Whats the cost of living like?
Public transport?
Rent/buy?
Aside from the churches, what is there to do there?
Where are the good places to live?
Cost of living
This will vary depending on where you live and your lifestyle. I reckon you could live here comfortably on $500 per week earnings. All depends on if you go out lots, eating, drinking, socialising.
Public transport
Adelaide's known for crappy public transport. It can be pretty unreliable but is slowly getting better. We are lucky that Adelaide is pretty small so it doesn't take to long to get from one side of town to the other side. As for costs, a bus/train ticket will set you back $5.20 for full price, its a but cheaper if you are a student. Ticket will last for 2 hours so u can catch as many busses/trains in that time. They also have a multitrip with ten tickets on it. They work out cheaper. I rarely catch public transport, maybe once a year. I prefer to drive everywhere.
If your driving into the city you will have to pay for parking.unless you find the occasional sneaky spot where you get a few hours free. Costs can vary for parking from $6 up to $30 a day. Some uparks have memberships where you pay by the month/year. They are more for people who live in the city, but try asking your workplace what the parking situation is.
Rent/buy?
Good question. These days with the ever rising rental prices its probably cheaper to buy. This again all depends on what area you chose to live in.
You would be looking at $350+per week for a rental, there is cheaper but they are hard to come by. Unless you go a share house or a tiny shoebox unit with paper thin walls.
Buying prices will depend on area but i reckon you would be looking at $400,000+
I'm currently living out of 2 houses and regularly house sit another place so have 3 homes in Adelaide. My real home is a rental in the Western Suburbs, Findon, Flinders Park, Allenby Gardens. I love it that area and would quite happily buy a house there, 5-10 mins to the city, 5 mins to airport, 5-10 mins to beach, 5-10 mins to major shopping centers. My rent is crazy cheap, its only $230 a week but the place is very neglected. My landlord is slack and doesnt do any maintenance, which is why its so cheap.
My second home is just north of the city, Kilburn. This suburb did have a bad name but its way better now and we are at the nice end and in a housing development area so there's all nice new houses around. We are about 10 mins from the city. 15-20mins from the beach. Property prices here are still reasonable, but will boom shortly as there's new expanding major shopping center near by. Partners house is valued at just under $400,000. There's a block of land, 450ish square meters, a couple streets away selling for $230,000. If I had the spare cash i'd buy it!
My 3rd home is up north eastern suburbs, Campbelltown, Paradise area. this is a lovely area. I'd like to live here, but its a tad too far from the beach for me. not sure on rental any buying prices but id say up around $500,000 mark. This area is 5 mins from major shopping centre, 20-30 mins from beach, 15-20 mins from the city, or only 10 mins by public transport. The obahn is there which is a bus with train wheel. once it gets on the train track it goes about 80kms and takes you straight into town.
There's many other nice areas, but I can only comment on the areas that I know.
Aside from the churches, what is there to do there?
Haha, I wont tell you what else Adelaide is know for. There's plenty of things to do here, during the summer. At the moment we are coming into Mad March which is where everything that can happen here all happens in one month. There are heaps of music festivals going on, we have a major comedy/arts festival-Fringe, the Clipsal 500, Adelaide Cup and lots more. Adelaide's pretty active over summer. It does die down a bit in winter but there's still things to do. We are pretty lucky that there are quite a few nice little tourist towns in the outer hills. Due to Adelaide's size it doesn't take too long to drive out and into the hills. And we are blessed with some pretty amazing twisty hilly roads, which make for good drives.
Our beaches are awesome! If your into surfing there's some great beaches down the south coast. Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder has been know to surf here!!! So wish I surfed!
The councils here are pretty good with keeping our beaches nice and clean. Our most popular tourist beach, Glenelg is really nice. beautiful sand that is cleaned multiple times every day in summer.
There's plenty of other things to do here, depends on what you are into.
Where are the good places to live?
This is a hard question to answer. Everyone will say different areas. and there are some areas that used to have a real bad name but are now much better.
Personally I love the western suburbs but I need to live close to the beach.
I love Adelaide, it's not as busy and fast paced as Sydney and Melbourne. We are a very multicultural city and very green, with trees and parks/gardens everywhere!