Most people come to the Gold Coast for its surf. I came back for its stillness.
When I first arrived in Australia in 2018, this was where I landed. I had heard of the city’s subtropical weather, its endless beaches, and its proximity to Brisbane, and it felt like the kind of place where life could unfold slowly. For six months, I lived without a car, riding my bike along the coastal paths from Surfers Paradise to Burleigh. Everything was flat, simple, and bathed in light. The sea was always close, and so was the calm.
After half a year, I moved to Sydney, chasing what I thought was momentum. The pace there was faster, the energy magnetic. I was working as a travel writer and also in fashion styling, meeting people who lived for the rush of ideas and deadlines. But even as I grew professionally, I started to miss something that Sydney couldn’t give me: the quiet rhythm of Gold Coast life, the way people here rise with the sun and finish early to make space for what truly matters.
When I returned in 2022, it didn’t feel like starting over. It felt like coming home to a version of myself that still knew how to breathe. I now live a block from the sea, blessed to wake up to the smell of salt and the chatter of rainbow lorikeets. Here, people greet the morning with devotion. They run, surf, or simply walk the shoreline as the sun rises over the Pacific, painting the sky in coral tones.
In Chile, where I grew up, the sun sets over the ocean. Beach life happens at dusk: families gather in sweaters to drink tea and watch the light sink into the sea. But on this side of the world, the ocean belongs to the morning. In the Gold Coast, dawn is the main event. By 4:30 a.m., the first glow touches the waves. By 5:00, the beach is alive with movement, and even though I’m not one of those early risers doing yoga at sunrise, I love knowing that I could be.
I’ve always wondered why Australians, especially Queenslanders, love early mornings so much. Maybe it’s cultural, or maybe it’s geographical. The light here has a magnetic pull. It invites you out before you even realize it. In places like Perth, people gather for sunsets that melt into the Indian Ocean. But here, the sunrise is what defines the day. It’s a kind of quiet worship, a reminder that beginnings are worth waking up for.
What I love most about the Gold Coast is how it draws you outside. Even on days when I plan to stay in, the sky always finds a way to lure me out. The weather can shift from sun to rain in minutes: a quick tropical shower, a rainbow, then sunshine again. The air smells of salt and fresh rain, and sometimes you can taste the humidity before a storm. It’s unpredictable, but never unkind.
On weekends, I head inland to the green side of the coast, to Springbrook or Tamborine Mountain, where waterfalls tumble through subtropical rainforest and the air feels ancient. Those places remind you that the Gold Coast isn’t just beaches and high-rises; it’s also wilderness, lush and grounding, waiting just beyond the skyline.
Closer to the sea, there’s movement everywhere. At Tallebudgera Creek, families gather for picnics under palm trees, paddleboarders glide across turquoise water, and children chase each other along the sandbars. The Spit, at the northern end of Main Beach, offers a different kind of calm: wide, open, and beautifully empty. It’s also one of the few beaches where dogs can run free, tails catching the light as they splash through the waves.
By the afternoon, I often wander toward Budds Beach, on the other side of the bridge from Chevron Island. It’s one of those places that feels almost forgotten, hidden in plain sight. Locals come here for quiet barbecues or to sit by the river with a book, but there are no crowds, no swimmers, no rush. The water reflects the afternoon light like glass, and the calm feels like something sacred.
Further south, Coolangatta feels like another world: slower, softer, more nostalgic. Rainbow Bay, with its curving shoreline and pastel sky, looks like a painting that never changes. It’s the kind of place where you lose track of time and don’t care enough to find it again.
That’s the essence of the Gold Coast to me. Not the glitz or the nightlife, but the quiet in between. The early mornings, the long afternoons, the balance between motion and stillness. It’s a city that invites you to live outside, to fill your lungs with air and your days with light.
I often think about how this place reshaped me. It didn’t teach me presence; that came later, somewhere else. But it did teach me how to prioritize time. To finish work early, to say yes to a swim, to let life feel easy without guilt.
Here, people don’t work less because they lack ambition. They just understand something simple: that the day is too beautiful to waste indoors.
Maybe that’s what makes the Gold Coast special. It’s not a city that demands your attention; it earns it quietly, sunrise after sunrise.
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