Why move to NZ from US or UK?

[benandclare]

For us we came on Honeymoon and fell in love with the country and the people.

Clare had had a guts full of the NHS after 25+ years and I fancied a job away from the long hours that come with working in Agriculture.

I've set up my own garden business so that we can share the off duty that Clare gets with her job now.

So it's either ski or golf in the winter or Golf or bike ride in the summer.

Ooh and we got to build a new house on 10 acres which was way out of reqach for us back in UK

[Kewlest]

I am a young and adventurous female. Growing up in Dallas, Texas I was never allowed to set my adventurous side free…unless you call every rollercoaster at Six Flags Over Texas adventure. Joining the Air Force I got the opportunity to move to Colorado, where I got into snowboarding, camping, whitewater sports, and hiking. I fell in love with the place. On a temporary basis the Air Force sent me to Qatar, and I was able to see what (BEAUTIFUL) beach life is like. From that point I knew I wanted both lifestyles.

A friend who owns a house in Christchurch told me that New Zealand offers both lifestyles without the need for a 14 hour drive between the two. I was also informed that Lebanon offers the same, but civil unrest is not appealing to me. New Zealand won the coin toss.

Armed with a vision of dual lifestyles in my head, I set out on a reconnaissance trip last October (my birthday). I fell in love with New Zealand. Auckland made me feel right home. I walked everywhere. I could not get enough. I then took a trip to Queenstown to get my adventure fix, and it was love at first sight. Boy did I get my adventure fix! There were my mountains, my river, and beautiful country side. In the US, most bodies of water are brown or far from clear. In New Zealand, almost every body of water was green and crystal clear (I have not visited everywhere yet). I can see God living in New Zealand.

The minute I got back to Kuwait I could not wait to research what it would take for me to make the move to New Zealand. I originally planned to move to New Zealand last March, but that “all mighty dollar” tempted me to stay in Kuwait until 1 November.
Armed with a WHV, I am determined to move to New Zealand and start living my life. In New Zealand, I hope to enjoy an active lifestyle outdoors, conquer the corporate ladder, and make a family.

I am keeping my house in Colorado just in case my fairytale does not have a happy ending, but I am confident it will.

There are things about the United States I love, but there is a big world out there for me to explore.

[cbrown]

We moved for many of the same reasons:

Better lifestyle: in the US we had a maximum of 3 weeks of vacation a year with working 80+hour work weeks... Here in NZ we work 50 hours and have 6 weeks of vacation...

Our perspective is very different. We worked in the American health care system which is frought with waste and drama. We love our careers but weren't willing to sacrifice the rest of our lives working in a broken system, banging our heads against a brick wall. We want to be happy and enjoy our careers and life. New Zealand offers us that balance. We are happy to be here, to work here, to enjoy our lives here.
We realize the "grass is NOT always greener on the other side"...however, when we compared our lives in the USA and our options in NZ...it was a "no brainer"
so we are here...
loving life!

[dfer]

Thank you all for your valuable answers and posts. Sorry can't reply one by one since it's already too many of them.

Yes, we are all seeking for a new lifestyle to live. For ourselves or for our families. The whole world is changing too fast. There's almost no place to hide from consumerist and higher price of housing.

Thanks God, we still have the basic human right to make the move. We can "Do the election with your own feet". And the last dreamland is appealing us. For future, for freedom, for dream. We shall give a try.

I do hope everyone can get his/her big-boat ticket before 2012.

[Aquarian]

Excellent thread:
Answered most eloquently, so what's left for me to say, apart from my personal reasons.
Single 45 with two teenage sons, (18 & 15) I have achieved lots here in Wales professionally and domestically. Having raised my Lads it's now my turn to think about my future, what I want for my autumn years as well as what's I think is best for them.
Ultimately I'm looking for a few acres, chooks n Pigs - semi self sufficiency, a place where you can feed your self and make a living without bureaucratic restrictions at every turn.

Nope, I'm not getting Old, cold n lonely in a beautiful but dull Welsh Village waiting for the phone to ring, might be a Son checking up on the old lady, with only WI or the pub quiz to look forward to . . . .
I shall keep my options open for hunting, shooting, fishing, sailing, tramping etc, besides there is more chance of meeting somebody interesting nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more

[LauraB3]

Ok, my story
Hubbie's a Kiwi and i'm a Brit, we met in Basel Switzerland and have lived there quite happily for the last 4 years with our 3 year old daughter, however, hubbie had planned to return to NZ when we met, i got pregnant and that scuppered his plans
Whilst we had a very good quality of life in Switzerland we wanted to buy a house and have a garden for our daughter (not possible for us in Switz) Hubbie had always said he wanted his kids to grow up in the same environment he did, lots of open space and outdoor activities and for me i'm very keen to study to become an Early childhood teacher for which NZ has one of the best courses in the world, i've been working in a pre school at an international school and have been studying with the UK's Open university but i'm not keen on the British early childhood system which i find far too rigid and pushy in terms of literacy and maths for such young children.
Basically NZ offers us far more in terms of opportunities for us as a family then both Switzerland and the UK would, hence our decision to move

[sks]

I started to reply to this thread on at least three separate occasions, struggling to find a tone that doesn’t appear overtly treasonous (to American eyes, anyway).

So, why leave the USA, that shining beacon of opportunity and freedom?

1. There are no jobs here, and a rebound any time soon is unlikely. Think I’m exaggerating? Read this (written from a non-US perspective): http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...american-dream
I could regale you with countless anecdotal tales of my personal friends and coworkers who, despite having excellent technical qualifications, blameless work records, and plenty of experience, simply cannot find work (one dear friend is a Registered Architect who moved from New York to Florida to take up a job supervising undocumented workers hand-digging septic systems after 15 months of looking – and counted himself fortunate!)

2. America seems simply incapable of living within its means. Public debt is astronomical, and no political party seems capable of taking the actions required to rein it in, which will necessarily include slashing public spending, reducing or eliminating benefits, drastically increasing taxes, and devaluing the currency – most likely, all four.

3. Tertiary education costs are simply absurd. Our eldest daughter is not quite finished with her bachelor’s degree, yet has already amassed student loans exceeding US $ 68,000 (and this is not at one of the top-tier unis, either). How she’s supposed to pay this back with negligible prospects of finding a decent job after graduating is a mystery. What she will actually do is to pursue graduate study in NZ for a price that we can afford to pay out of pocket – hopefully, her employment prospects will be brighter with an advanced degree. This is just our eldest daughter, mind – we have four more children who will begin tertiary studies between 2011 and 2019.

4. I was born in the US to immigrant parents. In my childhood years, I experienced isolated instances of hostility directed towards me or my parents in reaction to my surname or the use of a language other than English in conversation, but these were rare. I never felt, overall, that my employment or advancement potential was hampered by my non-US roots. In the current economic and political climate, however, I’m glad that I don’t have a foreign accent to go along with my foreign-sounding name. With the public debate over US immigration policy becoming more and more polarizing – particularly in light of dismal employment prospects – instances of hostility towards immigrants have become much more common. Witness, for example, a spate of recent vicious attacks directed at Latino immigrants in Staten Island (part of New York City, known as one of the most culturally-diverse places in all of the USA), and perpetrated by whom? By American blacks, whose own history of discrimination in the US should, by all rights, make them natural allies of new immigrants.

5. The US is becoming a surveillance society. I’m law-abiding (else NZ wouldn’t let me in, anyway), and I don’t consider myself paranoid, but my entire walk from my home to my workplace is captured on a dozen or more video surveillance systems along the way. Perhaps it’s because my parents fled totalitarian states in Europe (both Nazi Germany and the USSR), but I find the idea of having my every move recorded deeply troubling. I happen to live and work in Lower Manhattan, and I know that, in large measure, security concerns have trumped individual liberty in the post-9/11 era, particularly in this neighborhood, but I’m skeptical that the right balance has been struck.

6. Political discourse in the US has become so partisan that I consider the entire system of government to be fatally dysfunctional. I personally avoid any political conversations, even with long-time acquaintances, if I know that they hold differing viewpoints, because the potential for truly unpleasant discourse is so high. Is this the hallmark of a free society? Should I have to sacrifice my right to express myself in order to avoid alienating people that I consider to be friends?

For balance, I really should add a list of positive factors motivating our impending move (and it is similarly lengthy), but I think I’ve rattled on long enough for now.

[Aquarian]

[simoragn]

Why move to NZ? More income? More chances? More healthy life? Or any other convincing reason?

Oldest reason in the book - for love...!

[Pigletguinea]

Oldest reason in the book - for love...!

Me too! It was as simple as the fact that if my husband and i wanted to live together, i would have to move to NZ. Of course there are a few perks...