Who's enjoyed a working holiday?

While browsing the Facebook the other day an ad appeared for a working holiday in New Zealand. Who here has taken part in a working holiday? What pros, cons, and little tid bits of your experience can you share? New Zealand or Australia would be on the top of my list if I was able to pull this off, but any helpful hints or information from opportunities with other countries would work too. Thanks in advance!

In this case, what do they mean by a working holiday? I have traveled to Europe, Hawaii, and Guam for work, and managed to squeeze in some holiday time, but I was sent by my employer, not from some ad on the interweb.

I’ve done a working holiday in the UK (from NZ), which is pretty common for Kiwis and Aussies in their 20s to do. There are a few conditions you need to abide by as part of the visa requirements (which differ depending on your nationality, the type of visa and the country you are interested in), but other than that you can basically do what you want (that is, provided you can convince an employer to employ you given you can’t stay past your visa).

I found it really beneficial - good for my career (although you can’t count on this at all), and great for travel and new perspectives. If I did it again, I’d think about going to a country with a foreign language and culture. I’d lived in the UK as a child, and it wasn’t that great a learning curve - spending a year in Italy, the Netherlands or France would have been more interesting. Still, you can’t argue with earning pounds!

There are lots of websites on this topic if you’re really interested - either based around the working holiday (age requirements), or being an expat.

Sorry for following up a little late but I was on my iPhone before and sadly Apple hasn’t gotten it together to make copy and paste available!

Anyway, here is a link the ad linked to on Facebook. It’s completely legit and I’ve seen other countries that have similar programs.