<p>My D is looking to go to Australia or New Zealand for 2-6 months before beginning law school in the fall. She feels that this may be the last block of time available for such an adventure before she heads off to her future. She worked full-time for the year after she graduated from college, so she has savings to fund the trip. Her goal is to take advantage of the holiday work visa available in those countries to get a short-term job or volunteer somewhere. Has anyone had any experience with this sort of thing? She doesn’t want to pay for an organized volunteer trip. She’s perfectly comfortable traveling on her own, staying in hostels etc.</p>
<p>My D is in Sydney now on a work and holiday visa. This visa is a one-time only visa for young adults, so if your D would ever want to do this again I’d say go on a regular tourist visa (3 months) and do volunteer work–thereby saving the year-long visa for later. If she doesn’t care, then I guess it wouldn’t matter.</p>
<p>That said, my D had a very hard time finding work, and Australia is a very expensive place to live. Her first “job” was almost what I would call a scam, although she knew going into it what to expect and she wasn’t misled. I was shocked to find that organizations like Doctors Without Borders, who I supported until my D’s experience, hire marketing firms to raise money for them. They get kids on these visas (who are desperate to find work) to accost folks in public places, like malls and train stations, asking for money. They only get paid if someone actually signs on to support the charity for a year with monthly contributions. They only get paid when the person actually follows through. Luckily my D quit this after a week or two of over 40 hours a week, travelling on her dime to the different locations. She didn’t make a penny.</p>
<p>She finally got a job in a fast-food falafel chain and she really doesn’t like her boss, who speaks very poor English and is constantly texting her to come in and work. Since she is classified as “casual” labor she doesn’t have a set schedule. On this visa you can only work for 6 months for one employer, so she needs to find a new job very soon as hers will end in early February.</p>
<p>She needed to open up a bank account in order to get paid. She needed to have a Sydney address in order to open up a bank account–I think there were other hoops to jump through too.</p>
<p>She also told me that the way young people apply for jobs there is to post your resume online, and then go door-to-door and drop off resumes to potential employers. Once again, you really need a local phone number and address to be able to do this.</p>
<p>So, in my D’s case, she found it very difficult to find a job and she burned through lots of money in the meanwhile. Maybe she just had bad luck. But, she is madly in love with Australia (she spent her junior year there) and would live there forever if she could. Even though she hates her job she is thrilled to be living her dream!</p>
<p>Two of my Ds friends worked on a sheep station.
Can she ride a motorbike?</p>
<p>[WORK</a> in OUTBACK/RURAL AUSTRALIA](<a href=“http://www.culturalembrace.com/workoutback.html]WORK”>http://www.culturalembrace.com/workoutback.html)</p>
<p>martharap and ek4 - Thank you for your responses. Your information on finding jobs is really helpful. She’s vacillating between finding a job and staying in one place versus taking an extended backpacking trip for 3-4 months. Have any of your kids or their acquaintances had any experience with on-off bus tour options in NZ/AUS like Stray or Kiwi? She actually has a friend whose stepmother has a cousin with a sheep farm in NZ and she’s investigating whether they would have room for a volunteer for a few weeks. My H is flipping out over this plan (mind you, our boys have traveled solo to Uzbekistan and far eastern Russia, so I’m thinking this is a double standard concern), but she is a smart kid who went to school in an urban area, saved for this trip forever, and has traveled pretty extensively. Her choice of NZ/AUS has been based partially on the culture of solo backpacking in those countries and she has friends in Hong Kong and Thailand she will be visiting while on that side of the world as well. Interestingly enough, while my son was working in India two summers ago I managed to connect him with the son of another CC poster and they became friends and travel companions.</p>