When something is part of your everyday life, you almost always take it for granted. It takes much awareness and practice not to. Oh, and especially so if you don’t particularly like your everyday life and are more focused on the future. Or the past! Not that I recommend thinking solely about the future to come, but lingering to the past is a bit problematic, I would say.  

I should know: I spent a year in the country that many feel is the most beautiful in the world, and I was pretty much focused on living elsewhere when the time is up. I missed Europe and couldn’t wait to leave, which I now feel bad about. Back then, I would never have believed it, but there are indeed things I now miss about New Zealand.

How to Go to New Zealand on a Working Holiday Visa

I wrote about my first three months in New Zealand. As you might remember, it wasn’t that fun. The rest of the milestones—six months, nine months, a full year—I didn’t mark, mostly because I was miserable. In fact, I was pretty darn miserable the whole time I was there. I’ve only recently started to process those feelings and unfold them, layer by layer. But! I’m not here to talk about that today. In fact, I wanted to describe the process for anyone who feels like starting a similar adventure on their own.

I went to New Zealand on a Working Holiday Visa. Simply said, a WH visa enables you to stay in the country for up to a year (or more if you’re from the UK or Canada) and work legally. You don’t have to work, but the rationale is that not many people have the funds to just travel around the country for a year, so here’s a way for you youngsters to meet our beloved Aotearoa and earn some cash while you’re at it.

Three Months in New Zealand

I am sitting on a terrace, looking at a palm tree in the backyard. The sun is stroking my face. Actually, no, this is an understatement: the sun is aggressively burning my skin, at least that’s what I feel, even though I just applied sunscreen. My laptop keyboard has become hot in mere minutes, so each stroke feels like a little burn on the top of my fingers. And my typing is pretty fast. I even have that in writing. So, that's a lot of burning.

Today marks three months since I landed in Aotearoa, or New Zealand if you please.  

Down Under

I just moved to New Zealand!