Aussies renting their rooms out while they travel is blowing tourists’ minds

Australia may have some astronomical rental prices which raise eyebrows around the world — but it’s this “quirk” that has expats stumped.

The world may be laughing at us for our rental prices, thongs and the fact that we’ll pay $12 for sourdough, but when it comes to one cultural quirk, Aussies get the last laugh.

That quirk? Being able to rent out your room or apartment when you travel. And before you start rolling your eyes and saying: “You can do that in London, too,” hold up. I don’t mean while you travel for six months.

In most places overseas, your rent is with you for life. In Australia, you can simply pass it onto someone else while you take a holiday. Picture: Bondi Local Loop

I mean when you want to take a week of holidays to sip Bintangs in Bali (or three weeks off to live your best life in Europe).

While most people in most countries would not think the incessant hassling on Facebook Marketplace worth the weekly $410 (or be able to find such demand), in Australia it’s common to see people subletting their rooms on social media “while I travel”.

Aussies are a bunch of weirdos, the world has decided, thanks to one baffling habit (which seems totally normal to us). Picture: Bondi Local Loop

Case in point? With the Euro summer winging its way towards us, a five-minute browse of Facebook group “Bondi Local Loop” by Escape unearthed dozens of short term rental posts, all from within the last 24 hours.

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Aussies love getting randoms to pay their rent while they slurp Aperol Spritz's in Europe. Picture: Bondi Local Loop

Though in previous years we’ve seen posts like these get mocked (one French expat last year told Escape he was stunned by the outrageous prices being asked of subletters to essentially camp out in someone’s room for a couple of weeks) it seems this year we’ve reached a point of acceptance. With the rental market how it is, it’s now seen as fair enough: you’ve wrangled yourself a room in one of the most expensive places in the world; now it’s time to reap one, small reward.

Spanish expat in Australia @martaregistradaa, whose brilliant TikTok and Instagram videos often pick up on cultural differences between Australia and Spain, pointed this out in a recent video entitled: “Things that I do in Australia that I never do in Spain.”

“In Spain … Rent is something that accompanies you your whole life. In Australia, no. In Australia, you go away for one week and you put a message, “I’m renting my room.” You leave your things to the side and you let someone take over your room.”

“You’re there in Bali drinking your beer, relaxed in the knowledge that someone else is paying your rent. Here this is super common.”

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Expat @martaregistrada says she never would have done this in Spain. Picture: @martaregistrada (via Instagram)

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This isn’t the only cultural quirk the content creator has noticed. Along with subletting your room while you go on holiday, she also says she would never say hi to strangers, thank the bus driver, look for free furniture on the street or not kill insects until coming to Australia.

The same goes for buying a car with more than 300,000km on the odometer, using Facebook, making plans with friends that don’t involve eating or drinking (”If I go for a walk with someone in Spain, it’s a walk to a bar”) and using public rest rooms.

It’s not just about the money

It’s also worth remembering that, when it comes to renting your room out while you travel, it’s not just about the money. It’s also about ensuring you have a place to come back to when you return, rather than having to re-enter a highly competitive market. So that’s another reason people rent their places out when they go travelling for a few months: they don’t want to lose their spot in a house they feel comfortable in.

Are Aussies lucky to be able to do this?

Yes: in the sense that it’s awesome to be able to sit in Bali and enjoy your holiday knowing someone else is paying your rent. No: in the sense that what we pay in rent is unusually high.

Is it a reflection of our travel culture?

Yes, Aussies renting their rooms out when they travel speaks to our travel culture. This is something we are lucky to be able to afford. As numerous expats have pointed out on TikTok, to many non-Aussies, the amount of money you are able to earn on minimum wage here is shockingly high, enabling Aussies with no responsibilities to travel at one of the highest rates in the world. As one French expat asked last year, after earning $15,000 in three months: “How you can be poor in Australia?”

“I am in a farm and I use my cherry picker to cut some tree but I earn more money than with my Master degree in France. That’s crazy.”

There is also en entire genre of Reddit threads devoted to the question: “How do Australians afford so many vacations?”

Do we appreciate being able to travel enough?

Do we need to check our privilege? Probably. But most of us are too busy checking our bags to care. While modern philosophers like Agnes Collards reckon travel is “locomotion all the way down” and a vain box ticking exercise that doesn’t make you or the world a better place, others point out that it increases understanding between cultures and makes you more humble. Whether or not it’s actually a humblebrag is up to you …

This article originally appeared on Escape and has been republished with permission