*4.1.2. Insufficient travel budget*

comprehension in the brain in order to generate specific interpretations and judgments [24]. The social construct theory, on the other hand, states that the process of knowledge construction is focused on the product of social constructs based on the inter-subjectivity of knowledge. It centers on the collective understanding of meaning generated through language norms and social interactions. The cognitive development of individuals should be examined within the context of language, community, society, and country [25]. In other words, members of society develop a "collective consciousness" due to their shared norms in society,

Our strategy for participant recruitment first involved posting announcements on websites related to working holidays and then inviting the subsequent participants via snowball sampling. A total of nine participants were interviewed between January and October 2014, who participated in working holidays between 2010 and 2013. The participants were aged between 24 and 35 years and included three males and six females. Among them, two traveled to Australia (anonymous code: A1–A2), four traveled to Canada (anonymous code: C1–C4), and three traveled to Japan (anonymous code: J1–J3). During the later stages of the interview, much of the interview content was repeated, and it was clear that the information had reached saturation. Open-ended in-depth interviews were selected as the main research method. Each interview was conducted in a comfortable and casual atmosphere, and the length was about 2–4 h. Participants' consent to the use of recording equipment was obtained prior to conducting the interviews in order to facilitate subsequent collation and analysis. As this was a recallbased study of traveling behaviors, participants were advised before the interview to bring along items that may enhance their memories, such as diaries, photographs, souvenirs, etc. These items facilitated the participants' recall of their traveling behavior during their working

thereby reflecting their social and cultural traditions, customs, and beliefs [26].

74 Mobilities, Tourism and Travel Behavior - Contexts and Boundaries

holiday, which enabled them to provide more detailed research data.

**working holiday**

**4.1. Travel obstacles**

*4.1.1. Poor life adaptation*

**4. The internal personal thinking in country decision-making of** 

During the decision-making process of whether to participate in working holidays, influencing factors included the external connectedness of individuals' personal internal motivation and personal resources in terms of psychology, personal budget, and interpersonal relationships. These factors formed travel obstacles or travel incentives, which in turn influenced participants' decision-making process regarding destination country for their working holidays.

To individuals, transitioning from a familiar and comfortable space to an unfamiliar space requires a series of physical and mental adjustments. For example, climate conditions, standard of living, language ability, culture shock, and so forth are sufficient causes of anxiety and fear in working holiday travelers. For instance, a WHM who went to Japan mentioned, To WHMs, the travel budget was one of the necessary factors to consider. A lack of a sufficient financial basis would obstruct their sightseeing. For instance, one of the participants mentioned, *"I wanted to do this a long time ago, but my family's finances did not permit it. Thus, I first had to work to feed myself, and after working for a while, I accumulated some savings" (C2, 2014).* Therefore, without knowing the local work opportunities and living expenses, some of the WHMs chose to enter the workplace first to prepare a certain amount of travel funds in order to prevent the need to end their travels prematurely and return to Taiwan; they ensured that they had sufficient funds for the costs of living before engaging in working holidays in order to reduce the risks caused by an insufficient travel budget. Another participant said, *"Actually, between graduating and traveling abroad, I worked for two to three years and saved up a sum of money. If I really could not find a job, I had some capital that I could spend" (A1, 2014).* Thus, we can see that there is an economic threshold for working holidays. Another WHM, who traveled to Japan, stated, *"My travel funds were actually from the money I saved up after working for four years because my family did not have enough money to support my indulgence for one year" (J2, 2014).*

#### *4.1.3. Family worries*

The parents of most WHMs mainly held a suspicious and worried attitude toward working holidays, and some even opposed the idea. This had a certain impact on the planning and decision-making for working holidays. Reasons for opposition from family members included the long duration, the WHMs' self-care abilities, the nature and content of work, and issues of personal safety. This was because the WHMs often lacked the experience of traveling abroad by themselves when they were growing up. Hence, their parents could not accept that they would be traveling for up to 1 year on their first trip abroad. For example, one participant stated, *"My family's opposition was actually very intense. They felt it was unnecessary, that I have never been abroad but would be going for one year on my first trip" (A2, 2014)*. In addition, the ability to care for themselves was one of the issues that their parents were worried about. For example, a WHM who traveled to Japan said, *"My father hoped that I would not go. Since I could not even fry an egg, he wondered how I was going to survive abroad" (J1, 2014)*. Furthermore, the work that WHMs engaged in were in primary industries, and their families were worried that they could not endure the hardships or were not used to laborious work and were worried about their daily lives. A WHM who engaged in agricultural work in Australia stated, *"At that time, my parents felt that I would not be able to adjust, and would come home after one or two months. At that time, I already knew that I would be picking strawberries (agricultural work), and I would come home if I could not take it" (A1, 2014)*. In addition, there were issues of personal safety, and this was a substantial force of obstruction for the female population. A female WHM who went to Canada stated, *"Our family is a traditional, conservative family, and they are more worried about whether a girl on her own abroad would encounter any dangers" (C4, 2014).*

#### *4.1.4. The impact of intangible forces*

The present study found that when female WHMs were deciding whether to participate in working holidays, they would consult traditional religious beliefs or intangible supernatural forces within Taiwan's cultural atmosphere, such as fortune telling, Tarot cards, and so on. For example, one participant mentioned, *"Because my parents have more traditional views and they believe that girls like me should be married and live a stable life, they had my fortune told" (A1, 2014)*. Although traditional intangible forces are not the main factor influencing decisions to participate in working holidays, they have a certain level of influence. For instance, one participant stated, *"My greatest obstacle was that I had my fortune told and asked whether I should participate in this working holiday. The fortune teller said the outlook was not good, which made me very uneasy at that time, and afraid that I would encounter misfortunes. After that, one of my classmates was learning to read Tarot cards and I asked them to read mine, which also influenced my decision slightly" (C3, 2014).*

#### *4.1.5. Re-analysis*

The present study found that the riskless theories proposed by Golledge and Stimson do not occur readily in real environments [22]. Hence, individuals are often unable to adopt "economic rationality" in their thinking in order to choose the best alternative when deciding to travel. On the contrary, during the decision-making process of participating in working holidays, individuals may face substantial uncertainty when performing weighted analysis of their personal subjective views and preferences and constantly revise their thinking. In addition, the present study also found that travel obstacles that influenced WHMs included leaving their past comfortable "environmental bubble" [27], and the anxiety induced by working alone abroad. In order to eliminate their personal insecurities, some WHMs sought comfort from intangible forces, which is a common phenomenon in Eastern countries, and this had a certain level of influence. Furthermore, WHMs' personal travel budget formed a constraining "economic threshold" in this study, as not all WHMs were able to successfully find suitable jobs when they were traveling. Therefore, during the personal job hunting process, WHMs needed to possess a certain level of finances to meet the initial costs of living in the destination country.
