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Originally Posted by livius drusus
That's really interesting, BB2. I can see how someone from Europe might have difficulty envisioning the scale of Australian travel, just because countries in Europe are just so close to each other. OTOH, the US is similarly large, and I don't recall ever hearing a European plan an around the States in 5 days tour.
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I'd wager that the average European is far better informed about the US than (s)he is about Australia. The United States is a lot closer to Europe(geographically) than Australia is - a flight from London to Sydney takes about 24 hours, a flight from London to New York takes about 6 hours, if that. As a result, a European would probably make several trips to the US in his/her lifetime, but only one to Australia. Another thing would be the disparity in news coverage about the two countries. I get a great deal of my information about other countries from news reports, both TV and newspapers. Australia is not a very powerful or important country economically or militarily, therefore news reports about us in the European press would be scant.
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Originally Posted by livius drusus
What are some of the North American misconceptions about Australia that you've encountered?
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Some of it is geographical, like wanting to drive from Sydney to Auckland (not possible, unless your car doubles as a boat); some of it is cultural, like wanting to use US Dollars in a Fish & Chip shop (we have own version of the dollar, thank you very much); believing horror stories about our scary wildlife (you're far more likely to die in a traffic accident than get eaten by a shark or bitten by a snake); or believing stories about our more cuddly wildlife (about the only place in Sydney where you can see a Koala is in Taronga Zoo or the Koala Park in Sydney's north-west - they don't hang around in every suburban park).