As far back as I can remember, I’ve wanted to travel. As a child I was obsessed with pictures of other countries, other people, places that looked radically different from the beaches of Cape Cod where I grew up. I’d go through my parents magazines and find ads for guided hikes through the Andes, African safari tours, all-inclusive cruises to Scandanavia, and clip out the forms and send away for more information. Starting in the late 80s, my parents began receiving a confusingly large number of travel brochures in the mail.
As soon as I could travel, I did. I lived in Germany for a month in high school, The Netherlands for three months in college, and England for six months right after graduation. I spent New Year’s Eve of 2000 in Finland. I went to France with my Mom in 2019, where we both fell in love with Bretagne.
I don’t remember exactly where I first read about New Zealand, but I know that I was young–maybe nine or ten–and that it was love at first sight. I was enchanted by this beautiful, alluring, mysterious, far-away island in the middle of nowhere with these fantastical-looking birds, beautiful people with tattoos on their faces, and mountain ranges that seemed to go on forever. I immediately knew that someday, I wanted to live in that captivating island country in the middle of nowhere. I wanted to visit Costa Rica, Patagonia, France, Thailand, Canada, you name it. But I wanted to live in New Zealand.
I finally made it there in March of 2020 with my friend Sandy. Our plan was to spend the first two weeks exploring the South Island and the last two weeks exploring the North Island. The first two weeks of the trip were nothing short of enchanting; I told everyone back home that our faces hurt from our jaws just hanging open the whole time. We took a Cessna to Doubtful Sound and a boat to Milford Sound. We saw rainforests, glaciers, penguins, dolphins, and more species of New Zealand birds than we could count. Everyone we met was so warm and welcoming and….happy. It was an amazing two weeks. And then, as soon as we got to Wellington to begin our North Island adventures, the pandemic took hold and all of our carefully-laid plans went sideways. Air BnBs canceled on us, our Workaway canceled on us, and we were waking up to dozens of frantic messages from back home, half of them telling us to GET HOME NOW, the other half telling us to STAY WHERE WE WERE. We saw some amazing things on the North Island but ultimately ended up cutting our trip short by a few days. It was a big letdown after all of our excitement and months of planning, but right before we left New Zealand, I met someone. A charming, handsome Kiwi musician with a big smile and a bigger heart. We exchanged numbers and kept in touch.
For two and a half years.
I will write more about our amazing story in another post. For now, just know that in March of 2020, I fell madly in love with New Zealand and, in particular, one of its citizens.
I went back and lived in New Zealand from January of 2023 for three months. It was incredible.
I honestly believe that I would have ended up moving to New Zealand whether or not I’d met this guy. I mean, moving to NZ has been a dream of mine since I was a kid. And within 24 hours of setting foot in that country for the first time, I kept saying “Oh my god, I want to live here!”. My independent feminist side would like to state for the record that I’m not changing my entire life and moving across the world just to be with some guy. But I’m kinda changing my entire life and moving across the world to be with this guy because he’s phenomenal and we’re so perfect together. But I probably would be doing it anyway. But this guy is definitely worth it. (You get the picture).
And that, my friends, is why I am finally taking the first steps towards moving to the country I first fell in love with some 35-odd years ago.