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I am currently traveling on a working holiday visa through Australia. With this particular visa in Australia there is an option to extend the visa for another year if you meet the criteria. This is something I am seriously considering as I’m looking at this as a once in a lifetime opportunity and have no intention of rushing back to England any time soon.

To extend your working holiday visa in Australia, you need to do do three months of specified work in areas classed as Regional Australia.

The main options open are farm work and fruit picking, but there are other sectors to work in like mining or construction. The list of specified work goes into this in more detail.

Whilst working you will need to complete a form or provide evidence of the work to qualify for the second year, so bear that in mind when you start. To extend your visa, or for more information regarding specified work and qualifying regions in Australia, download the second year working holiday visa form, which you will need to take to work with you when you start.

That is all you need to do. Australia is obviously short of workers in certain areas so this is an excellent opportunity for all travelers to extend their stay, and one I think people should seriously consider if they have no commitments back home.

I am writing this post because I am looking to extend my working holiday visa. This work can be done at anytime within your first year and I still have eleven months to go. However personally I would like to do it soon if I can, before the weather gets too hot, and so that I am not rushing around panicking in my last few months.

I am looking to settle down somewhere soon and find a “real job”. Until I do this I will not be able to work on this blog as much as I would like. As I have said before, if I appear to stop blogging in the near future, it probably means I am stuck on a farm in the middle of nowhere with no internet access.

Since starting this blog I have been traveling a lot, starting in Thailand and I have since been working my way around Australia. Working and traveling with a laptop has proved to be quite a challenge. Being constantly on the move has caused a few problems when it comes to blogging and making money online.

There are two main problems I have encountered:

Internet access: Finding decent affordable internet access has been harder than I expected. If I was made of money then I could stay in top hotels with high speed wi-fi, but that is not the case. I have been staying mainly in hostels, and many hostels do not have wi-fi access. Of the ones that do, most charge extra and the rates can be quite high.

Motivation: I can’t blame anyone else for this one, but when traveling around seeing new places it can be quite difficult to get motivated to sit down and do some work. I am on the other side of the world right now and there are so many things to see and do, sitting in front of a computer screen is not high on my list of priorities.

So working and traveling is proving to be quite difficult. It may be the dream job for many people, including myself, but that does not make it easy. The logistical problem of finding cheap quality internet access, as well as the inevitable problem of getting motivated, are proving quite a challenge for me.

To be honest, I am falling behind. By now I was hoping to have a few more posts, and to have promoted my blog a lot more. In fact at the time of writing this I am probably still talking to myself. For now that’s not a big problem as it is to be expected when starting out with blogging, but it does not help with the motivation!

Whilst I admit I’m still having troubles with working while traveling with a laptop, I do have a few hints that I’ve learned.

• Research accommodation – If you are on a budget then your options for wi-fi internet access may be limited depending where you are traveling. However even some of the cheapest places do have free wi-fi access. You should do your research before you arrive to find out where they are.

• Be mobile – Be prepared to change your accommodation if your internet access is not good enough for your needs, especially if you are in a large town/city, you have a lot of options.

• If you find a place with decent affordable wifi – USE IT! I’ve been to a couple of hostels with good quality free wi-fi but I probably didn’t make the most of it. So if you’re traveling and stay somewhere with decent affordable internet access, make sure you use it as at your next stop you may not be so lucky.

• Be productive- use your online time wisely, don’t spend too much time fooling around on the net and chatting away on facebook.

• Set goals/deadlines – This can be difficult on the road, but if you do have good internet access then you have no excuse not to set yourself goals and meeting certain deadlines.

So if you are looking to work and travel with a laptop then be prepared for some challenges. Whilst it may be a dream job it is not easy. I may soon be heading to regional Australia and I am quite worried things could get harder, I have no idea what kind of internet access awaits me.

I may not be able to update this blog as much as I would like to over the next few weeks, I could be stuck on a farm in the middle of nowhere. If I appear to go offline for a while it does not mean I have given up on this blog, and I will be back.

I have been quite busy lately trying to mix traveling with setting up a website, and I just realised that I haven’t been keeping you guys up to date with what I am up to. I recently arrived in Australia on my working holiday visa. This visa allows you to work and travel around Australia for up to a year, and can be extended if you meet certain requirements.

I arrived in Sydney about two weeks ago. After exploring Sydney for a few days my first impressions of Australia could be summed up in two words: cold and expensive!

It’s probably a bit unfair to label Australia a cold country (especially as I’m British), however I did arrive in Sydney in the middle of winter, after spending a month in Thailand, a country which is always hot and humid and never gets cold. After spending a few days in Sydney I decided to head north to Cairns, where the climate is tropical and I am pleased to say the cold is no longer a problem.

However Australia these days IS an expensive place to visit. The Australian dollar has done quite well in recent years compared with other countries, and whether you are from Europe, America or some place else, you will find Australia expensive.

But it is not all bad news, as if you have a working holiday visa then you will be earning your money in Australian dollars and consequently you can actually make some good money if you decide to work out here, whatever job you find yourself in. There are lots of jobs for travelers if you look in the right places.

The Australian working holiday visa is only available to people aged 18-30. If you decide to visit Australia for a long holiday and plan on working while here, then there are a few things you will need to do when you arrive in Australia on a working holiday visa. These include:

• Setting up your Australian bank account. All Australian employers require you to have a bank account to pay your wages into.

• Setting up your tax file number. This is another requirement to work in Australia, unless you want to pay a massive 49% in tax.

• Buy a local SIM card. You will need to unlock your phone if you haven’t done so already, and buy a local card for cheaper calls, also many banks/jobs will require you to have a local phone number.

• An Australian address. This can be quite difficult if you plan on traveling the country like I do. If you do not have a permanent address or any friends with an address, the best thing to do is set up a mailing address. There are various places offering this service, prices ranging from $50-$100 a year. These companies will hold your mail and forward it to any address of your choice, I.e the hostel you are staying at.

• Training Courses. Australian health and safety laws require many employees to undertake training courses before they can begin work in certain roles, including things like bar work, hospitality and construction. These are not too expensive, however I would recommend doing them when you arrive if you plan on working in these areas whilst you have some money behind you, and you then open up a lot more options for when you do seek employment.

• Sign up with Travellers At Work. I recently joined this organisation myself and can highly recommend them. They offer a jobs board designed specifically for people on a working holiday visa. They also have great arrival packages available, and can offer help with all of the above.

Australia is a fantastic country to visit and the working holiday is a once in lifetime opportunity to experience life in another country. I hope this post will go some way to helping those who are about to arrive in Australia on a working holiday visa. There are also plenty of other countries that take part in the working holiday scheme worth checking out if you meet the criteria.