Haven't read the whole thread but here's my take...
I'm a 28 year old software engineer and I came out to Australia at the end of November last year. My intention was to get a place and get a job and settle, with travel thrown in every now and then. As soon as I started interviewing I realised I didn't want that at all and I started to travel. Job wise there are a lot of IT related jobs, for developers at least, and a lot of stupidly highly paid contract jobs. I am about to start a month contract that will pay as much as I'd earn in the UK in 6 months... I'll either travel again or head home afterwards.
I didn't know if I could hack coming out here on my own, and admittedly my first month was difficult because I chose not to stay in hostels, but there are dozens of ways to meet people outside of just a hello (and Australians in general are much happier to chat on a train, bus, the street etc than anyone in the UK). Sometimes you just got to suck it up and say hello, you will see dozens of people every single day in the exact same situation as you and they are all thinking 'maybe I should just say hello!'. The ones that did are the ones who aren't on their own anymore.
My advice would be to be prepared for the down days, because they happen. When you're bored you get frustrated and unless you fancy drinking yourself into oblivion every night sometimes you just have to sit and think, outside of the big cities sometimes there just isn't a whole lot to do. Hervey Bay last week... And I'm in Alice Springs right now, and it's the most boring, dirty place I could possibly imagine. (If you come here, do the normal thing and just stay the night before and after the Uluru tours... I'm staying a week
)
Oh and don't fall in love. Definitely don't fall in love with a German girl (there are plenty of those here).
Other than that your comfort zone and apprehensions will not matter when you're sat at a bar laughing with a German, Dutchie, Belgian and Australian, nor when you're diving the reef, jumping out of a plane, 4wd on Fraser Island... Etc etc...
I'm a 28 year old software engineer and I came out to Australia at the end of November last year. My intention was to get a place and get a job and settle, with travel thrown in every now and then. As soon as I started interviewing I realised I didn't want that at all and I started to travel. Job wise there are a lot of IT related jobs, for developers at least, and a lot of stupidly highly paid contract jobs. I am about to start a month contract that will pay as much as I'd earn in the UK in 6 months... I'll either travel again or head home afterwards.
I didn't know if I could hack coming out here on my own, and admittedly my first month was difficult because I chose not to stay in hostels, but there are dozens of ways to meet people outside of just a hello (and Australians in general are much happier to chat on a train, bus, the street etc than anyone in the UK). Sometimes you just got to suck it up and say hello, you will see dozens of people every single day in the exact same situation as you and they are all thinking 'maybe I should just say hello!'. The ones that did are the ones who aren't on their own anymore.
My advice would be to be prepared for the down days, because they happen. When you're bored you get frustrated and unless you fancy drinking yourself into oblivion every night sometimes you just have to sit and think, outside of the big cities sometimes there just isn't a whole lot to do. Hervey Bay last week... And I'm in Alice Springs right now, and it's the most boring, dirty place I could possibly imagine. (If you come here, do the normal thing and just stay the night before and after the Uluru tours... I'm staying a week
)Oh and don't fall in love. Definitely don't fall in love with a German girl (there are plenty of those here).
Other than that your comfort zone and apprehensions will not matter when you're sat at a bar laughing with a German, Dutchie, Belgian and Australian, nor when you're diving the reef, jumping out of a plane, 4wd on Fraser Island... Etc etc...
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