Hi, my name is Sabrina. I'm 18 years old currently. I have my GED and work at a salon. I am looking to move to Melbourne. I have 2 relatives there that are originally from Italy, but other than that I have nobody there for me. After intensive research, I realized that this would be the best place for me to go as they still speak english and their way of life seems to be the most fitting for me. I often feel left out, empty and bored here. I have hardly any friends, and the ones I do have are in different states whom I met on the internet. When I was about 16 I traveled to Italy, Greece and many other countries and I made more friends doing that then I ever had in my whole life. My aunt who has raised me agreed to take me to Australia in October 2010 right before my 19th birthday and stay with me for a bit before "leaving me there". So what I need to know is how can I go about starting my new life? I will probably be able to stay with my relatives for a little while, but they are a married couple older than I am (30 somethings) and I don't want to intrude. I'm mature for my age but I'm sure there's no need for me in their household unless I offer to do housework for them for a little while. Other than that, I need a real job and a residence. I won't need more than a one or two room apartment/flat as I've made the decision to leave my belongings behind for the most part besides clothing and things that are absolutely important to me. I will have money for a plane ticket home incase things don't go as planned, but I really need to figure out the following things:
-How to get a good job
-Transportation
-Where to live
-How much money I will need
-What I need to stay (ie: Their visas? How do they work? I tried researching it but it isn't very clear to me.)
-Anything else I need to know?
Your help is much appreciated. I also eventually want to become an English teacher in Japan, but that's a while down the road for me after this first, probably a little bit less challenging experience. I have always wanted to live in different countries, I never felt quite at home here or in any state I've traveled to in the U.S.
Thanks!
I would appreciate some help please!! From New York to Melbourne.
Sabrina,
To tackle the difficult question first - you will need a visa and they can be incredibly complex to obtain. However, factors such as speaking multiple languages, occupational work experience in select fields, education, sponsoring relatives, young age, etc can assist you to obtain the visa, as it is based on a points system. Start with the official government website: http://www.immi.gov.au/ and click the link "Finding a Visa", which may assist to guide you to the most appropriate visa (start with the work/permanent residency option). Avoid using immigration agents if you can, unless they are also qualified Australian lawyers. In almost all cases work/residency visas must be obtained before entering the country - there is no option to visit and then just hang around. Visas can be expensive and take some time to process as well.
A good place to get an idea about your salary range would be www.seek.com.au. Note that Australia is actually quite expensive, as, believe it or not, house prices have kept going up while the USA and UK have plummeted. Having said that, there are, in my opinion no places in Melbourne (which is my home town) where it would be off-limits to live. If you don't mind living in the outer suburbs, you will find you may be able to live on your salary, although it would be tight. Try www.realestate.com.au and choose the rent tab for Melbourne to have a look at the likely rent you would pay.
Transportation isn't cheap either. Coming from the USA, you will find car and gas prices relatively expensive. Public transport is OK, but the further you go out, the worse it becomes until it is almost unusable in the outer areas. A daily ticket on trains, trams and buses will set you back around AUD11.
Best of luck!
Michael
Thanks Michael. Right now I don't even drive here, but I am lucky enough to get a lift from my aunt when I need to go somewhere and I do have a car but I just really really do not like driving so public transportation will probably remain my main option when if/I move out there. I have a good deal of money in savings from inheritance money and from what will be the eventual sale of my car, and like I said my aunt plans to help me out thankfully, so I think that as long as I can get past the visa stage I will be OK by the looks of some more research I did and your response. It's just the visa thing that is making me nervous considering that my current job definitely won't be enough for them and I'm not sure if my relatives over there would count as a "sponsor". I speak 2 languages including English (Italian being the second and some Spanish even), so I'm fine on that bit. As I'm from NY I think I'm used to high transportation prices, because being on Long Island which is not attached directly to the city it costs about that much to get to the city and back although they have 'deals' like a card you can buy for one week, one month, etc. of transportation. Not sure if you guys have that over there, but I might consider getting a bike to bike to closer distances and hopefully I'll make some friends to get me around to the big leaps. 
I will have a chat with my relatives over there right now about which Visa option they think would be best for me, and with my aunt too. I am praying I can swing this because from what I've read it seems it takes a very long time to get one, and it's not even guaranteed that after all the waiting you'll get there in the end of all that waiting. Another asset is that I have been put back in touch with another Aussie friend of mine who lives in Sydney, so I will be talking to her as well to see if she has any advice. I also plan to go to school to study photography eventually when I get there so I am debating upon the student visa... but that is going to be a lot of money and As you can imagine I need to be sure about this. I also read I must already be accepted into the school which makes sense, but again, makes this another difficult waddle as I only have my GED and while I have only half finished Cosmetology school, I am somewhat nervous of shipping off to a school across the sea and absolutely hating it - but then again, the other part of me says I wouldn't because I really have nothing to lose where I am right now. I do have a photography portfolio, too, so I hope this will aid my case.
Thank you so much for your help. 
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