My original plan was to continue working for a year and saving up my money. Of course, I'm still going to do this and it's going to give me (hopefully) more than sufficient funds. However, I got to wondering a few months back about what to do if I end up wanting to travel for a bit longer.
So I crawled through some other travel blogs. You know, those professional ones where it's all shiny pictures of folks doing amazing things and there's always a post about how they've made it work as a full time traveler. I took a look at that and decided it wasn't for me. I love this blog and sharing my experiences, but it's not something I'd want to do as a job. Maybe it's just me, but it'd feel like taking the fun out of it. So that's that one out of the window.
Others suggested taking a TEFL course and then finding work abroad teaching English. Again, this sounds like a great idea and teaching jobs seem to pay well. It's something I'll keep in mind but teaching isn't something I find particularly appealing. A back up option, perhaps. Especially since you could end up potentially tied to one place for a prolonged period of time.
The last of the major options I've found is a working holiday. Depending on where you want to work, you can get a working holiday visa from about £110 for New Zealand and more if you want to do it in Australia, Canada or the US.
The New Zealand Working Holiday Scheme gives you up to 12 months in the country, primarily for holidaying with work as a secondary aim. So I figure that perhaps I could fly into Auckland, Christchurch or Wellington and find a temp job for a month or two. That way I could replenish my funds a little and explore the city and surrounding area when I wasn't working. At the end of the job, I'd go off travelling around New Zealand for a while - I'm currently looking at doing at least 3 weeks on each island and this is definitely subject to growth - then when I get to another area with temp jobs, I could do another month or two. And then do some more travelling.
What sort of job though? I work in an office currently, so something in admin would be ideal - I've certainly got the experience. And there's almost always jobs going in admin. So that's a reasonable option.
What else? Fruit picking seems to be popular and I'm sure I could get a job doing that. Maybe not as well paid as admin? Hmm...
And then there's the hospitality industry. Maybe not for me. I'm not the most social of people and while my customer service skills are fine, I'm just not sure I could deal with loads of people all the time. But you never know, maybe I'll be up for the challenge.
Finally, what looks to be something of a traveller's favourite - the adventure tourism option. Sure, come out here and teach people to ski/snowboard/scuba dive. Yeah... I can't do any of those things. Now, give me a crash course in New Zealand wildlife and maybe I could lead walks, but I doubt that's an option. Again, we'll see.
Let's go back to the admin option. Seems like (via a few quick Google searches) the average wage for an admin assistant is about NZ$18 an hour. Assume a 7 hour day for the sake of argument, 5 days a week. So before tax, I'm looking at perhaps NZ$630 a week. Taxes would take a chunk off that, but I figure I'd still have enough there to cover a dorm room at a hostel, food and other expenses and be saving some money for further travel.
This is beginning to look like a pretty good option. Just picture it: going to work knowing that this is waiting for the weekend:
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| Weekend trip to Kaikoura? Yes please. |
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