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There’s something bitter sweet about the expectations that you have for a place - the ones which you spend your entire life building up in your head - and what actually flashes before your eyes when you’re there and in the moment. With the right music dripping through my headphones, staring out of the train window at winding dirt roads, old dusty pickup trucks driven by dirty faced men who sip on cheap lukewarm beers, endless farmers on endless ranches and a setting golden sun dripping over the trees like a sticky honey glaze, this could almost feel like a movie moment. The lady squished into the seat next to me, the squeaking of the train brakes and the din of the rest of the passengers on my train are all carefully cut out of sight - edited out of shot and out of my vignette. Before Sunrise had blooming romance set to a backdrop of a film reel window, but that’s not my movie.

Many people who decide to travel the East Coast of Australia head to Sydney first and then travel up from there without giving Melbourne a visit, but here are a few reasons why it should be the first stop on your East Coast adventure. Not only can this be found whilst exploring the cool art galleries such as(Museum of Modern Art), this art also spills out onto the streets and is free for tourists to explore. You'll find it hard to find a chain such as Starbucks whilst wandering the streets of Melbourne - instead, they offer a rich scene of independent coffee shops, all of which are passionate about the drinks they create. A few of my favourite Melbourne coffee spots include the cheap and cheerful, hidden gemand ethical friendlyThis may seem like a weird one to include on a list of reasons to visit a city, but trust me - the tram system in Melbourne makes it impossibly easy to get from place to place within the city.

A lot of people who travel the East Coast end up doing very similar routes to each other, as you're all either working your way up the coast or down. The best way to plan out a budget for your East Coast trip is to write down a list of all of the places you want to visit and the 'bucket list' things which you'd like to do while you're out there (like skydiving or scuba diving) and also figure out how long you'd like to spend travelling up the coast. It's also much harder to meet other travellers if you're staying in a hotel, as the majority of people on the east coast do opt for the cheaper option of staying in hostels. I did travel the East Coast in the off season, so if you're travelling in the height of Australian summer when there are more travellers about, it may be worth considering whether you need to book things slightly further in advance to avoid places selling out.

Well, if you don't follow me on any social media and were lucky enough not to have been spammed daily by my photos and tweets, you may not know that I've spent the last 2 months on a solo travel adventure up the East Coast of Australia, and it was amazing! You can meet someone on the shuttle bus on your way to a hostel, and 2 hours later be sat together having dinner, talking about where you're from, where you're going and why you're here. You're never really alone while you're travelling, and it's such a happy feeling. The things you see and people that you meet are unique experiences that you can't really explain to anyone else, and once you're home you feel like something is a little bit fuller inside of you, which wasn't quite there before.