The phrase goes “hindsight is a wonderful thing”.

It’s very true.

I shouldn’t have bought that.

I shouldn’t have said this.

The same is true of a one certain part of my Australian adventure. A part that is rather fundamental to the whole thing – my working holiday visa.

I came to Oz on a 12 month working holiday visa because I knew at some point I would need to gain employment to last the full 12 months.

But I also had £5500 in my back pocket.

That’s a significant amount of fundage by any means.

Due to my budgeting skills and what not I’ve managed to milk every last penny out of my funds, and 6 months into my trip I’ve still not worked and still have nearly $1500 to my name.

Which is awesome.

However it does mean that I’ve effectively wasted 50% of my working holiday visa. A once in a lifetime visa.

Now that’s a bit of a bummer!

In hindsight I wouldn’t have come straight in with a WHV, I would’ve approached it another way;

- Land in Oz on a 6 month tourist (non working) visa

- Travelled around Oz as planned for 5ish months

- Flown to Indo/NZ/Thailand for a couple of weeks

- Applied for 12 month WHV visa while out of Oz

- Flown back to Oz and begun my new visa

- Started looking for work whilst still having a slight amount of backup dollar

That may seem a slightly crazy plan, but it would’ve worked!

Flights from oz to Indo and Thailand are really cheap – it’s like the Australian version of a holiday in Europe – and WHV’s are generally granted pretty pronto.

In fact the above plan would’ve added nearly 50% extra to my Australian adventure.

Sure I would’ve paid extra for flights, and had to shell out for 2 visas – but that would be a tactical loss which I would’ve recovered in the possible extra 6 months of work I could’ve done.

So before you book your visas and flights have a long hard think about other possible ways – don’t just pick the simplest option.

Be a savvy traveller and maximise your time abroad.