This is why people will drive past 5 other WINERIES (insert any business type here) to get to yours.

Different is easier to pick. Different is easier to repeat stories about. Different is why we’ll drive past other places to get to yours. And perhaps even pay a bit more.

To prove it, here’s a short story about a pub we discovered while travelling.

With the proper budget behind us, any one of us would think we could create a better pub than most. It may have nicer chairs, a more modern design, a marble bar and all the trappings you’d expect at The Ritz.

Put said better pub on a transit route in the middle of the Australian Outback, and you still wouldn’t go close to how famous The Daly Waters Pub is.

It seems travellers’ things cover every external surface of the pub. International monies. Bras. Shoes. Writing. Business cards. Many people have left their stories on the walls – many people ‘own’ a piece of the pub.

The design is at best, rustic and mismatched. Yet, bizarrely, it all goes together. It feels like nowhere you have been before. It is dysfunctional in many ways. But it is so different from every other pub you might experience, which is why people flock to it.

Hundreds of travellers choose The Daly Waters Pub to enjoy a meal and live music every night. Of which, neither is really any more remarkable than any other pub you may come across in the country.

There is almost nothing else to do there. Nothing. The town has a population of fewer than 30 permanent residents.

There are many tiny towns along the Outback route running through Central Australia. Yet, in droves, travellers choose to stop at The Daly Waters Pub for the night. Consider that. This town has a permanent population of ten times less than the nightly patronage of its very ‘different’ pub.

You could stick a polished, poised pub in Daly Waters, and it would be nothing more than a placeholder with minimal visitation like the many other pubs on this route.

After we’d visited, as you might expect, I wrote a five-star Google review. I have also regaled the story of The Daly Waters Pub to many people since, as has my wife. Heck, I’m writing about it here!

I’m not sure there’s a single other pub in Australia I’ve told people is a must-visit. But I’ve helped spread the word about this one many times over. Becuase different is better than better.

Check out Daly Waters Pub on Instagram. It’s pretty cool.

Image Credit: Photo by David Gevert on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)