Just checking in…

Just wanted to check in with all my travel lovers, how are we all doing in this lockdown period?

I for one am grateful to be experiencing life within the four corners of my room. Although this is a change from my regular day to day, I’ve been given so much time to reflect on the colourful experiences I’ve had on my adventures.

This time last year I was on my first ever solo trip in Oslo, my fifth country of the year. If you want to read about what I got up to you can check out my Oslo blog post here. For those more visually inclined, I also have a youtube video which I will link below:

My prayers are with everyone right now 🙏🏾

Yes we might not be able to explore the world right now, but we can however explore our hearts and minds.

What were you doing this time last year & what do you hope to be doing this time next year?

God bless & keep safe,

Adina

IEC Visa: Part 2 – How to apply

Hi guys, welcome back!

In part 2 of the IEC Visa content series, we will be covering the start of the application process. If you’ve missed part 1 or want to familiarise yourself with what an IEC visa is then you can find that here.

So you’ve decided that you’re interested in moving to Canada on a working holiday visa…once you’ve checked that you meet the necessary criteria (age requirements & country eligibility) you’re good to go ahead with the application process.

How to start the application process

Starting the application process is relatively easy, so easy you can do it yourself. I made the mistake in going through Bunac, A travel agency that specialises in working and volunteering abroad opportunities. Maybe I didn’t do my research properly or utilise Bunac to its full potential, but that’s one of the reasons as to why I started this content series…to make sure that you don’t make the same mistakes that I did! (I’ll explain more about Bunac in part 3).

So anyway back to the application process. The first thing you need to do is create a profile on the canadian government website, that will be later submitted into a pool for random selection.

Upon creating your profile you will be asked a bunch of questions to check your eligibility, these questions will be pertaining to your:

• country of citizenship
• country of permanent residence
• country of residence

Once these have been answered and you’ve been given the green light, you can then go on to complete your profile for submission. For this next section you will need your passport to hand and be prepared to fill in contact and identity info.

That’s it!! Now all you have to do is submit your profile to the relevant pool & wait to see if you are sent an invitation to apply.

That’s all for now folks.

In part 3 of this series we will be looking at the services that Bunac offer (in relation to the working holiday visa) & whether the services will be of any benefit to you.

Thanks for reading guys 🙂 as always if you have any specific questions you would like me to answer please drop me a message & I’ll try by best to answer them.

IEC Visa: Part 1 – What is an IEC VISA and how do I get one?

Hey guys, apologies for the length of time I have been away…there’s been a lot going on in my personal life but hopefully things will be smooth sailing from here onwards.

Before we get into this post I just want to take the time out to wish everyone well in these uncertain times, I pray that you and your loved ones are safe and healthy.

In my last post (which was a while back now) I promised a new content series surrounding everything regarding Canadian working holiday visa also known as an IEC visa. In this post I will outline exactly what an IEC visa is and how you go about obtaining one.

First thing to note is that there are 3 types of IEC visas; Young professionals, International CO-OP (Internship) and working holiday – We will be focusing on the working holiday visa

What is a working holiday visa?

As mentioned above, a working holiday visa is one of three types of IEC (International experience canada) visas.

As this is seen to be a long term ‘holiday’ (2 years maximum) the idea is that you can work in order to fund your holiday, hence the name ‘working holiday visa.

This type of visa provides you with an open work permit which means that you can pretty much do any type of work with any type of employer. However if you want to work with kids, the elderly or any one who is recognised as a vulnerable person, then you will need to undergo a medical exam.

Who can apply for a working holiday visa?

Before even thinking to apply for a working holiday visa, there’s a few criteria that you need to make sure you meet:

1. Age requirements: Applicants need to be between the ages of 18-30 (this is for the UK – varies country to country)
2. Country eligibility: you need to check whether the country in which you have your citizenship with, has an agreement in place that allows you to apply for the visa (you can check the list here– at the bottom of the page)

I’m interested… how can I apply?

To apply for a working holiday visa you first need to become an candidate within a pool…

I will go on to explain more about this in the next segment – which should hopefully be out within the next week.

Thanks for reading guys 🙂 If you have any specific questions you would like me to answer please drop me a message & I’ll try my best to answer them

2020 is here?

Right, so I’m not entirely sure how but the new year/decade is upon us. It’s like the older we get our concept of time becomes basically non existent because how has the time flown by like that?

For the first time I felt overjoyed to be ringing in the new year, not that 2019 was a bad one ( I actually don’t remember most of it) but I had this strange sensation that the future would be a positive one.

This seems to be the general consensus with conversations surrounding the new year/decade, aside from the impending WWIII, 2020 seems to be off to a good start, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how it all pans out.

Resolutions

The big R…

Taking the time out to reflect on the past year and setting resolutions can be pretty daunting (part of the reason I’m actively avoiding doing so haha). However if we have things we want to achieve it’s probably best practise to write them down, mainly as a form of accountability but also just to get an idea of where our head was at, at the time of writing.

With that being said, resolutions aren’t imperative, everyone has their own way of doing things that work for them. So you have to do exactly that & find what works for you.

I’m a very visual person, so I found that something based around imagery would benefit me the most, with that in mind I decided to create a vision board to use as a lock screen, which basically outlines the main things I’m aiming to achieve in 2020.

Created with Canva

Do you have any resolutions?

If so, how do you go about achieving them?

Moving back home & New blog content

Hey guys, so it’s been a hot minute since my last post!

Between moving back home and applying to jobs, I haven’t really found nor made the time to post on here.

So if you caught on to the first line, yes I’ve moved back home (to the UK). My time in Canada (just over 2 months) was very short-lived but I honestly enjoyed every single moment of it.

So just a little back story for those who missed my life update, I moved to Canada back in August on an IEC visa, also known as a working holiday visa, which I’ll explain more about later.

The main reason for me moving back home (aside from being extremely homesick) is due to the fact that I didn’t take into consideration just how long it would potentially take to find a job. I wasn’t that well informed before I made the move which is a bit of a bummer because if I was then I most probably would have still been out there living my best life.

Which got me thinking, surely I can’t be the only one who has had this experience. Following on from that train of thought, I’ve decided to write a few blog posts on the things I wish I had known before jumping ship, as the amount of information you have available to you can really make or break your experience.

With that being said, if anyone has any specific questions regarding IEC visas or would like me to cover anything in the upcoming blog posts then please leave a comment below or drop me an email via my contact page 💕