I did not arrive in Australia as someone who had only known one country.
I had lived in the United States. I had lived in Berlin, Germany. I had lived in Ottawa, Canada. I had travelled through India, Turkey, Fiji, Bali, Italy, England, France, the Canary Islands, and much of North America.
That kind of life changes how you see a country.
You stop asking, “Is this place perfect?”
No country is.
Instead, you start asking better questions.
Does this place work?
Do people feel safe?
Do families have room to breathe?
Do the customs still mean something?
Do people have a shared idea of what the country is?
Australia stood out to me because it still had many things that other Western countries seemed to be losing.
A directness.
A physical outdoors culture.
A certain suspicion of nonsense.
A strong connection to sport, beach, weather, work, and family.
A way of being casual without being completely rootless.
Of course, Australia has problems. Cost of living is real. Housing is brutal. Politics can be frustrating. And like many Western countries, Australia is changing quickly.
But after seeing several countries up close, I still believe Australia has something rare.
That is why I want to write about it.
Not as a tourist.
As someone who has seen enough of the world to know that when a country has something good, it should not take it for granted.