Holiday abroad, recommendations?

Testament1

So after 7 months on a bridging visa immigration have told me that they are going to grant my Recognised Graduate (Engineering) visa. However they said that I need to go offshore in order for it to go through on their system. So I'm thinking of going somewhere for 3 days or so over the long weekend in October. I've no idea really where to go, thinking somewhere in NZ at the moment, so I'd love to hear any recommendations that people on here have of places to go, things to see and do etc!!

Xavi6

Vanuatu

Go for five days or so, it's cheap and a beautiful country with the nicest people you'll meet. There's some epic scenery and treks you can do as well. Virgin Pacific fly there I think.

Peregrinus

Do you need to be offshore while they process it, or do you need to be offshore so that you can get it endorsed in your passport while outside Australia?

I ask because I was in the latter situation when I got my migrant visa. I had to leave the county while the visa was granted, and not return until I had collected it at the Australian embassy in Singapore. (It could have been any Australian embassy.)

This matters because, if you will need to transact business at the embassy, you want to go on holidays to a city where there is an Australian embassy.

It also matters because you can't be absolutely certain how long you'll have to stay abroad for; it depends on how efficiently they transact business at the embassy you're visiting. I was told to allow up to a week to cover both grant, and processing of my passport, and in the event I think it took five days.

Singapore was a good choice, 'cause there's plenty to see and do there if you have spend several days cooling your heels waiting for bureaucracy to trundle along.

Batgurl

Does it need to be the long weekend? Short haul international flights for that weekend are gonna be expensive. If I were you I'd look into flying out a Thursday and returning Monday evening in November. Fiji (Jetstar), Singapore (Scoot) or Kuala Lumpur (Air Asia) would all be decent long weekend destinations.

Peregrinus

Batgurl wrote: »

Does it need to be the long weekend?

Ah, yes, of course, good point. If you need to be out of the country for three days while they do some bureaucratic procedure, isn't that likely to be three working days? They are not going to spend their long weekend processing visa grants.

Testament1

@Peregrinus, here's a transcript of the email immigration sent to me:

"Please note that your application is nearing finalisation, therefore you have to make plan of going offshore before your visa is granted. Please provide me a copy of your travel itinerary as soon as you can. "

I questioned how long I had to be go off-shore for after receiving this and this is the response I got:

"As all the requirements for this visa are now met, I can grant your visa but you have to be outside Australia to do this. You can take as short a leave of absence or as long as you want, but I need to know when you will be outside of the country. Once our system has confirmed you are outside of the migration zone, I can finalise your application and grant your visa."

It doesnt mention anything about having to visit an embassy or anything but I can see your point and am curious now as to how clear cut this really is.

@Batgurl: The reason I was picking the long weekend was so I wouldnt have to take more time off work as I already had a holiday to Cairns 2 weeks ago before this email arrived. I wasnt expecting to have to go offshore tbh.

Testament1

Right so I fired off a few questions to immigration and they said that id be best off going for around 3 working days and there's no need to visit an embassy just wait for the confirmation email. So open to suggestions of cheapish places to fly from Sydney for a few days!

Batgurl

Testament1 wrote: »

Right so I fired off a few questions to immigration and they said that id be best off going for around 3 working days and there's no need to visit an embassy just wait for the confirmation email. So open to suggestions of cheapish places to fly from Sydney for a few days!

Air New Zealand launched a sale this morning with flights from Sydney to Auckland or Christchurch for $149 and cheaper on the way back. Covers October/November as well.

ifeelill

Xavi6 wrote: »

Vanuatu

Looks amazballs ! I'm defenanatly going to check this place out for my next holiday

Xavi6

ifeelill wrote: »

Looks amazballs ! I'm defenanatly going to check this place out for my next holiday

Do, you won't regret it. I stayed in a villa about 15 minutes walk outside of Port Vila which is the main island/capital.

There's generally a hive of activity about the place with markets and that kind of thing, especially when there's a cruise ship in port (it's a common stop on a lot of cruises).

I also did an amazing 16km river kayak through a rain forest. It was worth going for that alone.