Handy tasks to complete on pre-emigration holiday

[Zara]

My husband and I were excited to be granted our 190 visa earlier this year and we intend to emigrate in November next year. In the meantime we are taking a holiday this February so that we can make our first entry to Australia before the deadline.

 

During our holiday we will be getting to know the various suburbs around Canberra and finding out where things are. Does anyone have any other recommendations or advice on what other tasks would be handy or important to do during this holiday? We are thinking, for example, that we will get some Australian SIM cards and open up a bank account each.

 

Thanks

[Bungo]

There are really no handy tasks to do on a reccie visit, other than explore. Explore the area to your hearts content, but please do not do anything official. Opening a bank account is so quick and easy that you do not need to do it ten months in advance. Do not register for medicare, do not get a tax file number. These things take five minutes and doing them prematurely will only cause you complications down the line. The only thing worth doing on a reccie visit are to enjoy yourselves and explore.

[Guest]

I'd spend most of the time exploring different neighbourhoods as knowing where you want to live when you arrive will help a lot. It may be worth identifying potential employers so you can hit the ground running when you emigrate (or even a month or two before) - we got job offers on the spot and they paid our relocation but we moved 5 months later not sure many companies would wait 9.

 

There is no point doing anything else until you are a resident - even a SIM card will almost certainly expire if you don't top it up or use it.

[Zara]

Thanks for the advice folks. We'll just explore, relax and enjoy our holiday