Apartment Hunting and Neighbourhood Selection (Part 5: 10 Things Before Moving to Melbourne)

Although it’s sometimes hard for us to face it (myself included) teachers are more than their job. If you don’t think teachers struggle with this, go out for dinner with a bunch—what do we talk about?? Teaching!)

RULE #1: Remember you have a life outside of school (even if you spend most of your time there, you will eventually get a life and start going out. You need to blow off steam, and you don’t want to be doing this so close to school that you run into your students. I mean, I love my students, but being professional means you don’t want to hang out with them until they graduate.

Secondly, you want to love where you live. So choose a neighbourhood with little shops and cafes. After coming home at 7 pm with grocery shopping still needing to be done, I want to kiss the owner of the IGA for setting it so close to my house! RULE #2: If you are a young teacher moving to Melbourne – live near a train line! You can use Metlink online to plan your train times so you get to all destinations on time. I recommend this heartily, as with a big city, and a sprawly city like Melbourne, you can bank on it taking 45-60 minutes to get places (if you aren’t driving) unless you plan your trams and trains.