Kapitola 19 - Important information, contacts and recommendations

In this chapter, the author provides useful information, contacts, and recommendations for various aspects of travel. They provide their website and social media contacts for further communication. They recommend applying for a travel and bank card from Revolut or WISE for easy money transfers. They also mention various websites and books for travel information and advice. The author recommends using Codesurfing for free accommodation and provides information on English schools, car rentals, gas stations, and ferry services in New Zealand. They also discuss mobile applications, internet connection, banking services, gyms, and laundry facilities in New Zealand. The author provides information on obtaining a working holiday visa, buying and selling a car, and activities and attractions in Taupo, Rotorua, and Mexico. They also mention their stay in the Netherlands and Sardinia, including a recommended agency and book. Chapter 19. Important information, contacts and recommendations. Dear friends, as promised in this chapter I provide useful information, links to various websites and applications as well as contacts for people who have helped me in my journey through life. If you would like to ask me something else or you don't want to wait for my planned lectures in various places in the Czech Republic, feel free to contact me via my website, Facebook, Instagram or TikTok. I will be happy to give you advice or connect you with other people who can help you. You can also search for me on the internet by entering my full name Dagmar Honisova, D-A-G-M-A-R H-O-N-Y-I-S-O-V-A. You can easily find me because only our family has this surname in the entire Czech Republic. Important websites and emails www.skustcestusdagmar.com, skustcestusdagmar at atlas.cz, info at skustcestusdagmar.com. Before any travel abroad, I recommend that you apply for a travel and bank card from Revolut, thanks to which you will be able to transfer and change money in any currency online. The WISE card works on a similar principle. Before my trip to Mexico, I bought two books about travel with a lot of useful and up-to-date information. Travel Jobs and Travel Bible by Matouš Viņš and Petr Novák. Sonička, i.e. Sonia Bulbeck, a Slovak writer and blogger who has traveled a lot, will be happy to give you advice on traveling around the world. www.facebook.com forward slash Sonia Bulbeck www.blogosphera.cz forward slash author forward slash Sonia Bulbeck. My friend Pavla, who you can find on Instagram as at pjdigi.sphere www.instagram.com forward slash pjdigi.sphere, will also be happy to share her experiences not only from England. I'm also attaching a recommendation for an original crazy travel website by Milada or Millie, who I also mention in the book www.millimundo.com and who is now back in Slovakia where she writes and gives travel lectures, which I also plan to do. I know about Codesurfing www.codesurfing.com from her. This service in the form of a social network mediates free accommodation around the world. The application costs approximately 70 Czech crowns per month or 400 Czech crowns per year. New Zealand English schools in New Zealand that I personally visited Language School New Zealand www.lsnz.co.nz Southern Lakes English College SLEC www.slec.co.nz Public bus transport in New Zealand www.bcard.co.nz Car rentals The rental fee is around $30 per day. You can use these services. A to B rentals www.azcarrental.co.nz Ace car rentals www.acerentalcars.co.nz Bargain rental cars www.bargainrentalcars.co.nz Omega www.omegarentalcars.com The mobile application Gaspi will find you the cheapest gas station in the vicinity. It's also worth buying a customer card for one of the gas stations. For example, Mobil has a discount of 6 cents per liter. The last time I filled up for $70, I saved almost $3. I also had a lot of other apps downloaded, but I never used them. They just took up space on my phone. Then I deleted them. There is a boat transport between the islands. Ferries that transport people and cars. Their route runs from Wellington to Picton. Ferry services are operated by InterIslander www.interislander.co.nz Price from $313 for two people and a campervan. Modified utility vehicle with full campervan facilities. Price for pedestrians from $65 and Bluebridge www.bluebridge.co.nz Price from $261 for two people and a campervan. Price for pedestrians from $53. The transport time is about 3.5 hours. Boats depart 5-6 times a day. Prices vary depending on the date and how far in advance, it can be several months, you buy the ticket. I took the advice from Melada and used the Bluebridge, departing on May 29, 2023 at 2 am, the Wellington to Nelson route. It cost me $179 even with my self-contained car. There were very few passengers on board and we were two hours late. The seasonal fruit picking work. I recommend following the various Facebook working holiday groups that post daily, which is also a guarantee that the site is active or www.picknz.co.nz Supermarkets for affordable grocery shopping, pack and save or countdown. Clothing, car accessories, exercise weights and sundries. Kmart or Warehouse or Repco. Internet connection. Spark www.spark.co.nz I bought a SIM card with three months of data for $129 with a capacity of 100 gigabytes. This SIM card can only be purchased at the airport. I ran out of data after a month. The card cannot be recharged. It's necessary to buy a new one with a new number. Then I switched to TravelSIM from Vodafone for three months with 100 gigabytes and calls to different countries. After the data is exhausted, the card continues to work, but more slowly. You have 300 minutes of calls to 20 countries for free, but you cannot call the Czech Republic or Slovakia with it. Even in this case, after three months, it's necessary to buy a new card with a new number. You can buy this SIM card in a regular store. I also recommend you to use local libraries. They work great here. You will meet a lot of interesting people from all over the world, connect to Wi-Fi everywhere and save your data. I mostly use the application WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger for communication and Google Maps for traveling, which I turned off the data after loading. I've been using the Wikicamps application all along to search for camps where overnight stays are free. Washing clothes. There are public laundromats everywhere where you can wash and dry your clothes for a few dollars. The price for 25 minutes of washing and 25 minutes of drying is $10. Sometimes you need a special card for this, which you can buy for $1 and then charge it directly at the laundromat. You can also pay by bank card or coins. I tried all three variants. You have to have your own laundry detergent, unlike for example in Sardinia where the detergent was included in the price. By the way, the laundromat is my favorite place for meeting people and taking pictures. Banking services. I recommend you to use the services of ASB Bank Ltd. www.asb.co.nz. It's best to go to the branch first thing in the morning when it opens, so that you are the first one there, right after your flight to Auckland. ASB is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Their Auckland address is 300 Queen Street, Auckland, 1010. Gyms. Jets, City Fitness, Anytime, Flex Fitness. There is also an all-female gym too. I mentioned the prices in the chapter Kiwi, Tangerines, Lemons and much more. In Invercargill, a monthly membership to the student gym costs $15. I've also tried public pools in bigger cities, where you can take a shower for $2 to $4. But I also experienced that in Auckland they wanted $20 for one entry and in Gisborne $30 for five entries. Visa. To apply for a working holiday visa, you must register on the immigration website. https://onlineservices.immigration.govt.nz?whs and complete the application form. You must have an ID and passport valid for at least one more year after entering New Zealand. You must also meet the age limit of 18 to 35 years. You will pay approximately 7,500 CZK for issuing visa. You also need to take out health insurance for your stay in New Zealand. The agency www.visitkiwi.cz helped me with all these matters. The whole time I was attended to by a wonderful person, ING Audreychter. www.novi-zeeland.biz I handled the sale and purchase of a car using the Facebook marketplace. www.facebook.com forward slash marketplace You can arrange a transcript in New Zealand at the post office in a few minutes and it costs $9. For car insurance, you need to make an appointment at a branch of the relevant insurance company. They will be happy to advise you on this at the post office. Tandem skydiving in Taupo. My instructor, Elad Berger. www.taupotandemskydiving.com Information centre in Rotorua where I bought the tours. www.rotoruanz.com Rotorua tree walks at night. www.treewalk.co.nz Visit to a Maori village with a dance performance. www.vakarewarewa.com Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland, about 20km from Rotorua. www.waiotapu.co.nz Hobbiton, a fairytale village from the filming of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. About 10km from the city of Matamata. www.hobbitontours.com Mexico Manager of Hotel Las Perlas in Cancun, Enrique Gracia. www.hotelinperialcancun.com If you tell him you are from Dagmar, he will help you with everything. Teotihuacan I recommend you visit the Pyramid of the Sun. Entrance fee is 19 pesos. You can stay in the Cactus Club Cuarzo apartments located in the city centre. You can book accommodation via www.trivago.com You can order trips from Cancun at www.excaret.com or www.excaretexpeditions.com You can buy a SIM card in Mexico for a few pesos. Just ask the locals and they will show you where to go. I used a car from the mobile operated Telcel for 9 pesos. I had 3GB of data per month. The Netherlands The Slovak agency that mediated my stay in the Netherlands for a fee of 75 euros is called Universal Consulting. www.universalconsulting.sk Email tn at universalconsulting.sk I recommend you to contact BC Benjamin Wilam, with whom I handled everything. This agency also provides you with work in other countries, for example in Ireland, Germany, Austria and also in the Czech Republic. SIM card I used an Italian phone number during my entire stay. I recharged it 3 times from Italy, which was the most convenient for me. Regarding the SIM card, I recommend you consult the locals. They will be happy to help you and direct you. Sardinia The School of Emotional Independence Giacomo Pappasidero www.diventerfellici.it G. Pappasidero's book Independenza emotiva Imparare a essere felici Emotional Independence Learn to be happy https://www.amazon.it www.diventerfellici.it The book is available in Italian in electronic form for €13. I recommend opening it in the Google Chrome browser, where you can set the translation to any language. My favourite coach Serena Sironi www.seresiros.it Ferries I used www.terrenia-trageti.it www.mobilines.com Supermarket Eurospin The mobile provider is called HO Mobile and I had 70 GB for €7 a month. You just need to find store branches on the internet or ask the locals. The mechanic friend who took care of my car in Sardinia Carmande Dimassimo Via Cagliari 16709170 Orestano Phone 39 0783 777 054 Phone Car service website where you can find it www.topcarorestano.it If you need anything related to the sale and purchase of a car throughout Sardinia, contact him. Thanks to him, I managed to sell my car in 10 days and was able to fly to the other side of the world. My long time hairdresser who cut my hair the best Daniel Parruccieri Via Baccelli 235 Tralba Phone number Plus 39 328 332 8755 The best farm I have tried so far is Sa Contissa. It's owned by Filip Strebel and his wife Verena, originally from Switzerland. In 2017, Filip and Verena decided to go to Sardinia and spend the rest of their lives here. After 35 years of office and mental work, they were looking for a joint project in the south of Europe. They offer vacation rentals for their friends. They have 8 hectares of land where they grow olives, vines and citrus. He can arrange a working stay combined with a holiday. He can communicate with them in German, English and Italian. Feel free to tell them you are from Dagmar. www.sacontissa.it Phone number Plus 39 345 7676798 Of course, I have many more contacts in Sardinia, but not all of them are relevant for travelers. In addition, there are many websites full of information about Sardinia. However, if you want to know more, feel free to contact me. Audiobook read by Lenka Klever