Home away from home

Travel. It has its ups and downs.

Travel. It can be stressful.

Travel. It can be lonely.

Travel. It can be the best time of your life.

Travel. It’s what I live for.

I’ve been in Australia for over a year now. Coming to the end of my first year, in July, I was quite sad. It’s the longest time that I’ve been away from home and I was homesick. I never thought I would feel homesick in my life. I had had the most amazing experience living on 2 islands and travelling up and down the East Coast, but by this point I had had enough, I was kind of ready to go home and see friends and family again. Even though there was still so much to see on the West Coast and everywhere in between.

But I wanted to save some money before I went home, which meant staying in one place for a while. I chose Perth. The most isolated major city in the world.

I didn’t really know anyone in Perth before I came, but I knew I liked the place and it would be a good place to settle for a while.

I’ve now been here in Perth for 2 and a half months and it’s my new home away from home. It took me a while to feel settled here, to find a good job (multiple in my case). But now I have good friends, I enjoy my jobs. I have a good life.

Moving to the West Coast, where all the friends I had made are on the East Coast, I thought it would be hard, but I’ve actually managed to meet up again with good friends from the East Coast as well as making new friends.

I’ve managed to go camping with friends again and take my camera out with me, where I haven’t picked up my camera since I stopped social media.

I’m the kind of person that moves around a lot, 3 months is normally my max in any one place. Perth has captured my heart, and that has a lot to do with how I feel like I have a community here now.

My original plan was to stay in Perth until February time and move on, 5 months, I thought that was good enough. Turns out now I want to stay longer and that has never happened to me before.

I guess what I’m trying to say is thank you Perth, thank you to all the friends that I’ve made here and thank you Australia for what has been a lot of emotions but one of the best experiences I’ve decided to make so far in my life.