Participants' Stories
I had an absolutely fabulous time in Aspen over the winter ski instructing, bar tending and living 3 blocks from the Ajax gondola. Living the high life!
Things are going along nicely in Lake Tahoe, my new home. I have been interning at a Sports media & distribution company. They are about to launch an action sports channel. Everything has gone extremely well and the CEO has offered me a full time position.
This is a great opportunity for a start to my career (never thought I’d be taking this avenue)! Johanna, Uni of Sydney - Working Holiday USA 2010/2011
CCUSA’s Working Holiday program 2 words - Unbelievable! Unforgettable! I spent 12 months working, travelling and embracing the US culture! I work in a variety of retail jobs including being on the ‘Geek Squad’ at Best Buy. Between jobs I travelled, survived my first US winter, got VIP tickets to see Lady Gaga, Kings of Leon, Dr Dre, and Bob Dylan and I even mastered driving on the right hand side of the road! As 12 unbelievable months came to an end, I headed back to Sydney with two incredibly overstuffed duffle bags full of new clothes and goodies.
I couldn’t sit still, so I applied to CCUSA’s Camp Counselors USA program and found myself back in Detroit working at Camp Tanuga for the ultimate summer experience! I now have friends throughout the world; couches to sleep on wherever I may travel to, some pretty unreal experiences and a true cultural appreciation and understanding of the world we live in. I just need to work out what CCUSA program to do next! Thank you CCUSA!
Alison, Macquarie Uni - Working Holiday USA 2009 and Camp Counselors USA 2010
Thank you so much for this great opportunity over here! I'm still working and living in Vail, Colorado. I leave here in about 4 weeks to start my month long journey around the united states. I'm going to Florida, New Jersery, Boston and NYC! I have loved every minute of my stay here and can't believe it's nearly over. I'll be back again FOR SURE! One of the best friends I made over here turned out to be on the same program and in fact lives 3 streets away from me in Sydney!
A special memory I have to share is this – Australia Day in Vail : This was just SO much fun! Vail officials were handing out stickers with boxing kangaroos saying "Australia Day in Vail 2011". It was great. We all met up at the top of the mountain at an area called Bell's Camp and made an Aussie BBQ and played cricket in the snow. Then we built a jump onto a table and took photos of everyone jumping off it doing silly things like holding the massive blow up roo that we carried around all day! At about 3pm we all headed back down the mountain in convoy wearing our aussie flags, VB Beanies and screaming "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie" at the top of our lungs. Everyone in Vail loved to join in and learn how proud us Aussies truely are :) It was so incredible to be in a different country - in a small little town like Vail and to find THAT many Australians who were ready to party and have fun and celebrate us all being on this big adventure. It was truely like being at home away from home! THANK YOU SO MUCH! You have been great!
Hannah, Uni Newcastle - Working Holiday USA 2010/2011
When I was at Kirkwood I was working in tickets, guest services, ticket checking, lift attendant and general snow removal. Kirkwood is amazing; everyone I worked with was amazing, even the bosses were cool. I was living in staff accommodation that I shared a room with one person but the flat accommodated for 8 which was awesome. We all got along so well and partied together all the time and it was really cheap. I visited 3 states all up: California, Nevada and New York which was amazing. The longest road trip I had was driving from San Diego to San Francisco and then to Redding it was amazing. The whole 3.5 months was a massive memory but defiantly seeing snoop dog in South Lake Tahoe was amazing. Any recommendation I’d have for people going over would be to have as much fun as possible, never pass up any opportunity to travel anywhere and live it up.The whole time I had was amazing and I’ve defiantly made some friends I’ll keep in contact with for a life time.
Angus, RMIT Melbourne - Work Experience USA 2010
I just got back from my Work Experience USA Program and had a great time, it was my 4th winter on the program and I just love it. I worked at Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia as a Ski and Snowboard Instructor. It is one of the only mountains where you can jump straight in with no experience or qualifications and become an Instructor, in fact, they actually pay you while they're giving you the training to become an Instructor. I had such a positive experience at snowshoe. Snowshoe is also a resort that relies on foreign workers during the winter months and so takes really good care of them with perks like ski in/ski out accommodation, up to 55% off retail and food, and staff nights every Tuesday. It’s also a smaller mountain than a lot CCUSA works with, so you really get a great little sense of community. Even after spending a year road tripping around the US, most of my memorable experiences were at snowshoe (including a chairlift crawl instead of a pub crawl, getting my level II snowboard instructing certification and having a hallway X-mas party with people, food and presents from 9 countries. Cheers
Ellen, Uni Melb – Work Experience 2007 - 2010 and Working Holiday USA 2011
I was employed by Big Sky Resort to work as a Front Desk Attendant for their summer season of 2009. I travelled to Big Sky with a friend from university in South Australia. We both had an amazing time. The resort is at an amazing location up in the mountains about 45 minutes from Bozeman and an hour from Yellowstone National Park. During our time in Big Sky we were able to experience some incredible things such as white water rafting, horse riding, zip-lining, hiking, trips to Yellowstone and even a Presidential visit with Barrack Obama and his family coming to the resort for a weekend!
The people that we were worked with were great. They were all very friendly across all departments, always willing to help and keen to learn about Australia. There was also a great social scene at the resort with most employees staying together in employee housing, about a 5 minute walk from the resort. After work, there were three bars that were always full of employees and guests every night of the week. The closest town, Bozeman is a college and so is highly populated with young people and also a great place to party for Big Sky residents.
One of the best things about working at Big Sky was that it allowed us to experience a different part of the America that a lot of people would never see. The mountains and snow were vastly different to Adelaide and we were surrounded by wildlife such as bears, moose and dear on a daily basis.
Jacob, Uni of Adelaide, Working Holiday USA 2009/2010