10 Reasons to make the move Regional Australia - Digital Marketers and Creatives

There’s no doubt over the past couple of years people have been moving out of the cities in droves since the COVID pandemic working remotely and living in safe non-lockdown locations has seen a steady increase.

It has changed our lives forever and may I dare say for the better. Gone is sitting in traffic waiting to arrive at your destination or sitting on a train or bus for hours of your day.

Regional Developer embraces this change in our lifestyles for people to take the opportunity to make the switch and move to regional areas.

It’s good for these local economy’s to have population growth and boosting local economies but what’s also great is the increase in health physical and mental benefits.

I will endeavor to provide ten reasons you might want to take on a regional lifestyle working as a regional creative, marketer or developer.

1. Your job can probably be done anywhere – So why not embrace the face that you can work from anywhere just as efficiently and as effectively as you might work in the office. If there’s something that your job requires face to face then why not set aside a week every three months to spend in an office if you have to otherwise Skype, Zoom, Teams and the list goes on.
    
2. Family relationships – This is by far something that has been ignored for too long that hundreds of years ago you’d work alongside your family members in whatever role or job you’d do every second of every day. Whether it be in the field farming or a market you’d work with your family and look after them, caring for their needs. Working from regional Australia means you have more time with family instead of commuting. You can be home for the kids when they get home or go for lunch with your husband or wife.
3. Living affordability – While housing has increased in pricing due to the move of thousands of people to regional areas over the past couple of years it’s still relatively cheaper to live in regional areas than in the city.
4. Mental Health – As I’d originally alluded to your mental health is important, your happiness in regional areas around a routine that you love is something that can be found in regional Australia. Depending on your job you might be able to manage your times around starting early or finishing late, doing your hours but injecting some time at school or with your spouse. Unless you work near-by to your loved ones living in the cities this is generally not possible.
5. Physical Health – Want to get buff or lose some weight regional areas have had a boom in Gyms and fitness in the last ten years with some areas having up to 20 gyms available to go and workout. There’s no cost to your time away from family or your job, just time away from commuting and sitting in a cubical. If you’re a cyclist why not ride 50Km per day or go mountain biking. The small regional town I live in there are several groups of cyclist that get together every morning and head out for a ride before work. Riding or running in the country is a much safer alternative to the cities and has mental and physical health benefits.
6. Opportunity – There’s plenty of opportunities but you might have to get off your but, be a bit creative or work for it - Moving to the country, you bring skills that others may not have or could be employed to improve the lives of others. Why not seek to take hold of opportunities that you may have seen in the cities in a regional area.
7. Global Internet community – Through social media, slack or any other number of networks including regional developer you can network with teams, run your own business, work for someone else remotely and still be able to access rich resources and skills you would normally have to be in an office for.
8. Internet Infrastructure – While the NBN isn’t great in regional areas with most areas still on a FTTN type setup struggling to get 25Mbps there are affordable alternatives like Starlink which will deliver you speeds above 300Mbps and enable you to video conference and work like you’re in the same office building. VPN technology has also evolved so if your employer wants you to be on the same office network this is also possible as if you’re in the next room.
9. Facility costs – While electricity, gas, water is generally more expensive in regional areas you will find many other major expenses cheaper such as private schooling, transport, rates, weddings, cars, insurances, rental of commercial properties.
10. Broaden your skills – Because there are less specialists in regional areas we often take on more skills for better or worse. With Regional Developer we seek to take a specialist approach to problem solving so that the end product is of a higher quality. Regardless of this you will find that you still need to fill some gaps that you wouldn’t normally have to in marketing jobs in the city because you have more people and more resources. What’s to say though that even though you trained as a Graphic Designer you might want to make a switch to Copy, Developer or project manager? Living in Regional Australia may assist you with making the switch and finding your true love and passion that you can devote 100% of your time in.