Rusty Compass

Our independent travel guide to Sydney Harbour Bridge (VIDEO) celebrates the vision and ambition that built the bridge - while exploring the complicated political moment from which it sprang. Work on Sydney Harbour Bridge began during the post WWI boom years of the early 1920s. In the middle of construction, the New York stock exchange crashed. The Great Depression hit the Australian economy especially hard. At its peak, unemployment in Australia may have hit 30%.

Part III in our video series, America in Vietnam - a travel guide, dives into the Buddhist Crisis of 1963 and the violent coup that ended the long rule of South Vietnam’s founding president, America’s man, Ngo Dinh Diem, in November 1963. Our series is designed for history-focused travellers interested in exploring the places behind major historical events. In this case, we’re focused on 1963 and two former capitals of Vietnam; Hue and Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City).

Visitors to Sydney flock to the Circular Quay to admire our most celebrated icons - the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, or to jump on a ferry to Manly. There are colonial-era buildings and a few statues here but there’s little that interprets the area’s complicated history. This is where Australia’s most important colonisation stories begin. The Rocks is where the invasion and dispossession of a continent inhabited for an incomprehensible 60,000 years begins.

In part II of our video series for travellers interested in exploring the impact of America in Vietnam since World War II, America in Vietnam - a travel guide, we look at the end of French colonial rule in 1954. The Geneva Accords partitioned Vietnam at the 17th parallel north of Hue created a new, US aligned state - South Vietnam. The United States was already well-invested in Vietnam’s future, providing weapons and support to the final years of the French campaign.

Vietnam's big year of anniversaries will reach its climax in September when the country celebrates 80 years since Ho Chi Minh's Declaration of Independence in Hanoi's Ba Dinh Square. After unprecedented celebrations in Saigon on 30 April, it will be Hanoi’s turn, come September. Ho Chi Minh's Declaration of Independence provides an excellent window into the post WWII pre-Cold War environment that Ho Chi Minh tried to capitalise on in his September 1945 declaration.

2025 is a year of big anniversaries in Vietnam. The 50th anniversary of America’s ignominious departure and the end of the Vietnam War in April 1975, is the anniversary everyone is talking about. But there are others of importance. The 80th anniversary of Ho Chi Minh’s Declaration of Independence in Hanoi’s Ba Dinh Square at the end of World War II on September 1945, is another.

British and Australian travellers have been making the solemn pilgrimage to the small museum on the site of Singapore’s Changi Prisoner of War Camp for decades. The Japanese established the camp at what had been a British colonial military base after the fall of Singapore in February 1942. For British visitors, the museum is a place to think about what Winston Churchill described as the “worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history” - the fall of Singapore.

There’s been a big dose of nostalgia running through my recent videos on Rusty Compass. I’ve loved thinking about Vietnam back in the 90s and its transition to the present. Few countries have changed more during those four decades. Witnessing that transformation has been a privilege, rich in memories and personal experiences. The changes have been phenomenal. Over three decades, Vietnam's travel superpower hasn't budged.

Sydney is one of the world’s great cities. The stunning beauty of its harbour is well known and a huge draw for tourists. The problem may be that Sydney's harbour icons are so well known that they overshadow everything else. There’s much more to Sydney than The Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and Bondi Beach. This is a city to get to know with some proper time here. Off the harbour, Sydney's a city of diverse cultures, outstanding cuisine, atmospheric neighbourhoods and a fascinating history.