Moving to a new city alone - has anyone done it?

Yes I've done it, multiple times both within Australia and overseas.

For me it is great. I love the adventure of moving and starting over BUT the big differences between me and you are

1. I've been moving my whole life. I moved a lot as a child so when I grew up I was just continuing a pattern.

2. I've been happy everywhere I've lived. I move because I get itchy feet, not to seek happiness.

Not that I'm saying you shouldn't move but just realise (as you seem to) that whatever baggage you have will go right along with you.

You are very young. Why not take a year out after uni and go do a working holiday somewhere? You could go teach English in SEA or Japan or work in the UK... loads of possibilities. Certainly no need to committ for the rest of your life. I've been teaching outside Australia almost 10 years now but long term I plan to settle back there.

Be brave and go for the move! While it takes a bit of organising you dont have much holding you back from doing it now and that could change in the future. Its harder to uproot urself when you have more responsibilites a career or a serious relationship.

I've moved to cities and countries (not in Asia though) where I knew no one before and never regretted it. Why not do a TEFL course and move to Asia for 6 months or so and then move to Darwin.

Find an appartment with sociable flatmates and join a few clubs or evening classes to get to know people with similar interests.

My friends in Texas said, "ASeville Spain? Why would you want to go there? You don't know anybody there, do ya?"

I said, that's why I'm going.
After a long long time, I returned to Texas. Talk about that lost feeling!

Then I wound up in Quepos Costa Rica for six months. I went there to change busses for Panamá.
I got up in the morning to catch the bus and said, "Self. You don't need a bus. You need an apartment."

But my new extended family and Sevilla maravilla called to me every day. I hot-shotted it home to Seville. I was bemoaning my relationship to my bellybutton family, and drinking past, one night at an Irish pub. An expat next to me said, "Yeah. But you're just like the rest of us. This is your turf. You don't have to measure up to anybody. Your world starts right now."

"And," he said. "Nobody has to know how screwed up you are, unless you insist."

OP, settle you're psych. accounts. Make amens to who you are cross threaded with. (lots of times we got the wrong impression, in the first place.)

That stuff will ruin a trip or expat gig. We can't straighten it out from over yonder.

And be free.

I agree with Purpletreefrog. You are young! Take the opportunity to do working holidays in Canada, UK, a few countries in Europe, USA, New Zealand, some countries in Asia.. Australia has a reciprocal program with over a dozen countries in the world. I would highly recommend a western country like Canada or the UK to start off with though. They are both English speaking (unless you move to quebec of course), we're all commonwealth states, and the culture shock is pretty minimal. This will help to adjust to a new life easily and quickly. Then, once you've conquered your first mission, you can try somewhere a little more out of your comfort zone like Asia or another non English speaking country. Since you're only 22 and teaching is a 4 year degree, I'm guessing you probably went straight from high school to uni so you've been attending school since the age of 4 or 5 without a break, which is what I did as well. You need a break!!

I felt exactly like you after I finished my uni degree when I was 23. I'm now almost 26, and have traveled and lived overseas since I finished uni. I'm going home in about a year, but these last few years have really helped me to work out what I want out of life. When I left Sydney, I was hating so much on the city, and couldn't wait to get out. I felt stifled, I had done a huge 6 year uni degree, and I just needed a break from life. I wasn't happy. I had itchy feet.

So I've been in Vancouver for a couple of years, but I'm also here with my partner so that made settling down a lot easier. We've made some really great life long friends and will be really sad to leave them. But I've got itchy feet again, and I'm starting to get homesick, so we're leaving next week to travel for about a year before we go back to the motherland.

But PTF is right, don't leave because you want to pursue happiness, because happiness comes from within. You obviously have some stuff to deal with in Melbourne before you go off somewhere in the big wide world to explore.

Good luck!

Love, Oprah :P

If you hAven't finished uni, pleeeeease take art history!!!!!!!!

It'll pay off for the rest of your life, in odd ways.
Study the TIME LINE of art and civilizations through all of time.

Geology was my science for my BA degree. It keeps paying off too.

Like archeologists look for one thing and find another unknown genre.
Street sense and serendipity rule.

You can find it on Metropoliton Museum.org or other of that type

Not BA. Bachelor of Science. Due to a science coarse and Spanish for lingo requirement.

Get the Hell overseas b4 you get in a rut.

Oz will be there. No hurry

By the way don't feel bad if none of gawkabouts posts make sense to you.

He's a great advertisement for how totally screwed up expats can end up. For some reason he loves to post numerous posts of drivel one after the other.

A working holiday visa is your best bet.

Emigrating, or even moving interstate is a long, expensive process. What happens if you are there 6 months and you hate it?

At 22 you could easily spend the next 7 years travelling the world on WHV's, without having to make a commitment anywhere. If you find somewhere that fits, then you start thinking about permanent stays.