Coming from a small town, loneliness whilst travelling and creating a new identity: conversations with the Just Yappin pod.
18th May 2026
I sat down with my good friend Steele, creator of Just Yappin' podcast to talk all things moving to Australia. Steele is from Winnipeg, Canada; a place as far away as you can get from my hometown. Despite this, we not only seem to have similarities in our reasonings for travelling over here, but also in the new identities we’ve somewhat been able to create for ourselves since. Let’s unpack:
India: “So, tell me about Winnipeg”
Steele: No comment. Hahaha. No, the people really make it the best place. That's what I miss so much about home is the people out there.
But there’s just three sectors of companies [to go into] - nothing really that interesting - and if you don't find it interesting it's usually just frowned upon.
That's why it's been so good getting more involved with the pod here because I'm having so much more fun with it. [Back home,] it kind of felt like something like to check off, like a chore. It's a little bit more freeing that I can do what I want now.
Steele: “What do you think is the biggest difference being in Melbourne vs back home in Skegness?”
India: I feel so creatively inspired being in this city and all the people I'm surrounded by. Whereas, being from a small town I definitely didn't feel that way, and when I was at uni, all my creativity was pushed down.
Here, everyone I meet has something going on, and it doesn't matter what it is. Walking around the city, there’s always exhibitions, festivals, things going on, that I'm like, wow, everything feels really alive.
Steele: Same, there was no creativity there for me; maybe it was just where I was living and what I was doing - but it was just not inspiring whatsoever. The creativity was pushed so far down, the light was put down.
India: “What struggles did you have coming over here then?”
Steele: I guess it was hard for me to make friends. So I was looking for a job for a month, [so many] people were telling me that they weren't hiring. I wanted a job so bad because I was like maybe I can make friends there. I thought I was gonna be able to make friends way easier.
The isolating part is that you doom scroll, but you want to go out, but you can't spend money every single day. So I was getting worried about that and it was just a spiralling moment: I don't have a job, so I don't have friends, so I can’t go and spend money. I just had no routine.
Steele: “Was it hard for you to make friends here?”
India: My experience making friends was probably different in each place I lived.
I lived in Sydney first. I was in the pits of hell during this time in my life, like mentally everything was happening. It was the most tits up era I’ve ever been in probably.
I had one friend that I met traveling up the east coast. We were trying to find a house together, but just couldn’t find [one.] So I lived in hostels for seven months total which was absolute hell and horror. I lived in King's Cross and when you talk about isolation, that is exactly how I felt. I was just there like “I've got to get out of here”. I was in this hostel, in a bedroom surrounded by people all the time, eating dinner with all of these people and I had never felt more alone in my life.
There, it was very hard to make friends. I worked two jobs at a cafe and a bar and the people were lovely, but I guess they weren't really my people.
But that's not me saying that Sydney is a hard place to meet people. I think it was the position I was in.
So then I moved to the Gold Coast where I had a much better time. I didn't plan on moving there, I was just supposed to go there for a few weeks but then I ended up staying. I think things happen for a reason, I was supposed to go there. I knew two people in the goldy [beforehand] and then I met so many amazing people there, but it was all through work, in hospo or retail. I felt like I had like a really solid friendship group.
When I came to Melbourne, I knew one person; so I was very much prepared that this could be like Sydney again, this could be very lonely. And then I moved into my house with five people, I started working my job and then I met my best friends and I haven't looked back since, so I think that Melbourne out of all the places has been the most easily welcoming.
The main way I describe my friendships that I've made in Melbourne is that I feel really seen here.
India: “Did you feel like you could like create a new identity when you came here?”
Steele: Absolutely. It made me so much more confident in being myself. I feel so much more comfortable, more creative, which I think projects in how I carry myself.
So meeting friends and having real relationships with people it's so nice to feel like I can actually do this, like yeah, I could move somewhere else now and yeah, I'll be okay.
And also being surrounded by people even at work, where a lot of the people have [also] left home, like everyone invited me out that first night. Everyone's from all different parts of the world, but everyone has that same one core thing [in common].
India: “What do you feel like you've like changed the most about yourself then?”
Steele: My confidence with going up to someone and just talking.
India: I feel like you're very confident, like that's how I see you.
Steele: Yeah, no I definitely am, but I overthink in my brain to the fact that I get like paralysed, so I [then] just won't do it. [But now] it’s like a clean slate. They don't have this idea of me, they don't know Steele from back home.
India: Honestly, girl, I've said the exact same thing. Whenever people ask me about travelling, or “how the fuck do you just go up to people and make friends?” [I say] people don't know you. If you go up to a group of people and you're the most confident, fun, easy-going [person], they're just gonna be like, "well, this is what this girl's like". They don't have any idea that you're actually like shitting your pants about it - part of it's fake it till you make it, I guess.
Steele: “With you moving here, was there anything that you didn't really know about yourself that you know now, e.g were you so outgoing back home?”
India: From 22 to 25, I have learned more about myself than I have in so many years before that. Before I came here, I was definitely outgoing. But I grew up very, very shy, at my mum's side all the time and then I kind of grew out of that.
I went to uni and I was like “I want to be the life of the party and the centre of attention”, as an 18 year old, having fun. Whereas now, I feel more confident doing things by myself, meeting new people, talking to people. But it's in a different way. It's not like “I want to be the centre of attention", like I don't want that at all really, [yes] I love to tell a story and have fun, but I'm very interested in the people I meet and what other people have to say. I think maybe that makes me sound like I would have been arrogant at 18. I don't think I was, I was just immature.
Coming over here, I think it's it's made me massively hyper-independent. I came here on my own right, so I had to deal with all of the shit that I was going through and all of the shit that comes with traveling completely on your own. I became very resilient through that. And I know now that I can get myself through anything. Yeah, well, maybe not anything hahaha.
[Also] I feel like my my mind is so, I don't know, open, whether that's with different views about myself, other people, the world, everything. I think I've had to relearn a lot of things, because yeah, where I'm from, a lot of people think a certain way, do a certain thing, be that thing. I do think my brain has been absolutely rewired since being here for three and a half years.
India: "What do you think?”
Steele: I definitely think I'm just more confident in myself. I feel like now with going back home, it’s like, okay these people might think that I was fucking nuts for just uprooting my life and moving over here for a couple months. But I can look at them and be like, okay, well you didn't try and you’re now engaged. And who says either of us are doing the right thing? Just because you're on that 'white picket fence' lifestyle, I'm not wanting that right now, like why is that bad?
I think I'm able to conduct myself in a much better way and not let other people's thoughts affect me. I was so like that back home and I sometimes still feel that here, but I feel like I've really let myself go on not letting people's opinions affect me.
India: My friend Jess said this thing recently: “And then I remembered, I don't give a fuck” - the way she said it lives rent free in my head.
Steele: Yeah, it’s so true! Also, it's crazy because it's not what my parents instilled in me. I got to see a different way of life because we lived in the States for so long. I feel like I'm so Americanised in my way of thinking, that there was only one right way of living life: having a job, setting yourself up to have a family. But my parents have always said "do whatever you want.”
India: I think there's definitely this idea that like, “oh so you went traveling, so you think you're better than everybody else.” I don't know if you kind of feel that too?
I think if people want to live that ‘picket fence’ life, awesome. Good for fucking you. I'm never gonna ever tell anyone how they should live and travelling isn't for everyone, it's absolutely not. I just think there's a difference between people taking a path because they genuinely want to, and [then] doing it because they think they have to, or for other people. And I think unfortunately that is the case for many individuals.
Steele: I mean I felt that pressure as well, because everyone is doing the same sort of thing, you automatically then must do that too. I got so depressed about doing what I thought other people wanted me to do. It was like the darkest deep part of whole my entire life.
But now like I’m just living like my truth, it's so freeing in a way.
Our conversation continues: discussing the online narratives presented on social media about travelling to Australia vs. what it’s really like. Coming soon…
For now, follow Steele on socials:
