i’ll start with the cons
-it’s a long old slog home (but I love flying so don’t mind too much) and I do miss my fam & friends a lot sure. But I made loads of new ones here too and now with messenger,FaceTime etc it’s not like you’re just waiting weeks for snail mail standing or having to tactically co-ordinate a ring on the pay phone.
-they only seemed to have got potato smilies and canned spaghetti shapes (spag-o-saurus for the 0 interested ha) in the last couple of years. We do say (in jest) that in some aspects like that Aus seems to be about 20 years behind the uk. Oh and don’t be fooled by the creamY Heinz tomato soup. It’s NOTHING LIKE cream OF tomato soup!! There’s also UK/Irish import shops that stock that, and many of my faves like chilli heatwave Doritos, Quavers etc.
I do really hanker a ‘proper Englishh’ Chinese takeaway tho, nothing here’s quite touched that. Too many authentic and extensive other cuisines. My waistline doesn’t complain tho!
-Yes it can get bloody hot. Luckily there are things such as beaches, pools, and also malls, and other such civilised places with air con for those days.
You acclimatise or ya sweat. shrug.
Winter can get cold too (location depending) but nothing a heater, leccy blanket and an Oodie can’t fix. But fuck, even on cold days the skies are blue and in the sun i’ve found myself in a t-shirt in mid-August. And blue skies & sunshine from 7am- 7pm year round rather than shivering yer arse off 80% of the time while it gets dark before 5pm? I know which puts me personally in a better mood. (This also differs slightly location depending.)
-are there racists, snobs, yobs and general arses? Yes there are. Best sticking to the UK or Americ.. oh wait..
Humans can be dicks and they exist literally everywhere. I went to a pub on halloween in Devon couple years back and there were two white men in literal brown face paint dressed as Tupac and Biggie so… 
. I’d say similar about the majority of politicians too but yeahhh..
There’s also efforts to convey much respect and acknowledgement for the First Nations people all over tv, radio and the majority of humans really, at least in the circles i keep, and a lot of calling out of nasty racist shite too. Thankfully this seems to be a growing trend in general.
-T’internet wifi is a little bit crapper/slower than the UK. Can’t download a whole series on the Arr-me-hearty Bay in 10 minutes, more like a solid 8 hours. Not that I do that anyway ahem. Luckily the phone data plans and 5G are fast and pretty reliable. Oh and they say data funny, like dahtah 
-Stuff can be muuuch further away because, well, Australia is B I G! My bestie lives in Melbourne which is a 12 hour drive. But the flight Syd-Mel takes about an hour, and costs ~40 quid, which isn’t far off what my south coast mates pay to get to London on the train nowadays! Plus I have a bed to stay in her state (and others) and going to each state is a total new vibe so feels like a real holiday/adventure every time. To me anyways.
-Yes there are snakes, sharks, crocs and LARGE spiders. But personally I’ve lived in Darwin, Queensland (Tully farmwork woo —not and Sydney and I’ve seen 2 brown snakes (one dead, one from a car), never been bitten by a spider and the biggest I’ve seen is a Huntsman the span of my palm, whom I’ve [un]lovingly named Michael Myers due to the fact that the twice I have er.. gracefully and unscreaminly released him into the bushes below, he has returned to scare me shitless twice. Not as deadly though. I’ve also swum in beaches and lakes all over and never seen a shark or been got by a croc, as ill-advised as some of those escapades may have been. Yes there are relatively rare attacks, usually wayy further out than most people would be having a swim from the main beaches, and certainly not like Jaws, nor be an absolute reason to just write the entire country off! They also have sooo many amazing animals like Platypus (otter shagged a duck) Echidnas (porcupine shagged a platypus) and koalas and Roos and many more that still bring me joy to see them! Even seeing flocks of beautiful lorikeets, loud bastard --Cockatoos, Galahs, congregating in trees & flying free, not just in sad little cages. Can’t beat that feeling of joy.
Whew ok, now the pros!
I fear i may have to keep it brief at the risk of coming across biased, but in a nutshell, for me personally moving here, my life has changed exponentially for the better. Barring the dickheads everywhere caveat above, the people are just generally friendlier, nicer, happier. I’m still delighted when I hear a “G’day”, “Holy Dooley!”, so many little things bring me so much joy, I’ve experienced the backpacker lifestyle and been settled in one place for 4 years now and adored both lives, for 30 years I lived in the UK and honestly, I never knew there was a dull, gnawing unhappiness, just something that was missing, something just a bit.. not great. When I got here, it felt like a weight had lifted from my bloody SOUL. Maybe I’m just easily pleased, idk, but for me personally my mental health improved from day one. Was it damn scary to whittle down all my “stuff” into one backpack? Yep i didn’t even pack til the night before. Did I have to be basically shoved onto the plane? Kinda, haha. But I did it, with my mum counteracting my “but but what IFFF” with “Come on Jadie. If you hate it you just get a plane back, it’s not the bloody Hotel California!”
Hell my mates had a “how long will she last” game, shortest guess was two weeks, longest 6 months. I cried with happiness when I just got my Permanent Residency visa last month, and will have been here 6 years in Feb (suck it, Claire 
) And yeah there have been some shit times, but hell even those shit times i still felt every day so so thankful that I was IN AUSTRALIAA!!” Even the lowest times didn’t feel as low as if I’d still been home. I’ve never a single day regretted it. And I’ve met so many people herd, some who loved it, some who were happy to just do the year or 2, a couple who were on the fence but decided to at least stick out the 3 month one. But I’ve never met a single one who’d said they wish they’d never come here. SO many had to go back after their WH visa, and were beyond gutted, but had no choice, i was and am indescribably lucky and grateful every day that I did get to stay.
Yeah some stuff is expensive, but mostly just seems expensive because it took me a good year to stop thinking in “oh god that’s 60 bucks! That’s THIRTY EIGHT pounds!1!!” And just start thinking in terms of how much relative to my earnings. Like shit, i worked in a tiny cafe with Bondi Beach right out the window, and I was getting paid about equivalent of £15 an hour, PLUS tips, where I’d been working the same hours, same job (busier even, and a fraction of the tips) for about £6.50 an hour back home.
I also can admit I didn’t have kids or a house to sell etc but leaving lifelong friends, a long term (toxic but still) relationship, my family, it was the biggest decision I’d made after being such a timid person with zero self-faith, fearful of what I was leaving behind and if everything would go wrong, everyone would forget me.. but yep. The best choice i ever made,
I could go on but i think I’ve made my own point, based on my own mileage of course, but I can and do tell every single person I ever meet who even expresses a “what if…?” To just DO it! The ones that did, didn’t regret it. The ones who didn’t, sure they’ve lived their lives and seem mostly fine, had kids now, settled down ok but they still say “i kinda wish I’d tried it before.. just to see” it’s always worth a go, even if it’s another story to tell at some point that was “Nah, wasn’t for me
Sorry everyone the TL;DR- Go for it! Best things in life can seem the scariest!
Aussies and fellow happy expats here I’ll just wave and probably go name change now after getting off my soap box!
i just love it so much, truly enriched my life and want others to experience the chance of it if they can!
runs and name changes