Walkabout is term dating to the pastoral era in which large numbers of Aboriginal Australians were employed on cattle stations. During the tropical wet season, when there was little work on the stations, many would return to their traditional life on country. It was also used to describe unexplained absences of any kind. This was commonly treated as the product of a nomadic predisposition to wander aimlessly.^{[1] [2] [3]}

"Temporary mobility" is a neutral term covering various forms of movement from place to place, without the specific connotations of "walkabout". Young Indigenous adults have the highest mobility rate of all age groups in Australia; males make up the majority.^[4]

• Australian Aboriginal culture
• Walkabout, a 1971 film based on a book of the same name
• The Songlines, a book combining fiction and non-fiction by writer Bruce Chatwin
• Australian Walkabout, television series