February
We do some research about the 6 months tourist visa B2 for the USA for Loïc. It's very difficult to obtain that kind of visa. You have to prove to the consular officer that: you are not planning to immigrate to the USA and that you have the financial resources to spend 6 months in the USA without working illegally. To prove that you don’t intend to immigrate to the USA, you have to have strong links to France. Since we don’t own a house in France, having an employment contract waiting for Loïc when he comes back would be the only way to have a chance to obtain his visa B2.
At first we were thinking that Loïc could apply for the B2 visa rather early and if denied wait a few months and then apply for the Visa Waiver Program (the VWP is a program of the United States Government which allows citizens of specific countries to travel to the United States for tourism, business, or while in transit for up to 90 days without having to obtain a visa).
But during our research, we discovered that if once in your life you are denied a visa for the USA, you are then forbidden for life the right of obtaining a VWP. We then started to realize that in those conditions it was very risky to ask for a B2 visa. Even for an airplane connection through the USA you have to ask for a VWP!
We understood that Loïc should not apply for the visa if he wasn’t sure that he could keep his job. That’s why he intended to wait July to ask his boss a one year leave and if accorded he would then try to ask for the visa.
After this research we started to realize that it would be more difficult that we first thought to have the B2 visa. That’s why we started considering spending only 3 months in the USA: Loïc wouldn’t need a visa because the VWP allows him to spend 3 months in the USA (IF you manage to convince the immigration officer that you are not going to stay illegally or work illegally and that you really need to spend three months in the USA!!!).
Nathalie was very disappointed about that because she had started to imagine all she would like to do during a six months trip: try to buy a car and do a big road trip.
Since Nathalie really wanted to visit Louisiana and Loïc Florida, we decided that if we could only spend three months in the USA we would go to Louisiana, Florida and then Oregon and California to visit family and friends. Savannah, Charleston, Tennessee, Route 66, the Western National Parks and Yellowstone would have to wait for another trip!
Anyhow, buying a car and selling it when leaving the USA might have been very difficult. Because buying a car when you don't have an american driving licence seems to be quite impossible. In fact, buying a car is easy but the problem is getting an insurance and a licence plate.
Now we are thinking of renting a car for 2 times 2 weeks to visit Louisiana and Florida. While wwoofing we will probably don't need a car too much.
Initially, we wanted to spend 6 months in the USA and then 3 months in New-Zealand. Since we might only be able to spend 3 months in the USA, we would then spend 6 months in New-Zealand with a Working Holiday Visa (WHV).
A working holiday visa is a residence permit which allows travelers to undertake employment (and sometimes study) in the country issuing the visa for the purpose of supplementing their travel funds.
Obtaining a WHV should not be difficult because New-Zealand doesn’t apply quota concerning French citizens.
We are planning to do more wwoofing in NZ and maybe work if we need to financialy. Lots of people with a WHV work in fruit picking where it's quite easy to find a job and travel every 2 or 3 weeks.
We also started to plan our 3 months in Asia (January to March 2016). We decided to spend 1 month in Indonesia (rather than 15 days in Indonesia and 15 days in Cambodia), 1 month in Burma and 1 month in Thailand.
Also in February, we exchanged our first e-mails with Zip World, an agency specialized in World tour airplanes tickets. They told us that the 4 following flights: France/USA + USA/New-Zealand + New-Zealand/Indonesia + Thailand/France should cost us, in total, 1800-1900 euros per person. The flights Indonesia/Burma and Burma/Thailand would have to be taken separately, with Air Asia for example.
To obtain cheaper/est tickets, we have to arrive/leave from big airports. That meant for the USA: New-York, Dallas, San Francisco or Los Angeles, for New-Zealand: Auckland, for Indonesia: Jakarta and for Thailand: Bangkok. It was important for us to learn that because it has an influence on our itinerary. Therefore we would have to visit Burma before Thailand because our flight back to France would be from Bangkok, Rangoon not being possible.
They also told us that we should leave France between March 1st and 31st to get the cheapest tickets. Our dates were becoming more precise! Including weather and temperatures in the different countries and the financial aspect (one more month to save money) we started planning leaving France at the end of March.
May
We started thinking about what we would like to do during our three months in Asia.
In January 2016 we should be in Indonesia, probably Java and Bali islands.
While doing research about what we would like to do in Burma, we realized that we would again be facing issues with the visa. Burma being still quite closed to foreigners, you have to get a 30 days visa to travel to Burma. You can only arrive in international airports, and foreigners cannot cross the border between Thailand and Burma by car.
Also you must do your visa application only 3 months before traveling from your country of residence. Since in December we would be in New-Zealand it would be impossible for us. We could have tried to get a visa for Burma while we were in Indonesia but it seemed a bit complicated. Also since Burma is the new “country to visit”, prices are increasing very fast and we were afraid it would be a bit expensive for us.
So we decided not to go to Burma but to Vietnam instead. In February, the weather is not very good in North Vietnam (Hanoï, Halong Bay): it can be cloudy and rainy. So we planned to spend one month in Center and South Vietnam: Hué, Ho-Chi-Min City, Mekong delta.
In march, our last country will be Thailand. We don't know yet where we'll be going after visiting Bangkok and it's area. Maybe in the north-west or north-east mountains or maybe in the southern islands. We are thinking of deciding our itinerary at the last minute depending on what we have done in Indonesia and Vietnam.
July
In July, Loïc had an appointment with the Human Resources Director of his enterprise. He explained our project and asked for a one year unpaid leave. Two weeks later he received an e-mail saying his application was denied because his job couldn't stay vacant for a whole year.
The consequence of not having a one year unpaid leave is that he won't be able to ask for a visa B2 and therefore we won't be able to spend six months but only three in the USA.
We were disappointed to learn that, but since February we mostly had dropped the idea of spending six months in the USA.
So here's how we will be spending our three months in the USA :
- Louisiana : 1 month (April) : two weeks Wwoofing + two weeks visiting the state
- Florida : 1 month (May) : two weeks Wwoofing + two weeks visiting the state
- Oregon + California (June)
In July, we also registered on wwofusa.org and were then able to read about all 13 farms in Louisiana and 43 farms in Florida. We selected the farms we were most interested in for both states.
Then, we asked Zip world for a first cost estimate. They offered a 1600 euros airplane ticket for the following flights: Paris/Dallas, Los Angeles/Auckland, Auckland/Jakarta, Bangkok/Paris.
We were pleasantly surprised about the cost, we were thinking of something around 2500 euros.
We planned to buy the tickets at the end of October, once Nathalie was sure that the hospital where she works would give her a one year leave. Of course we knew that the more we wait, the more prices would increase but it was a bit scary to finalize things very early.
September
Mid-September Nathalie started doing extra work: three hours a week of homework assistance with a 6th grade young boy as well as continuing with a 7th grade boy she was already helping last year. The lessons are in the evening once she finishes work. It’s sometimes tiring, but really necessary to help her saving enough money for the world tour!
On September 13th, we had an appointment with the Société Générale bank. They have an interesting international package with no charges on all payments and cash withdrawals all over the world.
We also made researches about travel insurances. We decided to take a 12 months travel insurance rather than using our debit card insurance for the first 3 months and then a travel insurance for the following 9 months. If ever something happens to us while in the USA the care could not be adequate with the debit card insurance and we would have to pay for medical and then hope to be reimbursed.
October
Nathalie had an appointment with the care director of her hospital to explain our project and ask for a one year given extended leave. The care director told her that as a hospital civil servant she had the wright to ask for it and it should be granted without difficulties.
Nathalie spent 5 days in Dordogne. She spent a lot of time on the computer and got a bit crazy about passport issues!!!
These were the 3 options she was considering :
- Using both her American and French passport. She would use her American passport to enter and leave the USA and then her French passport for the other countries. But could she be in trouble if she arrive in New-Zealand presenting her French passport with no signs of her stay in the USA ?
- Using only her American passport. She didn’t feel very comfortable about that, feeling “more French than American”.
- Using only her French passport. Then she would need to ask for a VWP to spend three months in the USA and she would have to justify the length of her stay.
So after e-mailing the American Embassy in Paris and the American Immigration Department she understood that she should really use her American passport in the USA because “U.S. citizens who are also citizens of another nation are reminded that U.S. law requires they enter and depart the United States carrying a valid U.S. passport. U.S. citizens who attempt to travel to the U.S. from a foreign country on foreign passports risk being denied boarding or re-entering pending acquisition of a valid U.S. passport.”
But using only her American passport would meant asking for her WHV for New-Zealand as an American. It could have been an issue because one of the condition was to live in the USA!
So she e-mailed the French embassy in New-Zealand, the New-Zealand embassy in Paris, and New Zealand Immigration Services in London to know if she could use her French passport to enter NZ even if not using it in the USA. She started to “see the light at the end of the tunnel” when someone from the New Zealand Immigration Services told her “You can use your French passport if this is easier for you. There will be no problem if you will enter New Zealand with a different passport from the one you have used to leave the USA.”. She could barely believed it and to be really sure she called the 24/7 Immigration call center in New-Zealand who confirmed that she could use her French passport to enter NZ!!!
So she will be able to use her American passport in the USA and her French passport for the rest of the trip.
In October, we bought our plane tickets: Yeahhhh! We’ll be leaving France and flying from Paris to Dallas on March 27th.The cost hadn’t gone up too much since July: 1638 euros per person. For Loïc this was a big thing : it made the whole thing much more real.
November
At the beginning of November, we asked for our Working Holiday Visa for New-Zealand. Less than a week later we both received a positive answer! We'll be able to spend 6 months in New-Zealand traveling, wwoofing and working.
In November, we wrote to a farm near New-Orleans, Louisiana, but unfortunately they could not host us because they were going to have a baby in March.
At the end of the month, we wrote to Mary from Keachi Acres farm near Shreveport in North Louisiana. This didn’t seem the most interesting area of Louisiana, but Mary seemed very nice and interesting and comments from other wwoofers were very good. Three days later she answered us saying she would like to host us in April but that she would only be sure after Christmas. The work on her farm would be about 5 hours per day, less on weekends. We were happy about that and just had to wait a little to know for sure.
December
On December 17th, we had an appointment at Saint-Antoine Hospital with a doctor in tropical medicine. We did our DTP (Diphteria-Tetanus-Poliomyelitis) booster, a Hepatitis A and a Typhoid fever vaccinations.
He told us to think about doing vaccinations against rabies and Japanese encephalitis.
Conclusion
So the pieces are starting to come together, this is a first idea of our stay in the USA :
- March 27th: landing in Dallas 4:00pm, night in Dallas
- March 28th: Greyhound bus from Dallas to Shreveport, Mary picks us and we go to her farm
- March 29th to April 10th: Wwoofing at Keachi Acres near Shreveport, Louisiana
- April 11th to April 14th: visiting New-Orleans. We’ll be able to enjoy the French Quarter Jazz Festival during 2 days !
- April 15th to April 25th: renting a car and visiting Louisiana (Cajun country, plantations, Lafayette, Baton Rouge…)
- Around April 25th: Greyhound bus from New-Orleans to Florida
- April 26th to May to May 9th: Wwoofing at Caceres Organic Blueberry Farms near Gainesville, Florida
- May 10th to May 24th : renting a car and visiting Florida (the parks in Orlando, Miami, the Everglades, the Keys, Florida’s West coast…)
- Around May 26th: airplane from Florida to Oregon
- May 26th to June 5th, approximately: visit Oregon and friends. We haven’t planned anything not having a guidebook about Oregon. We trust that the people we’ll stay with there will advise us about “must see” stuff.
- June 5th to June 23rd, approximately: visit California, friends and family: San Francisco, Monterey, Fresno, Yosemite National park... Since we’ll be leaving for New-Zealand from Los Angeles, we’ll visit San Francisco + Bay area and then Fresno + Yosemite…
- June 23rd: airplane from Los Angeles (?) to Auckland via Sydney.
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