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[introducinlyric]

this article made me laugh





It's one of the best, and worst, things about travelling.

You go off overseas on your big adventure, you meet hundreds of people, you bond over a few local brews, a few experiences shared, and you part swearing they can, "come visit me any time in Australia".

Trouble is, some of them do.

It's not always a bad thing - sometimes you get on just as well as you did overseas. You hang out together for a few days, reminisce about the old times, have a few nights on the turps, and off they go. Some, however, take one look at your cushie Aussie lifestyle, the beach 15 minutes from your house, and they set up camp.

So the question is: how do you get rid of them?

The nicest way I can think of is to encourage them to get off your couch, and go see the rest of Australia.

Now, I'm certainly no expert on travel in Australia - I'm criminally under-travelled in my home land, usually succumbing to the lure of exotic foreign lands. But I'm pretty sure I know the places that would appeal to backpackers when they arrive here.

Firstly, I'd tell my backpacker mates to head straight to the place I consider Backpacker Mecca: Byron Bay in NSW. I told my alternatively-minded Scottish mate Ron to go there about five years ago, and, had he not been deported for doing some illegal fruit-picking, I think he'd still be there.

Byron has everything a foreign tourist would love about Australia: several beautiful beaches with waves small enough to learn to surf on, a relaxed atmosphere, one of the best pubs in the world, and thousands of other backpackers to drink there with. Come to think of it, if your backpacking friend goes, you might want to tag along.

In Sydney, I'd get them to do all the touristy things. Do the Harbour Bridge climb, hang out on Bondi Beach, take a trip on the Manly Ferry, go out and have fish and chips at Watson's Bay. For the real Sydney though, I'd also send them out to what a lot of locals think of as the "bad lands": go slurp a bowl of pho in Cabramatta, or take the tour of Lakemba Mosque. I don't care, just get out of the Eastern Suburbs.

In Melbourne, I'm sticking to the tourist route again. Stay at a backpackers in St Kilda, eat Italian food on Lygon St. Head down the coast and check out Mornington. (Maybe, er, avoid Frankston.)

If they still haven't run out of money and gone home, you may have to send them further afield. Up in Queensland, they have to head out west to Longreach to get a taste of country life. While they're in the state, everyone should go to diving off Heron Island at least once. The down side to this is that your guest will invariably have to experience Central Queensland to get there, but hey, you have to make sacrifices.

In South Australia, have them fly in to Adelaide, hire a car, and get out of there as soon as possible. Head to the Barossa Valley and chill out for a few days, then, if you can take the drive, head up to Coober Pedy for a completely different experience.

Out west, they have to check out the Margaret River region, which is kind of like WA's answer to Byron Bay, only with better wine. Everything's a little more relaxed out there, and plenty of backpackers seem to get stuck for longer than they anticipated.

Then, if they've still got money to burn, point them north. Sadly, I've never been to Kakadu, but I'm told it's amazing (one for the retirement plan I reckon). And no one walks away from a trip to see Uluru at dawn unmoved.

Finally, they can wind things up in Cairns or Airlie Beach, huge tourist traps bound to suck their money out of them eventually, and have them on the plane, heading back to wherever it is they came from.

Then you can start planning your trip to visit them.

[starlagurl]

Heehee, yeah I thought it was funny too. Usually I don't want to get rid of people when they visit me though, I like to go on adventures with them and see my city through their new eyes. It's really fun!