Who are the gray Wanderers of Australia

Says Sergey Abdulmanov (Milfgard): "In Australia the average life expectancy is 85 years. For comparison, we have only recently, it crossed the mark of 70 years were 65. Retirement occurs at 55-65 years. There is still about 20-30 years to do something.

Imagine: you're Australian 55 years, the pension is enough for a no frills life, the children have already left. You live in your home somewhere outside the city and think what to do. Oh, and then it gets odd. So much so that it could change the lifestyle of many very small settlements".

So, home for rent, and Australian grandparents bought a house on wheels. Or trailer to the SUV with the container-home, or van type "land yacht", or even a converted bus. Go to "around the world" on Australia is easy because the entire continent is one country (half the size of Russia) and there is a ring road around. For a year and a half, as at first you think these fine people. And get stuck for 10-15 years.

A minute of sociology

In the 80-ies there are no "gray wanderer" and did not exist. In the two thousandth they began to appear, and in 2016 in Australia, there are a million and a half million people. A rough estimate based on what was 586 thousand of caravans and trailers of the type "mobile home". The current growth rate of 22 thousand per year. Plus there are those who just puts up a tent near the SUV, or on a special platform on the roof of the car (as is the case in Australia, the recent need for protection from snakes and insects).

On the roads of Australia you can find many vans with older couples in the winter in Northern Australia and summer in the South.

Where did they come from? Was a wonderful article in 2013 (it can be found on schabe at DOI 10.1196/annals.1396.030) with a good analysis of the assumptions and the proof in the numbers. The researcher says the following:

In places that are interesting to travellers, there are usually more nishtyakov: for example, they love the external electric network. Yeah, they don't have much money. They save, and therefore do not stay in hotels. Not everyone is rich, but overall, they provide 40% of all "caravan parks" in Australia (where goes including young people on holidays and weekends). Travelers spend on the machines just to pay Parking 8.6 billion dollars per year: 10% are foreigners, 50% on "fast" travelers and truckers, 40% in our heroes. But 40% of the wealth in Australia is concentrated in the hands of the category "over 55". In fact, it is their homes that are rented for traveling.

In General, little is needed: sometimes — rugged clothes, and sometimes some device type solar battery. They spend little. But they all use the same pump, everyone buys food in the store at the gas station and everybody is trying to come to local festivals and other events. Because they are interested in. A lot of them really, and when they are going somewhere is a big plus for the economy of the city.

This creates a secondary wave of people begin to try to make every place in Australia interesting. It's a whole industry, just like in South Africa. But there is a culture of "adventure tourists" — from what you give dash t-shirt "I was in South Africa and was fired from an AK-47 for blacks" (top politically incorrect, but the target there really black) and ending with a special route through the caves in the middle of which you'll save the dummy, in a failed rift, and in the end will leave the knife covered in clay. In Australia, all aimed at locals, and largely of strangers. It hosts many festivals. Filling become core enterprises: if there is something in addition to store products, cell phone towers and gasoline, the Wanderers do not be lazy to spend a couple of days to come and see. Therefore, each city finds something to be proud of. As we walked down the Stuart highway, came across this:

Yes, will clarify. Wanderers don't like tourist places, they try to climb away and find something rare and unusual. They are very well coordinated in terms of sharing information, stories and play they same role decades earlier, before the development of large Internet. The more valuable you say, the higher your ranking in the community.

They have a great friendly site thegreynomads.com.au. It's got everything to become a grey wanderer: instructions, etiquette, news (here, for example, they learned that the post AU registered as an airline and waiting for drones in the machine), the current state of roads, descriptions of campsites, the sale of equipment, the schedule of all the events in the country and where necessary the work of strangers. And a huge forum. There is a large section about a hobby, about the care of dogs, traveling, astronomy — all sorts of things for every taste.

Now the funny thing. Work. The fact that grandparents after retirement skills are not wasted. Mechanical engineer level "Formula 1" may, of course, quite a long time to soak in the geothermal source, but then he gets bored. A grandmother who was a hairdresser in a trendy salon Sydney, want someone to make a cool hairstyle. Who does not know how — can participate in the harvest, looking after the houses and farms and so on. But we are now interested in people who have a lot of life experience. For example, my grandparents traveled all over Australia, came to the wilds of the suburbs, and went to buy food in the store near the gas station. Them there warmly received, they chatted with a local, and now grandfather is in the barn mechanic and looking for a tractor that broke down 10 years ago. And he's itching to fix it. And grandma wants to do my hair the other grandmother, and she is also itching. Mechanic apprenticeship offers bet, the greater the budget has no. Grandpa's not doing this for a living, so agrees. Six months later, in a radius of 100 kilometers remains poorly working equipment, and locals go to show off the hairstyles on all the festivals. Narbutovich relish, grandpa takes the deserved applause and went with my grandmother into the sunset — another six months of travelling, and again they would settle.

That's about how they have influenced Australia. More interesting places, better roads, occasional professional work, the development of the field of medicine. And about the same movement you can expect from us: it is necessary slightly to raise the average age.