#18: The low-down from three weeks Down Under 🇦🇺

first international trip since the pandemic and how travel is changing

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camped just a few steps away

It’s the last day of my three week trip in Australia and I’m feeling ready to go back home to the Bay Area. I’ve enjoyed the fancy brunch food, beaches, and hand-feeding kangaroos (and wallaroos which are a thing), but I’m also ready to get back to friends, family, and a routine. This was my first time traveling internationally since February 2020 and it’s been oddly refreshing to be back in unfamiliar territories. Even though it’s only been a couple years, it feels like it’s been longer because this was the first time I didn’t have to deal with SIM cards or exchanging currencies (didn’t even have to pull out my credit card because everywhere accepts Apple Pay).

I arrived in Melbourne three weeks ago with little knowledge of the country. I had heard of the laid-back culture and of this mysterious black paste called vegemite, but never tried it myself. Whenever I visit somewhere for the first time, I seek to understand it rather than just pass by and extract the fun experiences of it in a transactional manner. I think in order to understand a place’s people, culture, and values, you need to immerse yourself into the local flow of life. I want to see the highlights and do some of the touristy things as well, but in order to understand a place, I go to the grocery store, library, cafes, and pay attention to seemingly mundane things like trashcans (explained later). I’ve written multiple times about how much your environment can shape you, your ambitions, and your values. Here are a couple examples of that theory playing out first-hand:

Office and lunch culture

In Australia, it’s not crazy to take a couple hours in the middle of the work day to get lunch with your colleagues followed by a post-lunch coffee break. The pace is slower and things don’t feel as rushed. As a result, you get to know your coworkers as fellow humans and not just squares of floating heads on a Zoom video call. My Aussie coworker told me a story of how when a fellow American was visiting, he wanted to go back to the office one hour into the lunch break while everyone else was still enjoying their meal and planning to stop for coffee after. It’s not uncommon for a lunch break followed by coffee to take two hours.

lunch at Hardware Societe with coworkers, we got coffee afterwards

Incentivizing healthy behavior

When you think of public fitness centers in the US, what do you visualize? How new, spacious, and clean are the facilities? Even if it’s accessible to anyone? I have trouble imagining it myself given the majority people would rather work out at a private gym like 24 Hour Fitness or Equinox rather than a rec center. In Sydney, it’s clear that taking care of your health is encouraged and supported with public swimming centers like this one in Woolloomooloo:

Andrew (Boy) Charlton Pool with cafe on the upstairs floor serving up espresso and smashed avo

If you’ve ever google’d Bondi Beach or doomscrolled through Instagram, then you might’ve seen a beautiful turquoise ocean with connected outdoor swimming lanes:

Icebergs Club at Bondi Beach, you can swim here for just AUD$9 … that’s less than six bucks

Prior to this trip, whenever I saw this place, I just assumed that this was the pool of some 5-star hotel on the beach, but turns out the Icebergs Club started out as a community club for lifeguards who wanted to stay in shape during the winter. Meanwhile back in the states, the best we can do with on-beach facilities is a nice Taco-Bell (it actually is kinda nice and even has a fireplace inside):

Pacifica, CA - where I (try to) find good waves

Keeping the streets clean

Do stereotypes about certain countries exist because of the people and the culture or because of the environment that they live in? It’s a chicken-and-the-egg problem in my opinion. While I was in Byron Bay and walking on a trail, I couldn’t help but notice how many trashcans there were. See how many you can count in this pic:

note how the side has a cool whale and there are images on the front that show where each type of trash goes

It’s hard to tell, but in-person I was able to spot four separate trashcans, all spaced out not too far from each other. Let’s say hypothetically, Aussies are known to be impeccably clean and take care of their surroundings. Is it because they’re just inherently neat freaks or is it because they live in neighborhoods that have so many trashcans that it’s near impossible to litter? Even if you were the laziest person on the planet, there would be a trashcan within a few steps. To no surprise, the trails, roads, and sidewalks were near spotless everywhere I went.

Making it a no-brainer to take public transit

Almost everyone would agree that cities would be more walkable (and livable) if they were fewer cars on the road. But does every city “walk the walk”? (pun intended) The reality is that people need to get to the school, office, gym, grocery store, and more. I think the best way for cities to show that they encourage car-less transportation is to actually build the infrastructure that incentivizes walking, biking, e-biking, etc. (unlike San Francisco which has spent $300M over 27 years to build a single bus lane).

This street in Melbourne is for tram only and when you’re in the central business district (CBD), it’s completely free. There’s also a screen that lists when the next tram is coming so you don’t have to guess

Investing in the great outdoors

From personal experience (and backed by research), spending time outside is good for you. Even better if you can get away from crowds and other pesky distractions like your phone. Camping is a great way to spend time outside, but it often seems unenjoyable to people who want a hot meal in the comfort of a dining room or want a hot shower every night. I camped at two sites during my drive from Sydney to Gold Coast and each one blew my mind in terms of the facilities:

Each campground had multiple cooking stations with fuel already connected (and free)

These things are subtle, but compound. Last night, I made my dinner under a well-lit, roofed picnic area and then afterwards cleaned my dishes at a dedicated dish-washing sink that’s outside and separate from the bathrooms. Then I took a free hot shower in a bathroom that’s nicer than most airports in the US.

What’s the point?

The point is that we get stuck in our ways of expectations and habits which are formed by our environment and where we live. It’s easy to accept the status quo when you don’t know what the alternatives are. Traveling, especially internationally, although temporary, is a sure-fire way of being exposed to what else is out there.

If I hadn’t visited Australia this time, then I wouldn’t be aware of how good public fitness centers, campgrounds, and public transit can be. I would’ve thought that eating your lunch alone, by your desk (and continuously working) is the norm. Now that I think about it, that’s pretty depressing.

a stock image of a working professional enjoying her Sweetgreen (that her company pays for), but is actually miserable and lonely on the inside

I’m not saying that Australia is superior than America or that I would want to move here. Side note: as I waiting for a taxi at the Sydney airport, an Aussie woman (in her 60s with tons of jewelry) was telling me how lazy they all are and how it’s not a country that gets anything done (her words, not mine). As an observant American visiting a foreign land, I was able to notice key differences between these two societies. I’m sure if an Australian visited the states, they would find things that they appreciate about in America that they don’t experience back home down-under. Now consider the fact that Australia and the United States are relatively similar. We have similar languages, foods, cultural norms, religions - the list goes on and on. This exercise of visiting a foreign place and noting down what stands out would be even more potent if you visited somewhere in high contrast to your home country.

What I’m getting at is that the only way for your Unknown Unknowns to become Known Unknowns are to venture forward and take steps towards the fog. It applies to lifestyle and traveling, but other things as well. The only way to know is to go and see for yourself.

Random Observations

• Asian fusion as a cuisine is more mainstream and caters to the masses in the a young, hip way rather than what we have back in the states like Panda Express or P.F. Chang’s. My favorite meals were Asian Aussie brunches.

• The food delivery couriers leave their e-bikes unlocked when waiting for pick up, a sign that suggests crime is low.

• Some restaurants charge more on weekends (10% more) and holidays (15% more) which makes sense from an economics perspective of trying to smooth out demand curves. [further reading]

• Most coffee shops don’t have WiFi, encouraging people to spend time with each other.

• It seems safer here. The guy at the RipCurl store said he just leaves his stuff on the beach during the winter. When I got up at a cafe to use the bathroom, I didn’t take my stuff with me. I didn’t even close my laptop. Someone totally could’ve walked up and stolen my stuff.

• On my Melbourne to Sydney flight - It’s crazy that you don’t show ID or boarding pass when going through security and then when you board the plane you only need to scan the mobile boarding pass. This felt like the opposite of going through TSA in the states.

• People follow driving manners a lot better here. Slow people drive on the left because of reverse directions and the right lane is reserved for passing. There’s very few cars that drive on the right as a result.

• The speed limit is actually a limit and it’s set appropriately. People don’t drive at the speed limit, they drive below it, at times even 20km/h slower than the speed limit

• The oranges are really good, rivals Floridian oranges

I’m all traveled out

So far this year, I’ve read 11 books and Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman has been one of the stand-outs. It’s a productivity book that comes at it from an anti-productivity angle which is refreshing when most books in the genre are about hyper-optimizing your daily routine and schedule so that you can squeeze out a few extra minutes here and there. He has one chapter about the loneliness of digital nomads which I listened to attentively since I feel like my current trajectory puts me on the path of becoming a digital nomad. I wouldn’t say I’m fully there yet because I keep living in the same handful of familiar places that are all domestic locations. “Every gain in personal temporal freedom entails a corresponding loss in how easy it is to coordinate your time with other people’s. The digital nomad’s lifestyle lacks the shared rhythms required for deep relationships to take root.”

I didn’t realize this until a couple days ago, but I’ve been traveling non-stop since July. I don’t really count my three months in Honolulu as traveling per se, so the soft start was on July 5th when I went to Kauai for a solo backpacking trip along the Na Pali coastline. Since then, I haven’t felt like I stopped moving around. I haven’t cooked a meal for myself in almost three months! Other than holidays, I’ll be staying in one place (New York City) for the rest of the year and that’s exactly what I want right now.

I had this realization that in the same sentence or line of thought in me deciding I want to stop traveling for a while, I’m also about to fly across the country a week after getting back from across the Pacific Ocean. In my head, I don’t view staying in one place for a few months as traveling anymore. It made me think about what does it even mean to travel somewhere vs. live somewhere? People always ask each other “Where do you live?” and I think we would all agree “Where are you traveling to?” is a different question. But for me, they are almost one and the same. I don’t know if I’ll ever stay stationary and rooted in one place for a long period of time and I’m not alone. The average person I know is privileged enough to take a couple trips throughout the timespan of their one year lease. Rather than being in a completely distinct category, I think I’ve just cranked up the frequency and pace of travel more so than others. The typical person my age with a well-paying job might spend a cumulative 10 months out of the 12 months of their lease in the actual city. For my lifestyle, it’s been more like 3 months in four places on a rotational basis. I feel like I’m traveling when I can’t cook my own meals easily, have to search on Google Maps for local gyms and pay for day passes, am constantly checking-in and out of places, and worry about small things like where am I going to do laundry. When I find myself with a sublease for at least a couple months, that no longer feels like traveling to me. It feels like a more flexible, shorter term version of what everyone else is experiencing.

I don’t know where I’m going to live next year and it no longer bothers me. I think I’ve just become attuned to the set of decisions and by-products that the lease-less lifestyle comes with. At my friend Joan’s birthday picnic today, she mentioned she’s planning to go to Spain and Italy for vacation next summer. Sometimes I don’t even know where I’m going to be next month. “Go with the flow” → I’ve made it work for me, but also easier said than done.

This was more travel-y than my usual posts. Let me know your honest thoughts, what you think I should write about next, and what you want to know about me!