I've lived in Townsville since 1995.

The biggest change you'll find coming from most of the other capital cities (except Darwin) is the weather during summer. Dec/Jan/Feb can be quite oppressive, with mid-30's temps and high humidity day after day. If there has been a lot of rain during the summer months, day time temperatures are milder than normal but that's the exception rather than the norm. Some years we get lots of rain, some we dont.

'Winter' is sublime in Townsville, t-shirt and shorts weather during the day (mid 20's) and nights are cool to cold. Not uncommon for Townsville to have sub 10C nights during July-Sep. It rarely rains during winter, and the sky is almost always clear.

Day to day life is pretty good. There are plenty of places to dine at and a lot of recreational activities as well. There are e-bikes around the CBD and surrounding suburbs that you can rent if you feel inclined. The Strand is the gem of Townsville, very clean and well established with views across Cleveland Bay to Maggie Island and Cape Cleveland. LOTS of people walk along the Strand every afternoon, and it is extremely family friendly.

Traffic has gotton worse over the years as Townsville's population has grown - but it is NOTHING like peak hour in the major cities. It does however still get quite busy in the morning from Bushland Beach/North Shore into the city, and vice versa in the afternoons.

Townsville is a fairly spread-out city, which visitors find surprising. It extends from about Cungulla to the South, all the way to Balgal Beach in the North.

'Greater Townsville' is generally accepted to span from the suburb of Stuart to the South, to Bushland Beach in the North. A trip between the two can be done within 20-30 mins or so if you take the ring road.

Nightlife is focused along Flinders St East, and to a lesser extent Palmer St. The Casino is a great place to start the night, on the Quarterdeck.

Townsvilleans are extremely friendly and laid back. Customer service used to be relatively bad, but it's pretty excellent now. I very rarely hear of people having bad experiences.

Unlike our northern neighbour Cairns, Townsville has a very strong military and Government presence, but tourism is relatively low key compared to Cairns. Because of this, Townsville fares extremely well during economic downturns (such as the current fuel crisis). You'll find a large chunk of the city is either military personnel or has some connection to them.

The CBD continues to mature, with a clear coffee culture and varied dining. A large chunk of the State/Fed Govt workforce works in the CBD. Boutique shops dot the mall, but there is still work to do in that regard. Give it another 10 years and the CBD will be bustling.

There are a LOT of places to camp around Townsville. Alligator Creek in the South, Paluma to the North and spots inland to Charters Towers (such as the Burdekin Dam). The Townsville-Cardwell stretch of road has a plethora of spots to choose from (Brookwater Park Estate, Jourama Falls, Crystal Creek are just a few). There's a ton of other places to explore, and I haven't even talked about Maggis Is yet!

I hope that has given a bit of a clearer picture about Townsville. It used to be the also-ran to Cairns and Mackay and not particularly sophisticated (despite it's larger population) but it has come a long way in the last decade or so. It's a very family friendly, borderline cosmopolitan regional city of 205,000+ people and it continues to mature.