Travel writing tends to use ‘suburb’ as a slur. The implication is that anything outside a city’s historic core is a soulless commuter zone, full of strip malls and chain restaurants. That stereotype is American — specifically post-1945 American — and it does not generalize.
In most of the world, ‘suburb’ just means ‘neighborhood outside the historic centre,’ and many of them are extraordinarily good places to live and to visit. London’s Hampstead is a suburb. Vienna’s Grinzing is a suburb. Sydney’s Bondi is a suburb. Paris’s Montmartre was a suburb until 1860. Many of our highest-rated neighborhoods on this site — Mile End in Montreal, Surry Hills in Sydney, Yarraville in Melbourne, Stoneybatter in Dublin — would be classified as suburbs in their own cities.
What distinguishes a great suburb from a bad one is the same thing that distinguishes a great central neighborhood from a bad one: density, walkability, café culture, mixed use, and a residential rhythm that doesn’t empty out at 6 PM. The geographical location relative to the city center matters far less than people assume.
Our advice: when a guidebook tells you not to stay in ‘the suburbs,’ ignore it. Find out which suburbs are which. The good ones are often better than anywhere downtown.