Three years ago I flew to the UK from Australia with my girlfriend, lacking all the things you’re meant to have before moving overseas: a job lined up, a place to stay, a return plane ticket and a plan. We travelled instead with the vague hope that it would somehow work out all right.
Within a week of touching down at Heathrow I had a job at a café just off Portobello Rd (drop into Daylesford if you’re ever in the neighbourhood – good eggs) and a place to stay: one room in a seven-bedroom shared house in Notting Hill.
We lived with one Hep-C positive drug dealer named Sholly, two Polish exchange students who slept in the same bed, an electrical engineer from the Ukraine who worked as janitor in Clapham, a Spanish couple who smoked and played a lot of reggae, and all the waifs and strays that are to London what tumbleweeds are to the Sierra Nevada.
Sometimes we’d go down to the kitchen in the morning to find three Latvian backpackers making toast.
Making the Decision to Go
Living overseas was something I’d always wanted to do, and London, with its easy BBC familiarity, common tongue and almost clichéd Englishness, seemed a good place in which to try. Apart from vicious assault, the worst that could happen was that I run out of money and return home penniless; not a big issue as I’d never had many pennies, preferring, instead, Australian currency.
For all those who feel stagnant or becalmed, living overseas is like a cool breeze on the skin. It’s never going to seem like a sensible decision, or a rational one. There’s rarely a good time for leaving your whole support network behind and spending a lot of money to live thousands of miles away. But the rewards are massive. And more and more Aussies are giving it a go.
Global World
Studies estimate there are almost 1,000,000 Australians living abroad at the moment, the majority (about 48%) in Europe and the UK. That’s about 5% of the population, which sounds big, until you realise that Ireland has around 29% and New Zealand 19%.
So many locals were leaving Australia in the early part of the last decade that industry groups began to get concerned about a ‘brain drain’ (basically all the smart people fleeing and using their brains in other countries). Its not just Australia too, thousands of Brits and other nationalities are leaving on mass.
So what’s causing the exodus? What are the advantages to living overseas?
For one, it’s a rare chance to tap into your reserves of resourcefulness and tenacity. How often do you really risk something? How often do you have to do it all yourself?
Adapting to Challenges
In London my girlfriend and I had to sign a lease (while being about 70% sure our agents were running a letting scam), get a National Insurance Number by mail, set up a bank account (not all that easy as a foreigner; I recommend Lloyds), find paying jobs, buy furniture, get an Oyster card and do it all with the knowledge that our friends and family were far away on the other side of the planet.
Travel, Sightseeing and Cultural Benefits
You also get the benefits of slow travel, which means taking the time to map a place from edge to edge, properly as a resident, not fleetingly as a tourist.
We ate at London’s best restaurants and its greasy spoons, explored little pockets of the city that travellers never have time for, spent weekends walking through the autumn leaves in Holland Park, market shopping at Spitalfields and doing day trips out to Brighton, Oxford and Richmond.
We made friends with the Subway guy from Hammersmith, and I knew the fruit sellers on Portobello Rd by their early morning banter. Walking back through Notting Hill at night, fog haloed around the wrought iron street lamps, the distant sounds of gun crime, started to feel like home.
Downsides?
Homesickness will come and go. It’s inevitable. You’ll also probably have a few self-doubt freak-outs of the what-am-I-doing-here variety. Those are natural too. My advice is to stick it out. It’s always worth it in the end. Lean on your new friends to get you through, and say yes to invitations and parties. Make a point of exploring a different part of the city every week. Keep a journal, and take a lot of photos.
What’s Stopping You?
I’m now back in Australia, which is great. But part of me is planning the next phase. Will it be the UK again? Or maybe Canada? Japan? The world’s a big place, and I want to do more than just travel it. If anyone needs me, I’ll be completing visa applications. If you are looking for a change or thinking about quitting a job to travel, go for it. You only live once!