Visas & Travel Insurance
Visas: surprisingly quick & easy process for the countries I am visiting
I’m starting the trip off in Ireland— but I have citizenship there so I don’t need visa but the visa is granted to Americans on arrival in Dublin passport control & the holiday visitor visa is 90 days.
Thailand: 30 day free holiday visa- granted on entry at the airport
Bali: 30 day free holiday visa- granted on entry at the airport
Australia: I applied for the 417 Working Holiday Visa . There is a AUD450 (about USD300) fee— the application was a lot of general questions, intentions for work or school ( mainly based around if you wanted to work in the medical field), and your passport information. Because I have two passports there was a little more information to fill out but the whole application took about 10-15 minutes to fill out.
I submitted the application and in the time it took me to open and refresh my email- the visa was granted. So all around an incredibly easy process.
The visa allows you to stay and work in the country for up to 12 months—there is a process for a second year visa while you are in the country. There is no travel restrictions on the visa-you can come and go from the country during your visa—the only real restriction is on the length of time you can spend at one job- which still isn’t that restrictive- you can only stay in one job for 6 months at a time (but exceptions can be made through a process with the government).
Travel Insurance: ~I bought travel insurance through an Irish company..sorry Americans
Go4Less: They offer more than just travel insurance: you can use the website to arrange visas and book flights— but I only used the site for travel insurance. I purchased the one year backpacker travel insurance (excluding coverage for the US & Canada). The insurance is a one time fee of €159/$179 (this is how much I was quoted as 1 24-yo traveling alone)
The important things travel insurance covers: personal injury & illness, lost baggage by airlines, canceled flights, passport & visa problems, theft of money/cards/valuables. Everything is of course up to the travel insurance if they are going to cover something when it happens and there is a lot of small print, but it is better to have the insurance just in case instead of not having that kind of resource.
