There's No Place Like Oz

Work and Holiday Visa: What to do when you finally get to Australia!

This is the last post in a 3-part series about the Australian Work and Holiday Visa for Americans. Read part 1 (the visa application process) and part 2 (the before-you-go research to consider) if you need to catch up before checking out part 3 (you’ve arrived — now what?!). credit Apply for your Tax File [...]

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Australia Work and Holiday Visa: Before-you-go research

This is the 2nd post in a 3-part series about my experiences with the Work and Holiday Visa in Australia. Need to catch up on part 1? For me, researching a trip is half the fun of the experience. I love reading about my next destination and learning about where I might want to eat [...]

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Work and travel in Australia on the Work and Holiday Visa: Applying for the WHV online

Australia was the first country I wished I could visit. When I was 13, my best friend spent 3 weeks in Oz on the People to People Youth Ambassador program. I was also invited to participate but the price tag was too much for my family. When she returned and shared every wonderful detail of [...]

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Celebrating Australia Day 2013 in the USA

Happy Australia Day, everyone! Whether you’re an Aussie at home or abroad, or a fellow Australia fan like me, I hope you found your own traditional or unique ways to celebrate the day. If you’re asking yourself, “What IS Australia Day,” it’s a national holiday celebrated on January 26 which commemorates the arrival of the [...]

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There’s No Place Like: Three Bags Full cafe in Melbourne

This is the second post in the new “No Place Like” series in which I highlight places that have blessed me a feeling of “home”. As I write, I’m sitting in a beach cottage at North Carolina’s Outer Banks (OBX), waiting for coffee to finish brewing and the griddle to be free so I can [...]

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A Year in Australia: By the Numbers

I quit my job as a career counselor for uni students at 30 to move to Australia for 12 months for a once in a lifetime opportunity. Following six months of travel + six months of living in Sydney, I realized there are MANY numbers that add up to one great year. Ways I made [...]

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Australia Roadtrip: Western Australia

In 2006, my youngest sister and I popped into the pizza shop beside our hostel in Sydney to get a quick take away dinner. A friendly 20-something heard our American accents and quickly struck up a typical traveler’s conversation with us. “What, you’re only here for three weeks?! Man, you gotta make it to WA [...]

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Quick Guide: How to Survive the Nullarbor

There were a lot of things I’d read about before my arrival in Australia, but the Nullarbor Plain was not one of them. Even after living in the country for eight months, no one had ever breathed a word of the nearly treeless landscape to me. Then, just a week before Adam and I planned [...]

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Australia Roadtrip: South Australia’s beautiful beaches, gorgeous skies, and charming towns

Sometimes when you travel, you enjoy the journey so much that you take in every moment, focusing completely on the present. As beautiful as the scenery is, you compose and commit the snapshots to memory instead of using a camera. While you normally scribble keywords and phrases to jog your mind about what you experienced [...]

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Australia Roadtrip: South Australia

After visiting Tasmania and Victoria on the Oz Roadtrip, Adam, Nicole, and I continued west to South Australia. I had already fallen in love with SA’s Adelaide and Coober Pedy ten months prior, so I couldn’t wait to see what else South Australia had to offer. As it turns out, I loved South Australia so [...]

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