Stuck in a rut!
Stuck in a rut!
A little bit of background first. I’m currently 17 years old and turn 18 in September. I’ve got a pretty large budget thanks to some savings and inheritances so I decided to take a RTW trip before uni. Anyway…
I’ve kind of hit the wall with my gap year plans and am starting to think I should start from scratch…
My original plan was:
Leave for Thailand in February, do ThaIntro and then travel independently for a couple weeks before doing an over-land tour of China, finishing towards the end of March. Then go to Oz on a WHV until the end of August before coming home via the US for a week or two.
I’m starting to have doubts about a couple things though… Firstly, am I going to enough countries? I’ve got to assume that this is going to be the only RTW trip I ever take, I sincerely hope it isn’t but you never know. Or is it more about quality than quantity? Should I take the time to explore two or three countries in detail rather than getting a rushed experience of several more? There’s a handful of other countries I really want to visit.
Secondly, is only using 4 months of my 12 month WHV a bit of a waste? I don’t know if I could afford not to work while I’m away. I don’t want to get a WHV in Japan due to the language barrier (although that’s something I’d love to do later in life), I don’t fancy Canada either… Which basically leaves Oz and NZ, and I’d definitely prefer Oz.
Finally, there’s nothing that’s really going to contribute to my CV or help me get into uni. I was hoping to do some volunteering but I can’t find anything that isn’t insanely expensive. I don’t mind paying costs to cover my accommodation, admin fees etc but paying £2000 to work on a building site in a scorching hot country for a month doesn’t really sound like a great deal to me. If anyone could help me out with worthwhile projects that’d be great.
So what do you think? At first a 6/7 month trip felt really ambitious but now I’m starting to worry about it being too short. The very earliest I could leave would be October 2012 but that means that I’d have to raise more money for a longer trip but I’d have even less time to save. I don’t have anything booked yet. I currently have about £6,000 and could probably manage to hit £8,000 by then and £9,000 by February, my original departure time. Only thing is I have my deposit down for ThaIntro in February but I can reschedule that easily without having to pay any extra.
Sorry for the essay!
Could you extend your time in Oz a bit and only do rural work and try and get the 88 days? that way you always have a chance to apply for another WHV if you want to go back. I think leaving in December or January would really help this.
It should be easy enough to pick up a couple of days volunteering in SE Asia when you are away but I also came across this site which has lots of volunteer oppertunities most of which you only pay for food and accomodation
http://www.volunteerworkthailand.org/volunteer-thailand.php
Hope that helps!
Okay so 88 days is roughly 3 months and I can probably shove my dates about so I can spend about 6 months there. Shouldn’t be too hard to accomplish if I can find work easily. I take it December/January is the best time to go for finding work as it’s summer? Only problem is I’ve never done any sort of manual labouring jobs at home, reckon that’ll be a problem?
That site looks pretty decent, a lot of free volunteering opportunities as well. Are you saying it’d be feasible to not bother booking anything but find volunteering activities as I go along? I’d be up for that.
Iv havent been to Oz (yet!) but as far as im aware there is fruit picking all year round but in just different regions so im sure you would have no problem picking up a job!
ya when i was in Asia i heard of ppl doing volunteering for a couple of days so im sure if your on the lookout you will have no problem. Teaching english to kids is probably your best bet, I defo heard of people doing that for a week or two in Sihanoukville Cambodia if you are heading there and if not im sure it would be easy to find anywhere!
Okay sweet! thanks.
I think I’ll bring Asia forward to Jan/Feb and get to Oz by the start of March at the latest. That will give me almost 6 months before I need to go back home, so if I like it then I can stay and easily get my 88 days work done. If not I can stay for 2-3 months and make enough money to go back to Asia for a bit, or somewhere new.
Hey Robert.
If you were only planning on staying in Australia for 2-3 months and not working, you could get a tourist visa and then you would always have the option of the WHV at a later date :)
No, I definitely need to work - if I had an unlimited budget I probably wouldn’t even go to Australia.
Is there any particular reason you can’t work in Aus longer and just extend your whole trip. No need to save extra here as you’ll be working in OZ. Also it could give you more scope to explore a bit more of asia if you are worried about a lack of countries.
Teach english in thailand?
Is there any particular reason you can’t work in Aus longer and just extend your whole trip. No need to save extra here as you’ll be working in OZ. Also it could give you more scope to explore a bit more of asia if you are worried about a lack of countries.
Yes, I need to be home by September ‘13 to start uni. If I don’t get in then I’ll extend my gap year indefinitely :P
Teach english in thailand?
I was under the impression you need a degree to get a teaching job unless you’re very lucky?
Teach english in thailand?
I was under the impression you need a degree to get a teaching job unless you’re very lucky?
You’d be surprised! Sometimes it’s enough to be well spoken and appear like you’ve been to university - more often than not they don’t check TEFL certificates.
If you want to teach abroad, you’ll find away…
Agreed - a friend of mine was just offered a teaching job randomly in China while he was sat chatting to a Chinese teacher in a bar (as in Chinese local who was a teacher in a local school).
Sometimes you can find cheap TEFL online courses on Groupon or similar so if you think that teaching might be an option while you travel it’s probably worth going for if one comes up, just for the knowledge on how to actually teach.
Just one quick question, you say that if you had an unlimited budget you probably wouldn’t even go to Australia. So why are you going? Can’t you just work longer here to save up and then go to visit the countries you really want to go to?
Just an observation - it seems like everyone heads over to Australia to save (fair enough) rather than necessarily wanting to go there for the country. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s commonly accepted that Australia is expensive and it can be difficult to find jobs (thus rinsing your money while you’re unemployed).
Just playing devil’s advocate! ;)
Lexi
x
I’m off to uni in September so this is my only chance for at least 4 years. After that, who knows what will happen.
I am only 17 so the jobs I can do at home are fairly crap and very low paid so it’s difficult for me to save any more than maybe 1 or 2 grand in the next 6 months.
When I say I probably wouldn’t go to Australia, I don’t mean that I have no interest in going. It’s just maybe not in my top 5 countries I’d love to go to. I’m not going to let it destroy me financially either, if I start to run out of cash I’ll just come home early. I have a relative in Brisbane who I can stay with any time should I find myself struggling!
Teach english in thailand?
I was under the impression you need a degree to get a teaching job unless you’re very lucky?
You’d be surprised! Sometimes it’s enough to be well spoken and appear like you’ve been to university - more often than not they don’t check TEFL certificates.
If you want to teach abroad, you’ll find away…
Although of course it is better to have a degree and do it more formally, you could pick up work short-term and live there. Simply. Same goes for China - there’s a guy in my city now working without a degree. He just has to go on a visa run twice a year. If you want his company’s details, let me know. Think that would be a better option than Australia.
That site looks pretty decent, a lot of free volunteering opportunities as well. Are you saying it’d be feasible to not bother booking anything but find volunteering activities as I go along? I’d be up for that.
You could try emailing The Siem Reap Landmine Museum. They are a charity who allow injured children to attend school and use volunteers to help the children catch up with missed studies by helping them with homework.. Just Google and you’ll find them.
