Much has been said about Australia’s Prison Policy. Sure: it’s helping us keep relatively Covid-free, which is great for the economy, public health and (morbid) international bragging rights. But it’s also stopping perennial travellers from living their best lives.
Sad.
On that note, we think it is our moral duty to point out there has never been a better time to leave Australia and never come back. This is thanks to a variety of tantalising factors (i.e. there’s more to it than the ongoing influencer ambush on Byron Bay).
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First of all: flights leaving Australia are cheap. That’s right: though flying here is expensive and unreliable (to the point where returning expatriates are booking business class tickets because so many economy passengers are being bumped), leaving will sting your wallet remarkably little.
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One way flights in April and May from Sydney to London are being slung for as little as $600 (on airlines like Cathay Pacific, British Airways and Malaysia Airlines).
Even if you’re looking for a more upmarket experience on both legs, as Traveller recently pointed out, the prices are still reasonable – providing you are not coming back.
Last weekend, “If you were looking to book a one-way fare from Sydney to London… on Qatar you’d get economy for around $1000 with business class about $3000,” Traveller reported.
On the other hand, “If you wanted to book a one-way flight from London to Australia leaving in two weeks with Emirates, you’d be having to pay about $11,000 at the cheapest. With Qatar, you’d have to fork out almost $14,000,” (Traveller).
While some people in the comments of the aforementioned Traveller article were quick to point out this information is “bit irrelevant really as we’re not allowed to leave the country,” they forget a crucial point. You can leave the country – if you have a good reason.
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Score a business opportunity, or have family or personal reasons to move overseas, and you have a shot at requesting an exemption to break Australia’s ‘no travel’ rule from the government (there’s no guarantee you’ll be approved, but you can at least try).
The only catch is that you have to leave, DMARGE understands, for a minimum period of three months. And of course, in returning you will have to go through the administrative nightmare that is booking a flight to Australia (and then pay for your own hotel quarantine when you arrive).
But if you plan on leaving and never coming back, that’s not a worry.
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The Sydney Morning Herald reported in August 2020 that 3 out of every 4 requests were being denied.
If you’re one of the few to be approved, however, and have no health or moral qualms about gallivanting the globe, then there are plenty of countries accepting Australians right now.
The list includes: the USA, the Maldives, the EU, the UK and Cambodia, Traveller reported in September 2020 (there may be more on that list now, and more added to it as we progress through 2021).
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Another reason to bail from Down Under, DMARGE reported earlier this week, is some interesting research recently conducted at Purdue University in the United States. The boffins have come up with a metric called ‘income satiation’ – basically, the point at which you have enough money to be happy.
Money and business blog Expensivity then used Purdue’s research to come up with a ‘happiness premium’ for every country in the world using purchasing power ratios sourced from the World Bank and comparing that with local cost of living data.
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The result is something few Australians will find surprising: Australia is the most expensive country in the world to be happy (excluding Bermuda). Expensivity calculates Australia’s happiness premium as 135,321 USD (~174,970 AUD) – almost 20 times more than the least expensive country in the world, Suriname. (The global average is $85,000, by the way.)
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After Suriname, Argentina was the country with the second cheapest ‘happiness premium.’ You know: the place with cosmopolitan cities, ravishing restaurants, mega museums, hectic hiking, beautiful beaches, scintillating shopping, magic music, world-class wine and next-level nightlife.
A European lifestyle at one-fith of the price, indeed.
Skyscanner puts one way flights from Sydney to Buenos Aires at $1,353, at the time of writing.
Unfortunately, Argentina remains one of the countries not accepting Australians at the time of writing, with SmartTraveller stating: “Argentina’s borders, airports and sea ports remain closed to most foreign nationals and non-residents, including Australians until further notice.”
It’s also worth noting, as a counterpoint to everything written above, that one third of all countries in the world are currently closed to tourists, and even if you are accepted by an overseas country right now, the experience won’t be a walk in the park.
Not only are there many questions over travel insurance (as far as we understand it, insurance doesn’t cover Covid now it’s a known event) but depending on how the country you visit copes with the pandemic, you could end up far more limited in what you can do than you would have been in Australia.
Videos like the following, also show how good Australians have it right now, compared to many other places (something which has many Americans up in arms).
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Moving forward tourism operators (and national tourism PR teams) must strike a balance between instilling (sensible) levels of bravery in travellers as well as cautiousness – helping them keep in mind the realities of the situation we now all find ourselves in, and not moving too quickly.