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