Becoming a tourist in my city helped me survive my loneliest year

Becoming a tourist in my city helped me survive my loneliest year

At 17, I moved across the country to Melbourne – a city where I knew no one. It was everything I had begged for and dreamed of: an escape from Perth, a place I’d long associated with stillness, silence, and the slow erosion of ambition.Growing up in what’s often called the most isolated city in the world, I was desperate to leave. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted independence. Mostly, I wanted to get away from the nothingness Perth represented …