Australian Time Out #1: Need Convincing?

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1: Need Convincing?

Yvonne and Dan

Sick of your job? Perhaps you travel a great distance to go to work, using a stressful route. The job itself is boring - if you're honest with yourself you only took the job because you didn't know what you wanted to do. Maybe you went for your 'ideal' job and found out it wasn't everything you wanted it to be.

Bored of where you live? You only meant to stay a while, but you started thinking that someone your age should be settling down instead of travelling around all the time. Maybe you've lived there all your life and you're afraid of what might happen if you leave.

Or perhaps you're in a good job but your social life is awful, or vice versa. Does it feel like it's a trade off between being happy at work or having a great social life? The work is awful but the people are great. You hate your job but it's close to your house. Your house is friendly but you don't know anyone outside it (a typical London complaint!)

Eventually when you leave your parents, teachers and lecturers behind and there is just you left, you must come to terms with what you want to do and what you want to get out of life.

Recognise any of the above? Welcome to the so-called "Quarter-Life Crisis!"

I, as a sufferer of the syndrome, have decided to take a much-deserved break and run away to Australia for a year. Since leaving university I've been drifting from job to job, not completely happy but too scared to do something different. I'm dragging my long-suffering boyfriend Dan, who knows exactly what he wants to do, along with me! Dan's reasons are slightly different to mine:

"It's very hard to break the cycle of work for money, getting a foot on the property ladder, etc...and it's easy to forget what might make you happy. I always wanted to travel but as I enjoy my work and get paid well (IT programmer) it got harder to leave it behind."

I'm hoping that this trip will sort my head out a bit and push me in the direction I should be going. Poor Australia it's a tough call, but something's gotta do it, and it might as well be Down Under. I've wanted to go since I was very young, but I've always managed to put it off - until now.

Where do you start?

When Dan and myself decided we were going to get off our arses and go, I started searching the internet for guides catering for 20-something, non-students looking for working visa info. I found very little. Sorting everything out, whether it's money, visas, insurance etc, can be a real pain as you don't know what to expect and where to start. I'm hoping that some of you can use this as a preparation guide as well as a travel diary! I certainly would have loved some tips about moving over there. So I'll keep you posted!

We're off on September 4^th - and all preparations will be faithfully recounted here!




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