cassock.
Damn iPhone auto correct. I meant cessnock.
How dare someone that doesn’t live in Newcastle have a positive view of the city!! How dare an that person be an influential travel writer!! How dare it be someone thats seem hundred/thousands of other cities and still ranks Newcastle so highly!!!
Sheeesh people calm down, if you don’t like Newcastle thats fine…nobody is asking you to. But if you are so narrow minded as to see why others might view the region as a great place than I do feel sorry for you.
have u been to Newcastle in the last 5 or so years? its a really pretty city now BHP has gone. It has really turned over a new leaf and excuse me for saying so, but Wollongong? thats where BHP is now and I have seen Wollongong and it is an ugly, dirty industrial hole
Until last weekend (30/10/10) I would have been surprised to see Newcastle in the top 100 cities, but by chance, on a glorious spring day, friends and I found time to see Novacastrians in their tens of thousands out enjoying beautiful beaches, pools, retaurants and gardens at the top end of the city, surrounded by azure blue waters, crisp surf and whispy white clouds. We were sold!
In the last 5 years, since my last tour of Newcastle, the city has obviously undergone dramatic improvements, and seem now to well deserve the accolades bestowed upon it.
I have lived in Newcastle for 42 years and I have no idea how it got to be number 9 on the list either !!
Maybe 20 years ago ? and before that it was the most ROCKING RAGING FUN town BUT now the main street is dead and you risk your life if you go out at night and especially to any of the 2 bit night clubs that are left open.
The entire foreshore which was a fantastic place to fish has been taken over by private interests and more then 90% has been taken out of public hands.
The main street of Newcastle is like a ghost town, Other then the main street of Hamilton and Darby street Newcastle everything else is DEAD !
What was left has been sold out by respective governments local ,state and federal, our local council when not being saked is a joke the Lib`s don’t care about a labor town and Labor has never thought they had to.
I think Newcastle hitting number 9 on that list might have something to do with all the money in the wine country and supper rich horse stud farms also in the Hunter.
But Newcastle itself ? Even though I love Newcastle with all my heart, I can think of 20 cities in a second I would rather go to as a tourist before Newcastle and 20 more if given time I am sure.
I feel sorry for any back packer that comes to Newcastle expecting to find the 9th best city in the world,
But it does come before Woolongong ! ! any where is better then Woolongong !!
Realllly it id very pretty city
you feel u live in garden
try to visit this pretty city
newcastle city says thankx for all malevolent ((((:
Mick Scott, I’d say you have gone through some tough transitions when it comes to Newcastle. I can assure when it comes to a backpacker publication like Lonely Planet, that it has nothing to with Wineries and Horses. Newcastle is vibrant, maybe not in the CBD and maybe not along the foreshore, but in many other areas it is turning into a bohemian cultural centre that doesn’t really exist in Sydney anymore.
Some of the most amazing cities I’ve traveled through in Europe have appeared to be “dumps”, at least in some regard. Glasgow, Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Berlin and more. These cities, that have endured 60-100 years of some sort of opression or another have sprouted alot of “flowers in the pavement”. Newcastle is havine a renaissence. Out of the wake of a slump in industrial and commercial productivity will grow a new era of tourism and growth as a cultural centre. Sydney has turned into Paris and London. Iconic, larger then life but over priced, over crowded and over rated. NEwcastle is our second oldest city and has a whole lot of history and its potential is HUGE.
@Cody – here here!
Totally agree and very well spoken!!!