I regret moving (back) to Australia

[GreenestGrass]

DP and I are both Australian. We did the typical young person thing of living in the UK and had the opportunity to extend our stay through work sponsorships and make it a more permanent move. For various reasons we decided to come back home to Australia, but as time goes by both of us feel increasingly regretful of our decision for a few reasons:

-Lower cost of living. I'm not saying living in the UK is cheap but my goodness, Australia is expensive. It really hit home for us when we moved back and were hit with prices for things.
-Lifestyle - we absolutely loved being able to travel easily and the access to different parts of the world. Australia feels so far away from everywhere and again, travelling internationally from here is super expensive. Cities in Australia also feel quite 'samey' and lacking character in comparison to the UK.
-Professional opportunities - with the much smaller population size, professional opportunities here in Australia just can't compare to what we had over there.

These are just a few of the reasons but overall we just preferred living there to here, and now there's not much we can do about it as it's unlikely we'd be able to start over again and also get the work permissions we'd need to legally work in the UK again.

Has anyone ever felt similar regrets? I'm doing my best to enjoy the things life in Australia has to offer but it does feel like we missed our chance a bit here :(

Most people on here will think you are mad because they all hate the UK but I totally understand what you are saying.

So sorry that you have made a decision that doesn't suit you but you just have to be positive now and make the most of it.

There are probably millions of people in the UK who would swap with you. We all want what we can't have.

@ILoveAllRainbowsx Yes, when I lived over in the UK a lot of people asked why and said they'd love to live in Australia! I know the weather is often listed as a huge consideration but I got used to it in the UK and the extremes of weather here in Australia are just as bad, if not worse than the UK in my view. It's all subjective of course, but for me I think I just preferred the life I could have in the UK.

Oh, OP, you've summed up all my worries about moving back. I really miss home but realistically have lived in the UK for 15 years, husband is British and kids have never lived anywhere else. We have good jobs and a (small) house.

I'm so sorry you're feeling like this though. Where are you based? How long have you been back? The adjustment period to a nee (old) country is so grim regardless.

I’m Australian and my DH is British. Same as you I came here for a working holiday and stayed! 15 years later I’m still here. It’s also a decision I grappled with for years. To stay or go home. Friend of mine in similar situation went back to Oz once her children were born after 15 years in London . She and her husband hated it, cost of living, career ops, lack of ability to travel easily, and frankly ( her words) the cliquey nature of some people, obv depend on where you are and a complete generalisation and who’s to say you don’t get that here! The weather is nice yes, but is that everything? I love the different seasons here in the U.K. My friend came back to the U.K., and she’s never been happier! Just because you’ve moved doesn’t mean you can’t go back. It’s a tough one isn’t it. There are pros and cons with both.

I'm with you too! But you are probably going to get torn apart .

🎶 We don't criticise Australia, no no no! We don't criticise Australia! 🎶

When people tell me that they would love to live in Australia I always jump on it and tell them I will help them and shall I email them the application for and they can live with us for as long as they like and I will help them with jobs. Nobody has ever done it.

Strangely the weather isn't enough for them but it should be enough for me.

It's probably going to take at least eighteen months for you to settle back in to it and get used to it again.

I felt the same when I moved back but I’ve been home here over 15 years now. For a long time wanted to go back to the UK but as I get older I appreciate the better funded public services (it horrifies me reading on MN how high the bar is for going to A&E or calling the police!) and while the cost of living is higher in many ways, wage growth has kept up better here. I am in what is essentially an admin role and I make 4-5 times what I would’ve done back in the UK. Plus public transport is much, much cheaper.

Then the GFC around 2008/2009 meant staying in Australia was the sensible option. Our economy was basically fine, no austerity measures etc. So I ended up staying here and doing loads of travel from here. Plane fares and travel distance meant I had to do it all at once, so I’d go for four weeks at a time rather than shorter more frequent trips.

So basically, it’s boring as hell here if you don’t care for sun and sport but it’s a much more comfortable life than I would’ve had. And that means more in my 40’s than in my late 20’s. I can go to the doctor whenever I want, there’s no trouble accessing services etc. Boring things that I now appreciate.

A friend of ours moved to Australia and after a couple of years he was saying everything you are saying. All a bit one dimensional and samey. He returned having got Australia out of his system.

Hi OP. I am Australian and DH (and the Dcs) are british and we live i the UK. We have been toying with the idea of returning- mainly for my parents who are getting older.

Can I ask what profession you are in? And where you moved back to? I left Australia 22 year ago now for work opportunities and for a desire to travel and see the world. If we moved home we would move to Melbourne I guess. DH is retired and I work in Overseas development but have taken a year out as one of my Dcs was really ill during Covid. I have literally no idea what we would do in Australia but I do have legal qualifications that could be fairly easily updated. (I think).

I am feeling a slight amount of homesickness, BUT, one of the reasons I left Australia is because I felt restless and constrained there. I am worried about going home and being stuck there.

I am really interested in this thread so thank you for starting it.

I’m dual Aus / U.K. and moved after university but stayed, so over twenty years now

Many friends did the same

I understand your post and often posters talk up Aus and down U.K.

Is your family still there, close? Maybe that will be one more of a positive (having a family etc)

Whereabouts are you?

Sorry my maths is wrong. It’s more like 3 times what I’d make in the UK, not 4-5. But still, much more comfortable.

I understand OP.

I grew up in Australia and don't think I'll ever move back. Sure the beaches and the weather are nice but my god, talk about a cultural desert. Plus it's a million miles away from anywhere.

The only upsides I can think of are long hot summers and bigger square footage for property, i.e. on an average income you can live in a nice 4x2 or even a 5x3 with a large garden in the suburbs with 2 cars etc., IF that's your vibe. Sounds like it's not though.

It's good to know I'm not the only one feeling like this. There were definitely some aspects of UK life I found challenging e.g. seeing a doctor and being tied to just one medical practice, expensive privatised train travel etc. My salary is much higher here in Australia than it was in the UK but it seems to not go as far! Housing in particular is eye-wateringly expensive here, especially in Sydney where I live.

I'm not really into the outdoors that much so that part of life here doesn't really cut it for me. This is also a tiny quibble but I had at least a week more of annual leave in the UK - in Australia 4 weeks is fairly standard and considering it takes so many hours to travel anywhere international, it means I lose 2 days practically just on getting to a destination.

It’s weird, we’ve been thinking about it, but from the opposite position (we’re British, have lived in Sydney for 15 years, considering moving back).
We also miss the opportunity for easy travel in Europe, miss seeing old cities etc but have basically decided to stay here for the time being for a few reasons.
The school our kids go to is really good, and moving back would mean risking a worse school. We love the outdoors life, we like kayaking, bush walking, going to the beach, riding bikes. Both kids play high level tennis which they can do loads of (recent rain aside!).
We also find the cultural things are really easy to do because there just isn’t the demand. So shows are easy to get tickets to, the art galleries aren’t busy, Sydney has loads going on.
The public services are well funded. The people are generally friendly, positive and welcoming. I couldn’t live anywhere else but a big city though, we lived for a couple of years in Adelaide and I hated it, found it so insular and unfriendly.
We’ve got a big house 40 minutes from the city centre that we could never afford in London.
Life feels really easy!
Our plan is to travel a lot when the kids leave school (as we’ll only be early 50s) and we also come back to the U.K. once a year to get our culture fix!
It’s a tricky decision though and part of what stops us from moving back is “THE FEAR” that we will go back and go “oh god it’s as grey and the people are as grumpy as we remember” and then we’re stuck there and the kids go “why?”and hate us for uprooting them.

My family are from the UK but spent time in Australia when I was a teen. They thought about emigrating but I wasn't keen. Too far from the rest of the world and I love the diversity of Europe.

OP what works for one doesn’t necessarily work for another and vice versa.

A lot of people talk about how they would love to leave the UK, how much they hate it and when they do move somewhere else they realise that the country they moved to has its own problems and issues and ironically, they hang around with other British people all talking about when they lived in the UK etc.

I grew up in South Africa and we did seriously look into emigrating to Australia some years back but then I fell pregnant and we decided to stay here. But SA has similar lifestyles etc to Aus which is why I looked at Aus because the crime rate is significantly less (understatement) but the lifestyle is similar.

But the reality is that when people talk about the weather, they seem to lose sight of the 40 plus temperatures for a huge part of the summer, the bush fires and the flooding that follows them.

There’s an outdoor lifestyle but the people over there complain as much about the weather as the people do over here.

Ultimately you have nothing to lose by looking at whether you could come back here. If it’s a no then at least you’ve tried.

I’m British but lived in Sydney. We went home.

I couldn’t live in Australia. Plenty of British people loved it, but I couldn’t do it long term, all the reasons you describe.

Come back!

Out of curiosity OP, why did you decide to go back? What kind of things did you miss when you were in the uk?

Do you have friends and family there? What about children? Would you consider living somewhere else in Aus and having a bit more of an adventure?

Also I personally prefer Melbourne to Sydney so biased anyway

It’s funny about the weather - I feel the same about the summer as I do about the winter in the U.K. - you just have to endure it! I love the weather from March - October and especially in winter we’ll have weeks of clear, cool, sunny days that are just utterly joyful.
The summer we get through with swimming and air con! We’re lucky though, the 15 years we’ve been here we’ve never had a crazy boiling summer. Even one a couple of years ago with fires etc we only had a couple of weeks here and there of 40+ days. I could never live in Qld with the humidity. I do appreciate it’s different outside of the cities though.

@iloveallrainbowsx
Most people on here will think you are mad because they all hate the UK but I totally understand what you are saying.

I don't hate the UK but I would be concerned living in Australia when you have to sellotape (durex) everything to the table so it doesn't fall off - them being upside and everything.

Can we swap?

@BiscuitLover3678 We hadn't intended to move to the UK permanently and all our family are here in Australia. If either one of us were British it'd have been a no-brainer but the distance is so huge. In hindsight though it was probably the wrong decision for us.

And yes, Melbourne is great! But I'm not that keen on living elsewhere in Australia because in my experience, the cities are not that distinctive. At least Sydney is where I know best and where my family are.

My friend emigrated to Australia from the UK as a young person, when she comes back to the UK to see family she says all the houses seem tiny and everything is squashed up together with no open space...cars jammed parked etc. But she is a very outdoorsy person with lots of dogs etc

We emigrated to Germany and need to decide in the next 3-5 years where we will live permanently.

I love Germany and the lifestyle is so much better particularly for kids. Retirement seems comfortable here but a struggle in the UK. The state of healthcare and emergency services and mental health care seems actually dangerous in the UK. I am worried about emergencies there, and retiring there. But I don't want to be in a German nursing home eating German food speaking German either. I want to be near my family, and I want to go home.

I said about 4 years ago the two things that would make me happy living here is getting fluent in the language and earning enough to visit UK twice a year. But actually we haven't been back in 2.5 years now and I haven't done anything about language classes and think I probably never will