I've been looking at this website called globalworkandtravel.com.au which almost seems like a reasonable and legitimate website for both a working holiday and volunteering overseas.
That was, until I read all the reviews.
https://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130418183640AAg63v7
http://www.tripadvisor.com.au/ShowTopic-g1-i12357-k6952832-Global_work_Travle_Co-Solo_Travel.html
Both these forums have endless replies and comments that global work and travel was/is simply a scam. Despite the colourful pictures and organized looking website, countless people either had relations with people or had first hand BAD experiences with this company.
Needless to say my hopes were slightly dampened for my plans to adventure around the world after highschool, but I let not this one website stop me fro continuing my search.
Next, I found a few blogs about travel. They were all, interesting and informative; assuring that they would receive a +1 on their follower count.
Here are those blogs :) :
http://thelittlebackpacker.com/
http://www.backpackerbecki.com/
http://trippingroundtheworld.wordpress.com/
The three of these blogs and at least one post to do with either the Elephant Sanctuary in Thailand, or working holidays. Their brilliant experiences with both these opportunities lead me to believe that there is some way of achieving my plans without using a scam website or not fulfilling my 'dreams'.
I then searched on my trusty old friend 'google' for a more reliable company that provided me with information and packages needed to travel to my desired locations for desired purposes.
First, I came across STA Travel (not even sure what that stands for) which is famous internationally for insurance and flights (or something like that). So I hoped that this company would be reliable and meet my wants/needs.
http://www.statravel.com.au/work-visa-uk-ireland.htm
/\ That is the link directly to the page about working holidays to England in you're Australian.
I looked online for reviews on this company about working holidays from Australia and found none whatsoever (except that Jodie from 'the little backpacker' used them for several things to do a working holiday TO Australia = reassuring).
So, as you would, I emailed them asking for more information (yes, I know. I'm still 16 and have 530 days until I graduate, let alone actually leave Perth to travel).
I also then emailed the three blogs to ask them for tips and general questions about working holidays and/or volunteering.
And about my search for a non-scam volunteering company, thankfully Becki from 'backpackerbecki' had a link from her blogpost directly to a website (that I'm believing she used) thats seemingly reliable just about volunteering with elephants around the world (including the Thailand Elephant Sanctuary). With different lengths of stays and what seemed to be the suitable price for the deal, I then searched reviews for this place. With 2,291 excellent reviews all saying the similar thing ('Amazing', 'fulfilling' ect.) there were only 49 average and 14 terrible. I read all the 'terrible' and some of the average reviews and I wasn't worried for my trip. Almost all of the bad reviews were to do with either too many tourists at the Elephant sanctuary and they didn't get enough joy out of one day and should have stayed overnight (One reason why I'm hoping to stay for a month) or because they had a mix up with their credit cards (all of those were directly answered by the Elephant sanctuary). So, I came to a conclusion that is was reliable and I was to find more information and start planning when the time came closer.
To say I was excited was an understatement.
Well overall, through this day of researching, reading and getting excited. I came out, well, even more excited. I hope that this has helped some of you out there in a similar situation as me. And I'm not directly saying to not go on a trip through global work and travel co, this is just my opinion and some other people's on the internet. I'm sure there are some people who have had excellent experiences with this company. I'm just not one to risk it.
Happy Travelling :)
No comments:
Post a Comment