A millennial who quit her corporate job in London and moved to Australia explains the pros and cons of her career switch and life down under

• Tara recently left corporate work for a restaurant job in a different country.
• She's paying less for her share in rent in Melbourne than in London.
• Tara shares some of the reasons why she's happier in Australia.

Since moving to Melbourne, Australia, in November, Tara has spent her time off from her job as a restaurant host going to beaches or seeing the Penguin Parade at Phillip Island.

On another day she hired a car with her boyfriend to head to Yarra Valley.

"Yarra Valley is mainly known for its incredible scenery, art galleries, wineries and food," Tara, whose last name is known to Business Insider but withheld for privacy reasons, told BI.

She added other days off from the job "can be a little more chilled," such as heading to art galleries, parks, coffee shops, or going to the local swimming pool. Tara said she loves wandering around Melbourne.

Tara, 29, is loving life in Australia after moving from London and changing lanes from a corporate job to working in hospitality.

"In the past I have always been nervous about entering my 30s, but now, being out here just makes me so excited for my future," she said. "It's just completely changed my mindset on what is important in life and for the first time in as long as I can remember, it has nothing to do with progressing in my career."

Leaving her 'dream job on paper' for a more relaxed life

Tara was a senior customer success manager at an HR tech company in London after being promoted a few times. Her duties included working on contract renewals and looking "after a portfolio of customers."

Tara said in one of her TikTok videos that despite having her "dream job on paper, something always felt missing."

"I kept chasing the next promotion, pay rise, project, but for what?" she said in the video.

Tara said she was in a hospital for a few days, which she said was related to burnout. She was then off from work for a month. A little while after returning to work, she quit her job.

After leaving her corporate role, she traveled with her boyfriend for a couple of months around Southeast Asia before coming to Australia where they then traveled in a van for a few weeks down the east coast of the country to Melbourne.

"We loved Melbourne so much we knew that's where we wanted to live," she said. "We didn't have a place to stay so we drove back to Sydney to stay with a friend for a few weeks whilst we sorted out our living situation."

She said it was amazing to have several months of being "carefree."

Tara said she "was just stuck in a cycle in London" and that taking a break while traveling helped her realize that she doesn't want to get back into the cycle of a 9-to-5 gig and living for the weekend, at least at the moment.

"I think when I was traveling I just kind of realized that there's just so much more to life than just climbing the invisible corporate ladder," she said, noting that "traveling in general just calmed my nervous system."

She's paying less in rent than she was in London, saving on commuting fares, and is making comparable pay. She talked to BI about her career switch into hospitality and the pros and cons of living in Australia.

She said Melbourne happily reminds her of "a mixture between Manchester and London."

Pros and cons of work and life in Australia

One pro is the pay she makes working in hospitality, she said, where she said can make a decent living. Her paycheck from her London corporate job of around £3,150 a month, or around $4,000, wasn't too far off from the pay she makes now working at a restaurant based on her hourly rate, overtime, and tips, per her calculation.

Tara works weekends, but typically has two to three days off a week. She said she prefers having weekdays off now and that her time off can mean "that it's quieter in the week."

She said because she isn't living just for the weekend anymore, she feels she has more disposable income now. Her pay rate on the weekend is higher than the usual weekday rate too.

"My money will go on either saving for a future trip or on days off we might just hire a car, which is literally pennies to hire, and then go to a beach and things like that," she said, while in London it was far too easy to spend too much on a single night out.

She said while she was working a well-paying job in London — where she was making £64,000 annually — she said her rent and expenses were high and she thinks she could have saved more if it weren't for the cost of living in London.

Tara, who is from Merseyside, said the move to Australia was a risk given she had "no backup plan, no secret stash of money, I've got no generational wealth coming my way."

Tara noted she did add to her savings while working at her previous job. Additionally, she noted in a TikTok video she was able to move back with her parents for a month, which helped build up savings before Australia.

She's also able to save on commuting. In London she paid several pounds a day for public transit on the days she did go into the office. Now she's able to use Melbourne's free trams to get to her job.

She was paying £950 a month for her share of the rent for a flat in London. Now she pays around £650 in Melbourne.

The quality of those apartments is different too, she said.

"I wouldn't even call it a two-bed, it was like a one bed with a room that fit a computer in it," she said about the flat in London.

She added "it was just the only flat that we could have within budget" and wasn't in the area they really wanted to be in.

She said the area they are in now "is the area which we'd always visualized and dreamed of when we knew we wanted to live in Melbourne." But despite finding it a competitive area to find a place, the couple did end up successfully getting a one-bedroom flat that has a large balcony.

The weather and "everyone is just so much more chilled" are two other pros, Tara said.

She said if she ever returned to a corporate job but this time in Australia, she believes it wouldn't be as much of a rat race as London, based on her observation of the culture.

A personal con about living in Australia is being far away from friends and family and the time difference to reach them.

"I get maybe two hours if that in the morning to speak to people," she said.

It can also be hard to quickly make new friends, and she said she does miss how politically progressive London was.

"I don't want to glorify moving out here and just find a new friend group in two seconds because that doesn't happen, especially if you're in a couple," she said.

And while she likes her job, restaurant work can also be physically demanding, she said.

She said while she did make a career change, it was accidental. She emphasized the change in her mindset to live in the moment and being excited for things beyond weekend activities.

"I think traveling has just opened my eyes in so many ways," she said.

Tara said she's happier living in Melbourne and that "living here feels like I really am on holiday everyday."

"I expected to move out here and take a huge pay cut and I was willing to make that sacrifice, but the fact I'm not even worse off and have a job that I can switch off from at the end of the shift has completely changed my outlook on life," she said. "I'm no longer living for the weekend, have Sunday scaries, or just looking forward to the next holiday."

Have you moved to a different country or have you made a career change? Reach out to this reporter to share at mhoff@businessinsider.com.