Culture shock on a Working Holiday Visa

After a few weeks or months, the newness fades away and you start to build a routine. You have to constantly adjust your behaviour to fit in with how life works in your WHV country. You realise that you don’t have your bearings; things that used to be easy to do now feel complicated.

The honeymoon phase has well and truly worn off and you find yourself longing for home comforts. The pain of missing family and friends can creep in, even if you’ve got wonderful new friends around you. You struggle with the battle between wanting to admit to the people at home that you’re finding things difficult, or pretending everything is great because, after all, it was your choice to move away.

During the homesickness phase, you can feel disillusioned with your WHV country. You might be coping with extra pressures of a language barrier, as well as cultural differences. You can get tired of the constant need to dissect and analyse everything.

Possible emotions you might experience during the homesickness phase

• Nostalgia
• Depression
• Loneliness and missing a sense of belonging
• Isolation and withdrawal
• Lack of motivation
• Feeling incompetent
• Loss of confidence
• Feeling of instability
• Confusion
• Frustration
• Anxiety or stress
• Irritability
• Hostility towards the WHV country and its locals
• Anger

In addition to these emotions, you may experience physical symptoms such as fatigue, headaches and loss of appetite. We talk more about the impact of a WHV on your body in Changes in your body that you might experience on a WHV.

Examples

“How rude of the waiter to always bring the bill before I’ve finished enjoying my meal. They would never do that at home!”

“It’s exhausting trying to remember to drive on the left here.”

“$7 for a bell pepper? That’s outrageous. I can’t wait to go home where I can actually afford to buy groceries.”

What you can do to manage your homesickness

This stage of culture shock is usually the hardest, so it’s important to be kind to yourself. At the same time, you must endeavour to stay active and avoid withdrawing into a lonely or depressive state too much. Closing yourself off and staying in this phase will make things worse; you either need to push through and try to enjoy the rest of your WHV, or make the decision to go home early.

Here are some ideas of how you can reconnect with your WHV country and remember the reasons why you came:

• Identify something you like about your new culture. Maybe it’s appreciating a stroll along the beach, a good coffee, a hike in the mountains, learning to surf, wine tasting at a vineyard, etc. If you don’t already have something in mind, go looking to find the positives.
• Revisit the plans you made before you left. Do you still have new cities to see or that road trip to take? Book in some travel to have something to look forward to. Do you still want to get better at the local language? Book a language course or find a study group to practice with! Take active steps to make your WHV goals come true.
• Find a backpacker community in your area. This is helpful for being able to speak to people going through the same feelings, but also because backpackers tend to be more active in making social plans. Say yes to invitations to nights out, walks, brunches, etc. The more you keep yourself busy, the less time you have to sit and think about home.
• Plan a call with loved ones at home but avoid too much social media outside of this. You can drive yourself crazy looking at photos and thinking of the events you’ve missed out on. If you focus too much on what’s going on at home, you will never give your WHV country a chance.
• Build in rest days. You want to avoid burnout and prioritise self-care, as well as trying to get out into the community. Watch a TV show or film that you know is comforting, or listen to a podcast that makes you laugh.

Finally, it’s important to remember that a WHV is temporary. It’s always worth trying, but the beauty of short-term immigration is that you can be flexible and choose to move on at any time if your current destination isn’t right for you.