The stress is over. You have successfully received your passport and vignette allowing you to call the UK your temporary home. Your flight is booked, you have a place to stay while you hunt for flats, everything is organized. Well, there are still a few things you need to do before you are officially a…
Hi there! I suspect if you’ve found your way to this Frequently Asked questions, it’s because you’re planning on applying for your UK Youth Mobility Visa – welcome! If you haven’t read YMS visa application guide yet, read this first. Just as for the application guide post, the same applies for the FAQ: If you…
I can’t believe it’s been four years since I moved to London on the UK Youth Mobility Visa! Since then, I’ve received thousands of comments and emails, and met with a dozen people who moved to the UK or wanted to. Over the years, I have read their stories and responded to their questions.…
About This Guide This is a step-by-step guide to applying for a Tier 5 YMS visa for the UK, while located outside the UK. If you’re reading this post, I suspect you’re considering or are in the process of applying for your Tier 5 Youth Mobility Visa for the United Kingdom. Welcome! Before we get started,…
Yes, the ever-elusive ‘how to make friends in London’ situation. It’s funny when you think about it: it’s one of the few things we actually get worse at as we get older. Since university I’ve watched my circle of friends dwindle1 with no signs of it abating. So, when I started writing this post, my first thought…
Home It’s an elusive term, isn’t it? It’s why we have so many aphorisms about it: “Home is where the heart is.” “A man [sic] travels to figure out what he’s looking for and returns home to find it.” “Home is where I can look and feel ugly and enjoy it.” Okay, maybe not…
(Goodness I’m melodramatic!) Things are slow here on the blog, but it certainly hasn’t felt that way for me on the ground. I got back to Canada at the end of August and started my MA program just over a week later. I barely had time to reconnect with friends, many of whom I haven’t…
Flat hunting in London is a harrowing experience. I get a lot of questions about it from readers but I have put off writing about it because it’s an elaborate issue and it requires a lot of attention to detail. There are so many factors involved that this post will have a lot of little…
Hi Alyssa! I got my visa in June and I’m due to leave first week of September. I’m just wondering, should I mention that I have the Youth Mobility Visa on my CV or cover letter? How did you go about doing this? Additionally, I’ve got an honours degree in Sociology from the University of…
Tax season is around the corner and that means I’ve been getting frantic emails from readers about paying taxes in the UK and whether they have to file a tax return in Canada while living abroad. It turns out this stuff really isn’t as complicated as I thought! The short answer is yes, in most cases…
