Here are a few of the most common questions people ask me when they find out I’m moving to New Zealand. Feel free to ask me any other questions you may have!
How long are you going to New Zealand for?
Here is a step by step breakdown of my plan.
What’s the time difference there?
Depending on what time of year it is, New Zealand is either 16, 17, or 18 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time in the States. They observe Daylight Savings Time, too, but they don’t do it on the same days the year as we do, meaning that the time difference changes four times a year (welcome to my world 🤯). In order to make things easier for my family and friends, I created a little time-difference-conversion-chart for everyone to tape on their fridge back home. (Yes, everyone can add Auckland time to their phones, but how much more fun is a homemade chart!). I’m going to dedicate a whole blog post to the “time difference” thing and I’ll be sure and post my conversion chart.
Aren’t you going to miss your family and friends?
Oh god yes. That’s going to be the hardest part of all of this, no question. I’m very close with my parents (literally; I’ve been living with them for the past 3.5 years 😆), my sister is my best friend in the whole world, my sister’s partner is fantastic, I have an incredible group of close friends, and I love spending time with all of them. So yeah; I am anticipating that, at times, this will be very hard.
However, I’ve been easing all of us into this. I went to NZ for two weeks in July 2022, then for three months at the start of 2023, and now I’m hopefully going for 6-7 months, and then coming home to visit for a bit, and then going back to NZ for one year. When I apply for a resident visa I need to stay in the country for 12 months, but once that visa is granted, I will be able to come and go from the country whenever I want (it’s referred to as an “open visa”). I’m using the fact that I can’t leave NZ for a year as leverage to get my family to come and visit me, which will also make the distance a bit more tolerable.
And thankfully, keeping in touch today is easier than it’s ever been. I can talk on the phone and video chat for free via WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, FaceTime, etc. I constantly post photos and stories and updates to social media (and now to my blog!) so that everyone can keep up with my life abroad. And I’m a huge fan of letters and care packages. So yes, I’m going to miss everyone a lot, but we’re all in agreement that this is the absolute best possible thing I could be doing. I’m also comforting myself by reminding myself that I’ve absolutely gone 6+ months before without seeing some of my favorite people. It may feel longer since I’ll be 9,000 miles away, but it’s a good thing to keep in mind.
One last thing while we’re talking about this: I never want to go more than a year without coming back to the States to see my friends and family. Ideally, I’ll be able to come back twice a year. Flying back and forth is expensive, but it’s so important to me that I’ll make it happen no matter what.
Speaking of money….
How can you afford this? Where are you getting the money?
Okay, no one has actually asked me this, but I’m sure people are curious because I sure as hell would be. I also want to address this since I’ve promised to be as transparent as possible on this blog.
Towards the end of 2019, I was going through a divorce and trying to figure out where I was going to move (not to mention what I was going to do with my life, which was essentially capsizing). A friend of mine happened to need a house/dog/cat sitter for four months, starting the day I needed to find a place to live. It was the most amazing, serendipitous, meant-to-be, win-win situation. Just a few days after my friend and I came up with this plan, I moved to the North Shore of Boston and lived with her giant goofball dog and her grumpy, lovable old cat for four months. During those four months, I worked full-time: continuing my job as the events manager for a café (working remotely) and working for a holistic medicine practitioner (Hi Dr. D!). So I was working two jobs and not paying rent.
I went to New Zealand for the Month of March 2020. The friend that I went with is thrifty, like me, so we ended up having an amazing trip on a fairly shoestring budget. I want to say that including airfare, the whole trip cost me maybe $2,500, which isn’t nothing, but it’s about half of what most people spend to go to NZ for a month.
My post-NZ plan was to crash with my parents on the Cape for about six months and get a job as a waitress or a bartender to bank some money while also figuring out what I was doing with my life. I landed on the Cape in early April 2020 aaaaaand then Covid hit, and all of our collective plans went up in smoke. None of us knew what was going to happen, but I can’t not work, so within a few weeks I’d landed a job at one of the only places that was hiring: a landscaping company. I worked as a landscaper/gardener full-time (often more than full time) from April 2020 through the end of December 2023, saving as much money as I could for my move. (I’m also a working artist and have an (albeit modest) income from art sales).
So the short answer as to where I’m getting the money: it’s a combination of hard work, serendipity, and a pandemic.