I suggest to start locally as it will be more comfortable from a social/cultural standpoint.

I do see your point, but I wonder if it's quite the same for people in AUS/NZ. I met a NZ academic once who was in the UK (demonstrating a system to gauge the quality of Kiwi fruit IIRC) who explained that they were pretty much expected to visit UK or the US on their regular sabbaticals - partly it seemed they felt a little cut-off from the rest of the world simply by geography and wanted to counter that, and the common language, culture and to a large extent common standards, made the process a lot easier than perhaps would be the case for many other countries in between.

   - Andy.

Hello Andy:

My original response to this inquiry took into account the location (Australia) where the question came from.

I have a keen interest in what is developing/happening in Australia, as I have family living on it's East Coast.

Peter Brooks

Palm Bay