Organize work and travel: How early to start?
I have been asked how far in advance you should start organizing your work and travel trip. Therefore, in this article, I would like to address the question and describe my own experience planning my work and travel trip to New Zealand.
When to start planning your work and travel?
Doing work and travel was just an idea for me in the beginning and actually no concrete plan at all. I just decided to apply for the working holiday visa for New Zealand and see if I got it or not.
Finally I got the message that I was issued with the Working Holiday Visa. This was in March. Now I had one year time to enter New Zealand. So my idea turned into a concrete plan, but I took my time. I had to finish school first and then about. work for six months to be able to finance my trip at all.
In this whole time I first took care of the flight and then the health insurance for abroad. Finally, I just reserved a hostel in Auckland for the first few days, that was all.
I still had a credit card and a suitable backpack from a previous trip as a backpacker.
So basically there was not much to organize at all and still I took almost eleven months until I finally entered New Zealand with my working holiday visa. The main reasons why it took so long to organize everything in my case were the school, which had to be finished first, and the financial means I still had to acquire.
If you don't want to do that, you can organize your work and travel quite spontaneously.
How long does it take to organize work and travel
1. Application for the Working Holiday Visa: ca. 1 – 6 weeks, depending on the country for which you are applying for the working holiday visa. For New Zealand and Australia you usually get a decision within a few days (1 – 3 weeks). The application for the Working Holiday Visa for Canada can take up to six weeks.
(Attention, the Working Holiday Visa for Canada and the Working Holiday Visa for Austrians who want to go to New Zealand can only be applied for once a year at a certain date, because there is only a limited contingent available.)
Here's more info about working holiday visas for New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Chile and tips for the USA.
2. Booking the flight: within one day (Find the cheapest flights z.B. at statravel.en.)
3. Applying for a credit card: ca. 2 – 3 weeks
4. Conclusion of an international health insurance (z.B. especially for Work and Travel in Australia): within one day
5. Possibly applying for an international driver's license at the driver's licensing office/driver's license office: usually within a day, may need an appointment to apply.
6. Buying a backpack: one day to one week (depending on whether you buy it in a store or online)
7. Booking of the first accommodation on the spot: within one day
I think you should start planning your work and travel trip at least four months before you plan to arrive in the working holiday country. Whereby it is definitely more relaxed and related to the flight certainly also cheaper to start earlier with the organization.
Note that you have a maximum of one year after the issuance of the visa to enter the country where you want to do work and travel. You can allow a maximum of one year after the issuance of the working holiday visa for the organization of your work and travel trip.
More tips for planning and preparing your trip
And because this post is so nice for the blogparade travel planning and travel preparation of philippinen-blog.ch fits, I would like to participate with it with pleasure. Take a look at the blogparade, there are a lot of tips for the travel planning in general.