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Travel: it’s a beautiful thing. It’ll take you to places you never dreamed of, places where everything is new and different and amazing. It will take you outside your comfort zone. It will take you inside new worlds.
It will also take you away from Australia, which essentially is a good thing. However, there are elements of life at home that you will definitely miss, especially if you’re away for a long time. Elements like these…
Australia might be a ridiculous nanny state where even doing a Mexican wave at the cricket is against the rules, but that does have one benefit: everything works. Everything is reliable. There are no strikes that shut down entire cities, no riots or no-go zones. Everything is safe and predictable, which can seem boring when you’re here – but it’s something you’ll miss once you’re away.
This may only apply to 50 per cent of travellers, but still, it’s a real thing. When you travel you forfeit the chance to bang on for hours to people about what your favourite footy/league/rugby/cricket team or player is up to at the moment; you miss the chance to discuss the latest nightclub atrocity, or who’s moving to which club overseas, or why Warnie should just shut up for a while. No one else cares except other Australians.
Meeting people from other countries is an amazing opportunity, but you will miss the ease of chatting to other Australians, where you already know all of the cultural touchstones and conversational rules, and that no matter what you say, you won’t be able to offend anyone.
It’s something of a boring cliché, but it’s true: Australia has awesome weather. And when you’re shivering through a miserable London winter, or sweating it out in a jungle somewhere, or being drenched in yet another storm, you’ll missing the sunny climes of home.
This goes along somewhat with the weather, but that’s not the whole thing. Because wherever you go, in any country, someone will inevitably take you to a beach that’s really well known and loved by all of the locals and you’ll just get there and look at it and think, “Meh”. Australia has way better beaches.
The stereotypes are true. Australia really is a nation of irreverent piss-takers who are never particularly serious about anything. We’re also pretty polite and friendly – something you’ll probably only come to appreciate once you’ve spent a few months in places that aren’t.
I’m sure you’ll travel to a place with great food, and you’ll love it. But you’ll also miss the variety that you get used to in Australia. If you’re travelling through Europe you’ll miss Asian food. If you’re travelling through Asia you’ll miss European food. You’ll miss the chance to have Vietnamese for breakfast, Mexican for lunch and Argentinean for dinner. And you’ll definitely, definitely miss Australian coffee.
There’s something amazing about being in a place where you don’t understand a single thing that’s happening around you. But still, there will come times when you’ll miss the fact that in Australia, you know everything. You know when the shops will be open. You know when the trains will be running. You know what everyone is doing, and you know why they’re doing it. Sometimes that’s a real comfort.
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