I want to live in Rome. Because what's not to love about Rome?
The food is amazing; the culture is strong; the history is alive. The lifestyle - the late breakfasts, the coffee breaks, the long lunches, the afternoon naps, the pre-dinner negronis, the sumptuous evening feasts, the wine and the cheese and the salumi and all those other delicious edible delights - sounds right up my alley.
Life would be good in Rome. Better than Sydney, that's for sure. It would be one long meal. It would be walks on the banks of the Tiber late at night. It would be tootling around on a Vespa. It would be la dolce vita, the embrace of the sweet life, a life Australia could never match. 
Meanwhile, I also have a fairly solid plan to move to Spain. Soon. I'm going to buy a crumbling old farmhouse in Galicia for a bargain price and then spend a year renovating it, getting to know the local culture while getting to know the skills of renovating while not being able to understand anything anyone is saying.
Berlin, too, is a pretty attractive prospect. Imagine living there! I'd go tomorrow. The great bars and cafes, the arts scene, the music, the history, the cosmopolitan nature of one of Europe's great cities??? You'd have freedom in Berlin. No nanny state culture. No regressive right-wing politics. Paradise.
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Or Buenos Aires. I'd move to Buenos Aires. Those guys have got lifestyle sorted out. It's food, it's football, it's fashion. And it's all experienced in a city so sultry and charming that you couldn't help but be swept up by it all, to become a Porteno, to leave the house every day looking all suave and cool, to sip coffee in sidewalk cafes, to dine on huge steaks, to shop, to chat, to enjoy life in a place that's got it all. Book me a ticket, I'm in.
Of course, there's a small part of my brain that realises how ridiculous this is. There are some obvious downsides to living in all of these places I've mentioned, practicalities that would make everyday life difficult; solid, real reasons why life might actually be better in Australia than any of these cities - but they're reasons I'm very happy to ignore.
I can dismiss little issues like the fact that public transport in Rome is appalling, the governmental bureaucracy is like wading through mozzarella, the rent is high and I can barely speak a word of Italian. I can ignore the fact I know nothing about Spain, or about renovating an old house. Or that the whole city of Berlin is broke, and it's really cold for half the year. Or that Buenos Aires is crime-ridden and financially precarious at best.
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I can ignore all of this stuff because of that universal truism that all travellers would have experienced: the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. The world is so much better when you're somewhere that isn't home.
Everywhere seems so much more interesting, so much more exotic, so much better than it is at home when you travel. Try talking to some foreign tourists - they'll tell you how much they love Sydney or Melbourne and how much they want to move here, while you tell them how much you'd love to up stumps and move to their home instead.
The rest of the world looks so much better when you're a short-term tourist. You can blur out all of the imperfections and just focus on what makes a city or a country great. You're on holidays - you don't have to worry about governmental incompetence or language barriers or insane rental prices. All you care about is cheap beer and long lunches, the fantasy cobbled streets and good-looking locals.
Everyone seems like they have a better life overseas because you only ever see a small part of that life. The best of it. You only see people in bars and restaurants enjoying themselves. You only see them at football games or at festivals having fun.
You don't see them sitting at a desk slaving away at some crappy job. You don't see them going home to a tiny apartment and eating two-minute noodles because that's all they can afford to throw together.
You don't have to worry about strikes or traffic jams when you're travelling. They're part of the fun. That dodgy metro system that would drive you crazy if you had to use it every day seems charming and quaint through the rose-coloured glasses of the holidaymaker. Neighbourhoods suddenly seem "edgy", rather than "dodgy as hell".
Every traveller is probably aware that they do this. When they idolise these imperfect destinations they must have an inkling that it's not real, that they're indulging in a fantasy. But it doesn't really matter.
Not to me, at least. I still want to live that fantasy in Rome. And Galicia, and Berlin, and Buenos Aires, and pretty much everywhere else in the world. Because they're so much better than home.
Do you find the grass is always greener when you travel? Where have you idolised that probably doesn't deserve it?
Email: b.groundwater@fairfaxmedia.com.au
Instagram: instagram.com/bengroundwater
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