SOYOUWANNA PLAN A TRIP TO AUSTRALIA?

5. CONSIDER FUTURE VISITS

Decide if you want to stay longer

While this article is intended for those who only wish to travel Australia as tourists, some of you will want to commit to longer periods of time Down Under. One way to legally stay in Australia for more than three months is to be a foreign student. To do this, you must have been accepted to an accredited academic institution. For student exchange li>

• American Field Service (AFS)
• American Institute for Foreign Study
• International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience (IAESTE)
• Youth for Understanding International Exchange (YFU) - high school students only

You can also extend your stay by getting a temporary residence visa. Most people who apply for these visas are skilled technicians, business executives, or young people on working holidays (that means kids like you!).

Check out some useful links

One of the most useful things you can do when preparing to go to a new country is to research as much about it as possible. Thank goodness you've found us! But we couldn't include everything, so here are some nice websites that will give you more specifics about Australia:

Getting to know Australia:

• http://www.worldwidemetric.com/metcal.htm - Australia uses the metric system. Here is a normal-to-metric calculator
• http://www.whitepages.com.au/ - Australian White Pages
• http://www.yellowpages.com.au/ - Australian Yellow Pages
• http://www.whereis.com.au/ - a cool site that helps you locate any Australian address on a map
• http://www.worldtimezones.com/ - The time difference between North America and Australia can be anywhere from 13 to 19 hours, depending on where you are on which continent and if daylight savings time is in effect.
  

Tour information:

Ayer's Rock/Uluru Tours

• http://www.thebackpacker.net/traveltours/ayersrock_tours.htm
• http://www.totaltravel.com.au/travel/nt/redcentre/uluruayersrock/directory/tours

Outback Tours

• http://www.westernxposure.com.au/
• http://www.diamantina-tour.com.au/index1.asp

Bushwalks and Climbing

• http://www.npansw.org.au/web/activities/bushwalking.htm

Potpourri

• http://www.artoftravel.com - a cool site about the art of backpacking cheaply