Pros and Cons of Moving to Australia (An Honest Review)

foreign lots of comments from you asking what are the pros and cons of living in Australia should I move to Australia or not you're always saying positive things about Australia is there anything that you don't like there's so many questions and I know that you have to make an informed decision probably you're at home trying to decide whether to move to Australia or not whether this is a country for you now before I get into it of course I need to clarify that this is my subjective experience of what it is like to live in Australia I've been living here for more than eight years but of course my situation will be very very different to yours my experience is subjective why because we all have different realities we were brought up in different countries different cultures at the end of the day everything depends on the person so that's my disclaimer for today now having said that let's get started okay let's start with the nice things the things that I like about Australia and that I think that our pros of living in this country and moving here thank you the first one of course is the quality of living as you may know what's really has a very high standard of living and one of the reasons for this is accessible Healthcare education and employment in terms of healthcare I'm not going to get into details in this video I already have a dedicated video about it but as a quick overview if you are an Australian citizen or permanent resident or if you have a special humanitarian Visa or if you come from a country that has reciprocal agreements with Australia you are eligible to access Medicare Medicare is basically public health insurance so if you have Medicare you can access rebates you can access bulk build consultations stays at public hospitals Etc and you have peace of mind that you can always access good health care of course if you need special treatments then accessing Private health insurance is a good idea so one of the pros for me of living in Australia is the high standard of living because Healthcare is very accessible another thing that adds to the quality of living is safety other videos in comparison to other countries Australia is in general a very safe Society I've been to other parts of the world and of course if you read the stats Australia has very low crime rates of course there's pretty crime and things do happen but in general Australia is super super safe so for me that's a huge huge problem another positive of living in Australia is the fact that it has a very strong economy I think the current unemployment rate is 3.7 percent in general Australians have very high salaries in comparison to other countries and not only for professional jobs but also for trade jobs with average weekly earnings for full-time workers being around 1800 so overall Australia is a pretty stable country both economically and politically speaking Australia is a very productive country which gives a lot of stability and certainty Australia also has very high quality education with most Australian universities ranking in the top 100 globally and an interesting fact is that in 2023 the Australian High education system ranked as the third best higher education system in the world and again based on my experience having done my bachelor and my Master's here as well as the certificate for I do think that the quality of Education here is really good so again for me that's a problem another positive thing about living in Australia and about moving here is the fact that you're going to be able to access amazing scenery beautiful landscapes it's a beautiful country with a super diverse landscape from beaches to mountains to deserts you're going to find all kinds of outdoor activities here especially if you like beach lifestyle again for me that's a huge positive and actually one of the main reasons why I decided to move to Australia eight years ago and another positive thing about living in Australia and this is something that I've been saying in all my videos so we are probably very tired of hearing this is the fact that I do think that Australians in general are very friendly people they're always willing to help Australians tend to be super polite of course there are exceptions but in general this is a very polite Society we do care about the other if you bump someone on the street you say sorry to people say thank you please sorry many of you might be thinking that's common sense but it is not common sense that doesn't happen in many societies unfortunately so yeah that's something that I love about here and another positive thing that I love about this country is the fact that it's super super Multicultural Australia is one of the main destinations for migrants and that's why you're going to find lots of people from all over the world so it's super very interesting when you meet someone from a completely different culture to yours and you get to try different Cuisines different food for example before coming here I had never tried Indian food or Vietnamese food or Thai food believe it or not so it really opened my mind and today I'm a big fan of all those meals so yes I think that those are the main positives now having said that let's start talking about the cons and again please remember that this is my subjective view experience opinions and the things that I like you might hate and the things that you hate are my love so we're all very different we're human beings are experienced of how we perceive the world is going to be completely different so yeah let's start talking about that the first thing is making friends so when I first came to Australia during my first year the first cultural shock that I had was that making friends with locals took a very long time and I wasn't really mentally prepared for that I've already talked about this in other videos and I talk about this because I do think it's important if you're a migrant to be aware of this I feel that it's information that I would have liked to have before migrating here and even during my first year because I really really struggled to the point where once I came back home after University and crying and crying and I wanted to go back to my country so the situation was that I'm Hispanic from Hispanic background I'm originally from Buenos Aires Argentina and when it comes to socializing we really really value friendship family we meet up every weekend with friends or every week at University you meet a lot of people you make friends if you are a migrant in Argentina you're not going or even a tourist you're not going to leave the country without having been invited to an asado which is our barbecue and for some reason I was expecting of course because I hadn't experienced something different I was expecting the situation in Australia to be the same so when I first came here I was 21 22 years old I go to university and the first thing that I noticed is that orientation week is only with International students yeah so we don't get to meet local students they have a separate orientation week I do understand some of the reasons why they do this but in my personal opinion this is not the best approach I loved my experience and again I do think that the quality of education is really good and I learned a lot but in terms of how orientation week and the activities available for international students and local students to mix if you want to make friends are very very limited at least that was my experience it might be different now something that I encounter is that I would go to class and then at the end of the class I wanted to keep chatting maybe we were put into different groups and I wanted to keep studying and getting to know my classmates but they would just stand up and say bye see ya and off they went and it was very hard at the beginning I thought okay maybe it's just there in a rush and then as time went by I realized that that was the norm yeah people don't stay there for a chat at least again that was my circumstance my situation but talking to other International students because of course the first year I only made friends with International students some went by we all started opening up and we did realize that it was very hard to make friends with locals I think that that was the first negative experience that I had but the fact that so many other International students were experiencing the same thing was very striking right and that's something that I would have loved to know beforehand that wasn't going to influence my decision whether I came to Australia or not but it would have been good to know because otherwise I would have adjusted my approach to making friends perhaps I would have been a bit more proactive or try to get out a bit of my comfort zone to really really encourage and motivate those relationships and then I did a bit of research and there are some General articles that talk about the challenges of international students making friends with locals the reasons for this is that first we're adults and making friends as adults of course it's a bit harder than when you are kids right when you're a kid it's very easy to go to someone and say hey do you want to be my friend at least that was my case in other instances we're super busy so we don't really have the time to nurture those relationships but in most cases the challenges with making local friends is that Australians they're in their country they were raised here and they already have established Social Circle so they are not really active when it comes to looking for those friendships but this has been the reality and then of course as time went by I started working here in a professional job meaning I was in an office eight hours a day and that's when I started making my first Australian friends but up to that point all my friends were Internationals and then in the office of course when you spend so much time with someone sitting next to someone and you have team building activities Etc you can basically develop those friendships and I became really really good friends with manyosis and yeah that was the case but of course it took a long time and of course I had International friends but many of them were students right so they would come to Australia to study and then they would go back to their country although as well there were many Backpackers from my same country but again they would all go back home and at the end of the day you end up without a social network I do have friends who've migrated to other countries and some of them have experienced the same thing the situation might not be unique to Australia but in general if you migrate to another country as an adult building a strong social network might take a bit more time and I do think that it's one of the greatest challenges that we migrants Face loneliness feeling that you don't belong to a place until you really build those connections on those networks but I'm going to say this I'm very grateful that I got the opportunity to work in office and to get to experience what it was like to work with Australians and meet locals because that I think was the main opportunity that I had to really get to know the Australian culture so that's something that I would really love Australian universities to perhaps taint the approach again not sure if today they are still doing the orientation week separate International students on one side and local students on the other but it'd be something to the thing to reconsider so I'm very grateful that today I have very good Aussie friends to the point where I spent two or three Christmas at my friend's house with her family I met everyone they were super super welcoming so yeah it takes a bit longer to get to know each other and to and to really develop that friendship again it could be because of cultural reasons it could be because we're adults and we're a busier or it could be because it is true locals already have their friendships but whatever the circumstance is for you I highly recommend in proactive and go to meetup groups and join sports clubs or university clubs join a Cycling group or a gardening club whatever chance you have to socialize do it because it's going to be very very important for your mental health and if you're a Migrant Mother remember that you can talk to your local Council to join a mother's group this is especially important because many migrant women come to Australia they have they give birth here and they don't have family to help them this is not always the case of course but in some instances that's a reality so mother groups at least based on my friends who had kids have been super super helpful and yeah I guess that's the reality of migrating to another country it's not for everyone it depends on what you want to do and what you want to get out of that experience the migration process is a bumpy process highs and lows it's a normal process and of course in relation to this feeling homesick missing family and friends it's something so so I went back to Argentina two months ago and suddenly seen my parents they're getting old and you're like oh yeah that I think that they have reality as well of moving to another country and that's not unique to Australia but it's in general so that's not about Australia and then another con I feel very very negative talking about the negatives of living here it's not my cup of tea but let's continue and another thing that I was in a very big fan of is like the major cities here in Australia the cities are basically concentrated in one spot and then you have suburbs and suburbs tend to be more like it's just big houses inner city suburbs for example here in Melbourne you have saudiara Fitzroy these suburbs basically they do have a bit more life to it but if we go out a bit further from the city then it's pure Suburbia and it can feel a bit isolating sometimes again this is my personal experience because I grew up in Buenos Aires it's a huge City we all we I grew up in an apartment so for me I would go downstairs talk to my neighbors walk around the city their cafes and lots of people walking around like it's it's crazy whereas here you go on the street and perhaps you're the only person on the street in the suburbs right and for me that was a bit shocking I guess especially now that I live in a neighborhood that it's further from the city it takes a bit of time to adjust but yeah I have many friends who live in the suburbs who live in big houses and they love it there especially for racing kids it's an amazing choice for them they have a lot of space a garden so yes in terms of living in the suburbs it's not something that I love I'm a person that really really loves seeing people when I go outside and this is not something that I have been able to experience a lot living in Suburbia so if you like that kind of Lifestyle then that could be a pro for you again everything is very sad objective and for example something that I don't like is driving so if you live in the suburbs you do need a car and I rather take public transport or cycle but Australia is not super bike friendly again lots of big highways because of course they all lead to the suburbs cycling infrastructure is rather lacking and for me that's another negative if you want it's hard to get around if you don't live in inner city suburbs that's why as well living in those areas is so expensive all the console negatives are interrelated but for example my partner he's Australian he grew up in the suburbs in Sydney and he loves it he doesn't mind living in the suburbs because that's what he's used to that yeah whereas myself I'm used to another kind of lifestyle and that's why for me this is a con another thing that I haven't mentioned so far is cost of living what's my view is that if you have a stable job here in Australia you're going to be able to cover basic costs and you have a lot of saving capacity it is true that some specific Services can be very very pricey for example accessory in healthcare extras such as going to the dentist or special treatments it can be very very expensive especially if you don't have access to Private health insurance a cleaning at a dentist for example will cost you more than 200 Australian dollars or even accessing services such as the hairdresser it can be very very pricey especially if you have long hair a dream may cost you around 150 Australian dollars for me this is a huge con of living in Australia it's not something that I like and I wish it was much more accessible and then another question that I've been having is about the weather because and I've seen videos as well where people talk about the weather as something that's negative for me the weather is fine I live in Melbourne the weather is crazy here but I don't mind it of course now it's winter and it's a bit like it's pretty cold but again for me it's nothing out of this world of course if you go to the north of Australia like Darwin the Northern Territory it gets hotter and hotter of course there have been bushfires and flooding and extreme weather events but again this is happening all over the world due to climate change so it's not something that's unique to Australia unfortunately so the weather for me it's not a negative and another thing is the wildlife Wildlife dangerous animals I to be honest I live in the city I haven't I re you really need to get out of your way or go to very rural areas or national parks to see wildlife you do have small spiders here and there but they know it's not that there are snakes coming out of the toilet as many people think or it's not that you're in the city and you're going to bump into a kangaroo perhaps this happens again in more rural towns but not necessarily in major cities yeah at least that hasn't been my experience in eight years and then what other dungeons were alive there are dingos in Fraser Island you do need to be very very careful if you go to Fraser Island in Queensland and then sharks shark attacks are rare but they're becoming more and more frequent so that's something to be mindful of especially if you love swimming in the ocean or surfing but yeah it's very rare and to summarize if you ask me what's it worth moving to Australia my answer is yes there is a reason why most of my videos are positive about Australia and why I'm so excited to share my migration Journey with you and what is it like to live here and work here because I love this country this is my home I've been living here for eight years and a half now I'm a citizen Australia has given me everything I basically spent my whole adulthood here this is the country that gave me education employment some extremely extremely grateful I do think that a migrating and moving to another country whether it is for a while or permanently changes you it does change you it's going to change your perspective and it is a good experience to have if you do have the opportunity to do so again there are pros and cons no country is perfect and experiences that I had that doesn't mean that it will happen to you and I would love to hear your comments what do you feel about this let's debate and if you're a migrant as well let me know about your experience um for similar videos check out these ones here and here and I'll see you next time bye

Channel: Living Simply Australia

Views: 568,453

Keywords: Moving to Australia, Life in Australia, Migrating Australia, pros and cons of living in australia, should I move to Australia, Australia immigration, australia migration, foreigner in australia, international student in australia, making friends in australia, cost of living australia, wildlife australia, dangerous animals australia, weather in australia, education in australia, quality of living australia, scenery australia, beaches australia, negatives of living in australia

Id: -MDcPI8R2SQ

Length: 18min 52sec (1132 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 23 2023