“The more you spend time with a person you get to see that person more like a person and less like a stereotype. You don’t divide people into those categories anymore.”
Last year I was traveling with my wife and I said, “It’s just such a bummer that you can’t visit places for longer. A travel visa only allows you to stay somewhere for a few months. Think of what the experience would be like if you could stay longer than that.” Cut to a month ago when I get an e-mail from a listener of the show in China, Yue. Yue went on to tell me a story about this amazing program she had just been a part of called a ‘working holiday’. It is a visa that you get from the government of a country, similar to a travel visa, only it allows you to stay there for one to three years! Forget just saving up tons of money and going to some place for a few months, with a working holiday visa you can go to a country and get a job and live there. Truly immerse yourself in the culture. And no, you do not need to be sponsored by a company, or even have a job lined up for when you arrive. If this has piqued your interest at all, listen to the interview with Yue to learn more about the program and hear about her year long experience living in New Zealand.
“I didn’t have a frame of reference or any kind of expectation before I arrived in New Zealand so my expectation level was very low, and that helps a lot when you arrive in a foreign country.”
“Writing in a journal was sort of a way of making sense of things for me. Writing things clearly in front of me and coming up with a theory or a story to understand all these different things or a different behavior from hugely different people from all over the world…that is really too much of an information overload if I don’t write in a journal.”
Interview Contents
4:40 - What is a working holiday visa.
6:30 - Monica’s experience in New Zealand.
9:40 - The countries that have a working holiday program.
11:45 - Do you have to obtain employment before you arrive in the country?
13:30 - Working in accommodation and other options for inexpensive living.
17:30 - Transportation.
20:00 - The perspective of spending a whole year in a foreign country.
34:15 - The setup of doing this in Australia.
35:45 - Help to get a job.
38:30 - Advice.
Links
Website that Yue made to give us more info about the Working Holiday Visa
THIS EPISODE WAS MADE WITH THE SUPPORT OF
Roxanna
Michelle & Jim Wortner
Janelle Swanson
Jimmy Seymour
