A brief history of BUNAC
1962 The British Universities North America Club (BUNAC) was officially founded as a non-profit by university students, Christopher Harbour and Martin Truscott
1963 BUNAC chartered its first transatlantic flight program with 1,530 travellers – a return flight was just £59!
1966 The Exchange Visitor Program – now known as Work USA – was created for UK university students to work over in America
1972 BUNAC’s Summer Camp USA program was established, sending 351 happy campers to work for the summer in the States
1986 After years of lobbying, the Canadian Government gave its approval for a flexible work program – to later become JENZA Work Canada
1988 Our UK program welcomes Australia, New Zealand and Canadian students – now called JENZA Work UK
1989 Our Work Australia program is launched – now known as JENZA Work Australia
1992 BUNAC turns 30 and sends its 150,000th traveller to work overseas
2009 BUNAC becomes a UKVI sponsor for the GAE visa program, now known as JENZA Intern UK
2018 Too cool for ski school, we launch our Work Japan ski season program – now called JENZA Work Japan
2022 We recruit our first Youth Advisory Panel (YAP) of 18-25 year olds to help keep Gen Z voices at the centre of what we do
2023 The JENZA Travel Group, now made up of BUNAC and USIT (our sibling work and travel brand in Ireland), launch our new global work and travel brand JENZA
2023 We launch our Youth Access Scholarship Fund, where we donate 5% of profits to open up work overseas opportunities to more young people
2024 Going back to our 1972 camp roots, BUNAC becomes our global Summer Camp USA provider, with all work and intern programs moving over to our JENZA site
2025 Heroes on the working holiday scene since 1975, our long-standing Canadian partners SWAP join the JENZA Travel fam!
2025 BUNAC joins forces with IENA American Summers to create the ultimate camp dream team – championing one of the lowest program prices in the market