Do I Regret Moving To Perth?

One of the hardest things about moving to Australia is deciding where in Australia you’re actually going to live.

It’s a HUGE country, and when you’re sitting on the other side of the world trying to work out where you should start your new life, it can feel a little overwhelming.

Do you choose Sydney? Melbourne? Brisbane? Adelaide? Perth? Somewhere regional? Somewhere coastal? Somewhere inland?

And then there’s the weather, house prices, jobs, schools, lifestyle, distance from family, things to do, beaches, traffic, public transport… the list goes on.

For us, the decision was even harder because we’d never actually been to Australia before we moved here. Yep. We chose a city we’d never visited, on the other side of the world, and packed up our life to move there. Looking back, that sounds slightly mad.

But more than 12 years later, I can honestly say that choosing Perth was one of the biggest decisions we’ve ever made, and one I’m very happy we made.

So, do I regret moving to Perth?

Absolutely not.

But let me go back to the beginning…

Why We Decided To Move To Australia

When we first started seriously thinking about moving to Australia, we were living in the UK. Our son wasn’t even one year old. And, like so many parents, having a child changed the way we looked at the future. We wanted to give him the best future we could.

We were happy enough in the UK, but we started wondering whether Australia might give us the kind of lifestyle and opportunities we wanted for our family. At that stage, it wasn’t about escaping a terrible life or running away from somewhere.

We simply started thinking about whether there was somewhere else that might suit us better. We didn’t want to move back to South Africa, despite me obviously having strong connections there.

And we briefly considered Ireland because we had family there too, but then we remembered that the weather is somehow even worse than the UK. So that was that.

Australia started looking increasingly appealing. The problem was that Australia is absolutely enormous, and we had no idea where we should actually go.

What Locations Did We Consider Before We Moved?

Our main contenders were Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

There were obviously other places we could have considered, but those three kept coming up as we researched our options.

We were looking at things like:

• The size of the city
• Weather
• Lifestyle
• Job opportunities and potential salaries
• Housing affordability and cost of living
• Access to beaches and outdoor activities
• What day to day life might actually look like for our family
• How easy it would be to travel back overseas

At the time, those three cities seemed to offer a good balance of the things we were looking for.

We ruled out Sydney and Melbourne fairly quickly. A big part of that was simply that we didn’t really want to live in a massive city.  A weekend in London was plenty of city time for me! Living in mostly countryside areas or on the outskirts of cities, we weren’t particularly interested in moving to Australia only to end up in a London-like place.

The weather was another consideration. We wanted sunshine and an outdoor lifestyle, and neither Sydney nor Melbourne could guarantee us the kind of Aussie summers we were dreaming about.

Of course, every city has its pros and cons, and what matters to one family might be completely different to another. But when you’re making a decision from thousands of kilometres away, you have to work with what you know.

And at that point, we were basically trying to work out where we’d fit best based on research, conversations and a fair amount of guesswork.

Why We Ended Up Choosing Perth

Eventually, Perth started ticking more boxes for us than the other options.

One of the biggest factors was jobs. There were opportunities in our respective fields, which obviously made a huge difference. There isn’t much point choosing your dream location if you can’t actually find work there.

Then there was the lifestyle. Perth had the beaches, sunshine and outdoor lifestyle we were looking for.

And at the time we moved, housing was also more affordable than some of the other Australian capital cities we were considering. That was a pretty big consideration when we were starting a new life from scratch, with no jobs to walk into on arrival and limited cash in the bank.

We also liked the fact that Perth was relatively well positioned for getting back to South Africa and Europe. It isn’t exactly next door, obviously, but compared with travelling from the east coast of Australia, Perth’s location made sense to us.

There was also something about Perth that felt like it offered the lifestyle we wanted without being too big.

Adelaide was another serious contender for us, but we had this feeling that Perth might offer a little more going on.

That was our thinking at the time, anyway.

So Perth it was.

Except we’d never actually been there. Or anywhere else in Australia.

Moving To Perth Without Ever Visiting

This is probably the part that surprises people the most. We moved to Perth without having visited first. Well Mr C came out for 5 days (yes 5 days!) after our visa grant to have a few job interviews before we moved. I know, what possessed us to think that was a good idea! He spent most of it being interviewed while still jet-lagged and started to question our life choices.

But besides that. there was no pre-move family holiday where we drove around suburbs, looked at houses and decided, “Yep, this is where we’re going to live.”

We were doing it all from the other side of the world. We researched. We looked at maps. We read about suburbs. We searched for jobs. We looked at property.

But there is only so much research can tell you. You can’t really know what a place feels like until you live there. And that’s one of the hardest things about deciding where to move in Australia.

You can spend months comparing cities, reading forums and looking at photos, but eventually you have to make a decision based on what you think will work for your family.

For us, that gamble has paid off.

Do I Regret Moving To Perth?

Absolutely not. More than 12 years after making that decision, I genuinely can’t imagine us living anywhere else in Australia.

Do I love everything about Perth? Of course not. No place is perfect. There are things that annoy me, things that could be better and days when I wonder why everything seems to be so far away. And yes, living on the west coast means we’re a long way from pretty much everything (except Bali!).

But overall? I love it here. I love the life we’ve built. I love the lifestyle we’ve created for our family. I love being able to head to the beach, spend time outdoors with my horses, and enjoy the sunshine. I love the space. I love that Perth can feel relaxed without feeling like there’s nothing happening.

And I love looking back at the decision we made all those years ago and knowing that, despite all the uncertainty at the time, we made the right decision for us.

We’ve been incredibly lucky along the way, but we’ve also worked insanely hard to build the life we have here.

Australia hasn’t magically made everything easy. Moving countries doesn’t do that. There have been challenges, homesickness, expensive surprises, cultural differences and plenty of moments where we’ve had to ask for help, or figure things out as we went.

But would I do it all again? Yes.

And can I see us relocating somewhere else in Australia in the foreseeable future? Honestly, no. For now, Perth is my home.

So, Should You Choose Perth?

That’s something only you can decide. What worked for us over a decade ago might not be what works for your family today. Especially as house prices have gone through the roof here since we arrived back in 2013.

Your priorities might be completely different from ours. You might want a huge city, or excellent public transport, or a completely different climate. Or perhaps you want beaches, mountains, sunshine, outdoor space, or a slower pace of life.

Maybe you’re looking at Perth, Darwin, Adelaide, Melbourne or somewhere completely different.

My biggest piece of advice is to think carefully about how you actually want to live, rather than simply choosing the Australian city you’ve heard the most about.

And if you haven’t visited Australia yet, don’t panic. I didn’t either. You won’t be able to know everything before you arrive. You just need to do your research, understand your priorities and make the best decision you can with the information you have.

So, Do I Regret Moving To Perth?

Nope. Not even a tiny little bit.

We took a pretty big gamble all those years ago by moving to the other side of the world, to a city we’d never even visited. More than 12 years later, Perth is home, and I can’t see us moving anywhere else for the foreseeable future.

If you’re planning your own move to Australia, though, I know how overwhelming all those decisions can feel. That’s why I’ve created a few digital products to make some of the practical parts of your move a little easier.

My Cost of Living in Australia Calculator can help you work out what your life might actually cost once you arrive, while my First Month in Australia Checklist takes some of the guesswork out of those first few weeks when everything is new.

Because I remember what it was like trying to work all of this out from the other side of the world. And if I can make your move just a little bit easier, that’s exactly what I want to do.