Sara Dawn Johnson - How to Move to New Zealand in 31 Easy Steps

How to Move to New Zealand

in 31 Easy Steps

Sara Dawn Johnson

To Leah and Holly.

My reasons for everything.

He aha te mea nui o te ao?

He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.

What is the most important thing in the world?

It is the people, it is the people, it is the people.

~Mori proverb

Disclaimer

I am not a lawyer or immigration adviser of any kind. This book describes our familys voyage down the New Zealand immigration path. Nothing in this book shall be deemed advice or guarantee for anyone elses immigration path. Neither I nor the publisher assume any responsibility or liability for actions taken by readers of this book.

Your particular circumstancesnot limited to age, nationality, and professional credentialsmay be different than ours. While the immigration path I describe is similar to that of many others, every immigrant has their own variation. If you require specific advice, please consult with an immigration lawyer or licensed immigration adviser.

In addition, immigration laws and regulations change continually; what I describe in this book is current as of September 2016. I do not assume any responsibility for errors, omissions, or interpretations of the information included. I strive to keep this book updated and welcome any input from readers who encounter new information in the course of moving to New Zealand. Please contact me at with updates and let me know if it is okay to use your name in a revised edition.

From our family to yours: we wish you the best of luck in your move to New Zealand, the greatest little country in the world.

Sara Dawn Johnson

Wellington, New Zealand

September, 2016

Introduction

January 2009, the United States: A fire glows in our family room wood stove. Im sure it was raining outside, just on the edge of freezing as it does all through the winter months in the Pacific Northwest. My husband, Michael, and I have just finished tucking our 3-year-old daughter, Leah, into her bed upstairs. We let ourselves sink into the overstuffed green corduroy couch near the fire. Our infant daughter, Holly, lay sleeping in my arms. We press play on the DVD remote.

We were finally getting around to watching something wed received a few weeks earlier, Michael Palins Around the World in 80 Days, a BBC travel series from the 1980s Netflix recommended for us. Two discs in and our lives were changed forever. Palins goal was to make it around the world in 80 days or less using only land or sea travel, just as in Jules Vernes classic novel of the same name. Palins adventures were fascinating and funny and on that comfortable and cosy green couch we realised we wanted the same.

By the last episode, when Palin makes it back to London with only hours to spare, wed decided to leave our little home in the woods and take our family out into the world. We craved adventure, new foods, new languages, and new friends. We would travel how Palin did in much of his around-the-world adventure: by sea.

While wed been living on land for the past couple of years, Michael and I had spent the previous ten years together afloat. Wed lived aboard several different sailing boats, all the while working to save money, fixing up our boat, and sailing. In April 2000 we got hitched and then spent the following summer meandering up the inside passage to Alaska. Two years later we turned left out of Washingtons Puget Sound and made our way down the west coast of the United States to Mexico, where we spent the winter before returning to Seattle for work.

When Leah was born in 2006, we brought her home to the boat as a newborn. By the time she was nine months old, winter was on the way and I needed a break from the cold and damp dock life and so we moved ashore. We always dreamt of finding our way to the sea again and watching Palin make his way around the world sparked something in us.

It was time to stop dreaming and start planning.

Five years earlier, during the winter season we spent in Mexico, we made fast friends with several boat crews also in their 20s. For months we travelled together. Diving, road trips, potlucks, happy hoursit was an idyllic time. At the end of the season, we had our 35-foot boat trucked up to Seattle while several boat crews either stayed another year in Mexico or sailed across the South Pacific and on to New Zealand. We seriously considered doing the same, but decided our funds were too low and our boat too old to make the trip.

Ever since, despite having built a beautiful family and home, a big chunk of our souls regretted not sailing to New Zealand. We often wondered what our lives would look like had we done so. Would we have found the South Pacific to be as beautiful as wed heard? Would we have enjoyed living in a foreign landone that is exotic and fresh and friendly?

And then that winter, inspired by watching travel tales by the fire, tantalized by the thought of giving the gift of travel to our daughters, we thought: why not now?

That was all it took for our dream to change to a plan. We would sell our house and quit our jobs, buy another boat, and sail it across the South Pacific and on to New Zealand where wed make a new home. And in the end, we did just that.

Of course, the path to New Zealand wasnt quite so straightforward and easy to navigate. There were hurdles along the way. Perhaps the most significant of them came in the form of doubt, expressed by others, that wed be successful building a new life somewhere else.

There are no jobs in New Zealand.

Its impossible to get a visa there.

You guys are too old.

Your health is not good enough.

Surprisingly, we learned that the skeptics only firmed our resolve. I guess you could say there wasnt any stopping us until it was done.

Following lots of paperwork, some fees, a lot of waiting and hand-wringing and stress, in 2013, the beautiful, friendly, and peaceful little country of New Zealand granted us residence. This gave us the rights to live, work, vote, enjoy the protection of affordable socialised healthcare, and attend public schoolall for as long as we like.

Since then Ive received countless emails from friends and blog readers asking how we did it. I wrote a blog post in 2013 describing the steps we took to gain residence. That post remains my most-read article in 17 years of travel blogging. I continue to get email weekly from people all over the world who want additional details on the immigration process. I pointed several readers to helpful resources and sent words of encouragement before finally deciding to capture everything I know about moving to New Zealand, in great detail, in this book. I share my tips for where to start on the visa process, how to enrol kids in school, and how to get the most out of living in this small, fascinating country.

New Zealand is a nation of immigrants and continues to warmly welcome people from around the world. In cities like Auckland and Wellington, English and Mori are widely spoken, but Im likely to hear also Hindi, Bengali, Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog, Tongan, French, Spanish, and German. Our eldest daughter attended a central Auckland primary school and we now have friends from South Africa, Pakistan, India, Philippines, Ireland, and China.

Are you ready to join the mix? You can do it, in 31 easy stepsdont let anyone tell you otherwise.

Step 1: Things to Consider Before You Go