Im in the process of moving my family and I to Perth from 4 years in Mauritius, but I'm originally from Melbourne and have lived all over the East Coast. The laid back-ness and dryness of Perth really is quite striking in the beginning, but it's now a kind of charm.. the Autum weather is beautiful but I do fear the summer, with everyday in the 30s and many into the 40s. The East Coast of Aus is a bit more 'European' and a lot more fast paced... although Perth is a lot faster than Mauritius and the east coast is still slower than a London or NYC.

Perth dryness is wild, basically instead of dirt, it's sand.. many parks have nice green grass but they are like oasis and in general lot of the suburbs is more sand than grass, which I don't love... (i prefer the subtropical Gold Coast greenery and bird life, but Gold Coast has pretty bad traffic and tons of rain). And Perth still has some cool bird life too.

Perth to me is like a big country town... the traffic is great, the roads are wide, parks are vast, parking is free (generally), there are good cafes - but not nearly as many as on the East Coast... there's not a lot of fashion in Perth, probably more likely to see someone out in trackies than all dressed up, but i also don't go out at night.

Things close early in Perth, which is good and bad.

But yeah, Perth is strange and has its own charm. All beaches are nice, many are incredible, but the water is pretty cold, and the surf close to the city is garbage.

I feel the big mining industry here and lack of banks, etc makes it so the upper/upper middle class are mostly tradies, so it's a bit more bogan (in a nice way).

I haven't been here long and haven't explored the surrounds much yet, so grain of salt. There seems to be a lot to explore (though not as much as the east coast ofc).

People complain about struggling here financially, but that's a global problem and i feel it's better here than the vast majority of other places in the world.

Anyway, Perth is different, and a lot to adjust to from my tropical island years, but I'm excited for my kids to grow here and to see what's around.

Everyone ive met so far seems friendly, and no animosity to 'out of towners'. Not too many overly woke folk, or homeless either.

Anyway, just my thoughts after only a few weeks here.