anitram said:
Australians (why are these people everywhere??).
It's a couple of things, I think. One is that we generally don't move away from our home cities to go to college/university. Remember our population is only 20 million for a land mass the size of the US. Nearly half of that population is in just 2 cities (Sydney and Melbourne) and everything is really spread out. There's a good 12 hours drive from any one major city to the next nearest. By major I mean 750K - 4million+ population, and there's only 5 or 6 of them spread out over the whole country. Relocation for uni, or really for anything, is pretty rare, especially if you are already living in Sydney or Melbourne. I think that means for 18-25 year olds, that whole 'moving away to college' coming of age experience is commonly traded for spending a year or so wandering the globe.
Of course, as you'd know, once you've done it once, you've got the bug and because of our distance from virtually everywhere here in Australia, a lot of us choose to base ourselves somewhere else for a decent period of time and travel from that base. Of my 10 closest friends, over the past 10years since I finished high school, 7 of them have spent 2+ of those years living in either the UK, Canada, or the US - and that is very, very, very common.
anitram said:
I remember seeing it in a small train station in La Spezia - 4 Canadian tourists who recognized each other based on the maple leaf hugged, chatted, exchanged tips and so on. That probably plays a role too.
La Spezia, you've made me a little misty eyed.
Canadians are known for the little flag patch on the backpack. I don't think I've ever met a Canadian traveller, here or when I'm also travelling, that didn't have one.