Thanks!  No specific questions yet.  I’ve got figure out how to get an overseas job, questions may be yet to come.

I guess you must be American so don’t have much of a choice but to go through BUNAC but I just wanted to point out that it’s a huge waste of money if you’re from a country with a regular Working Holiday Program in place. If you’re able to get a visa on your own through the country’s High Commission or Embassy then the cost of the visa will be less than half of programs like BUNAC (and SWAP, for that matter). I guess this advice is mainly for people from Commonwealth countries, but Americans who are going to NZ can also get the visa pretty easily on their own from what I understand so save your pennies, do a bit of research and don’t be duped into thinking programs like BUNAC and SWAP are the only way.

Lots of countries have reciprocal arrangements for working holiday visas (WHV). The only country the States has a working holiday arrangement with is New Zealand. So for most countries that have the WHV programme, citizens are able to go straight to the embassy or high commission of the coutnry they want to go to, get the applications and apply for the visa ‘on their own.’ For US citizens to get a visa to the UK though they can’t do it on their own, they must go through BUNAC because there’s no WHV programme in place. There’s some other visa programme but it’s administered through BUNAC so any Yank who wants a visa to the UK has no choice but to go though BUNAC. This is a lot more expensive than what a Canadian would pay to ‘do it themselves’ and the visa is 6 months instead of the 24 month visa granted to Canadians (and other COmmonwealth nations). Does this all make sense?
 
Just to let you know though, there’s no European working visa… you’ll need to pick a country and see if they issue visas to Americans. As far as I know, Ireland and the UK are the only choices but I could be wrong. Have a great trip!