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Thread: Leaving New Zealand After 5 Years (American/Canadian)

  1. #1
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    Default Leaving New Zealand After 5 Years (American/Canadian)

    Well, after 5 years of living in New Zealand (hubby is American, I am Canadian), we have decided to leave. I can't believe we, of all people, are leaving! When we immigrated, we were active on the forum and had rose colored glasses. We've explored the two islands from top to bottom and thought we would settle forever in Tauranga. We bought land and planned on building and importing nearly everything from the U.S. because things were so incredibly expensive here. It was all settled (or so we thought). We work from home so we can live anywhere, and visited USA and Canada each year for a month, hoping that would help. With all the pushing through the cultural differences, the high cost of living and isolation, we felt the beautiful scenery would be enough to keep us here! After all, we fought so hard to stay!

    An interesting shift happened over Christmas. We got cold feet. We looked at the pro's and the con's and for us, we found NZ to be just so expensive. Everything is at least double or some things triple (of course it is an island). Poor quality housing (even for the upper class homes--the finishing work and cabinets are sub par), isolation and honestly, we miss the real cultural aspects of N. America and Europe. I held in my feelings and buried them for 5 years, thinking if I ignored the con's of NZ, the beautiful laid back lifestyle would be enough. Denial is an interesting thing. We suddenly realized that if we could re-create a similar lifestyle in N.America by living in the Pacific Northwest, where flights to Hawaii are very affordable (to get our tropical island fix) and we would be closer to family, then why in the world are we living in NZ, the other side of the world? We ultimately looked at the situation with different, more logical eyes and thought, yes, we can reasonably duplicate this lifestyle in British Columbia (nothing beats the Coromandel though ... nothing!)

    In British Columbia, Canada the climate is mild and rains less and we still can enjoy a myriad of outdoor pursuits and be closer to family, and be back to civilization, so to speak. I still cannot believe we are moving! We thought we'd NEVER leave New Zealand! We were such die-hards! Nearly 300 posts and 5 years on this forum!

    At the end of the day, we found that life is hard enough without having add, on top of normal life, constantly fighting cold un-insulated houses, high costs of EVERYTHING (and we make decent money), tall poppy syndrome (it is sadly so real), expensive cultural events, expensive dining out and missing the familiarity of our own culture, our sense of humor, and feeling so isolated down here whereas most other countries you can hop on a plane for a reasonable price and visit countless places. We also realized that being so far from family just isn't worth it long-term. Friends here have been wonderful, but they just can't be the same as family as they don't love you or understand you the same way. Add children to the mix and it gets more expensive and complicated to continue close relationships with the ones you love and who will be by you through thick and thin. Ultimately, there are many things that it all boils down to. Why make life harder than it already is by adding all of these other things to the pot? We had it so much easier in N. America and have taken Canada for granted. We aren't bitter, we've had a great go at it and 5 yrs seems to have been our sticking point where we have lived here long enough to get a real wide eyed open feel for the country and to see if this is truly where we wanted to be long-term. Things and perceptions changed over time for us. Once we said it outloud, it was like a weight was lifted off our shoulders. SO strange to have made such a dramatic turn in 5 years! If you would have told me even a year ago that I was going to write the aforementioned assessment of life in NZ, I would have laughed and said I sounded like a whiner.

    I just had to put this out there, not necessarily as a warning to N. Americans but just to explain why we are leaving. Again, we aren't bitter. We truly enjoyed our five years in NZ and wouldn't trade the adventure for anything! It is lovely and we were able to detox from the hustle and bustle of America. Now that we have done that, we are settling in a smaller area and are excited to be back in Canada

    Best wishes to all! Please let us know if we can be of any assistance to Americans or Canadians on here. We have "been there, done that" and explored every inch of this country. This has been our experience so we completely understand if it is not others' experiences.
    Last edited by globetrecker; 20th January 2014 at 05:50 PM.

  2. #2
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    All good wishes.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by globetrecker View Post
    We also realized that being so far from family just isn't worth it long-term. Friends here have been wonderful, but they just can't be the same as family as they don't love you or understand you the same way. Add children to the mix and it gets more expensive and complicated to continue close relationships with the ones you love and who will be by you through thick and thin.
    You've pretty much echoed our reasons for leaving NZ three years ago. We tried for four years but knew that it would never feel like we belonged there. The family thing became a big issue as every Christmas and Easter passed with just the four of us. It made us realise that our children were missing out on developing relationships with their cousins and grandparents, etc. The costs of flights and the incompatability of school holidays between the UK and NZ meant that our siblings and their families never managed to visit us. We've settled in a different area of the UK to the one we left and are very happy. Best wishes for your move.

  4. #4
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    Having done one trans-planet (UK-US(California)) move in my lifetime (albeit at a relatively young age), I can relate to some difficulty in adapting to cultural differences. However, the UK to US cultural adaptation is in some ways easy to compared to other moves people have done. My parents got us involved with several cultural groups that kept us in touch with our heritage, although we slowly began to assimilate to the California culture (to a degree) [young age made that easier--I think]. Given that California is also a popular destination for UK expats, running into other people dealing with the same issues made things easier. Plus, travel back home (and ~synchronized school schedules) was easy.

    So, I don't think anyone can question anyone's decisions to move to or from NZ. Everyone's circumstances and experiences are different; to each his/her own.

    ---

    The Pacific Northwest is a beautiful part of North America. It's been quite some time since I was there, but the landscape and scenery could give NZ a good run for the money.

    Good luck with your move home.

  5. #5
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    Wow. Your post really hit home with me, in an almost eerie way. We've only been here six months, but of course, it's human nature to play out all the possible scenarios. Invariably, you're always comparing your new country to your old one, and thinking about the future. When I imagine the scenario in which we have to make the difficult choice to move back to the USA after a few years, the reasons I picture us citing are literally every single thing you named. The housing, the cost of living, and the untenable yearly trips back home. Everything you said was so right on, if I didn't know better, I'd have thought I was the author of that post!

    That said, we're still learning what's what here, and we have fallen in love with the culture and the natural beauty, so I try very hard to just focus on the present and not get too far ahead of myself, wondering if NZ really could be a permanent home for us. Some days, I really feel like it will be, and others, I just keep dwelling on all those downsides that you mentioned, and I get a bit depressed.

    Anyway, the most important thing is that you've made a decision that's true to yourself and your family, and you're all on the same page. Don't undervalue how fortunate you are to have arrived at the decision, albeit the one you never expected to make.

  6. #6
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    Emigrating is a learning curve that no-one or anything can prepare you for, & just when you think you've got it all worked out it suddenly changes.

    We've been here for 20 months & some days it feels like an absolute nightmare for all the reasons previously stated. Other days it feels perfect. I still don't know if this will be my final destination but I honestly can't see how we could return to the UK as it currently is.

    Anyway, enough of my rambling, good luck to you & yours globetrecker !!

  7. #7
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    Thank you for sharing this. As someone who is considering the move, I've known and seen your concerns but tried to counter it with the pro's while downplaying the costs of actually living with the thought of my costs will only be as high as I make them coupled with the "American" filter of "you get what you pay for" and I'm beginning to realize that maybe/morethanlikely I will end up with the same thoughts and regrets you have already come to.

    Do you think if you were in a different location, like Auckland that you would have had a slightly different experience? If I were to move it would only be to Auckland. I have lived the majority of my life in the NE USA on the I95 corridor. From DC to Boston it is nothing but cities, towns and developments of all sorts. Work is never hard to come by and neither is the negative impact of 50+ million people along this stretch of road. So to much that the biggest thing i notice about New Zealand, when leaving Auckland is the great expanse and to this beauty an eerie sense of "what do I do if I need help?" or "what if something were to happen?". Do you think the purchasing power of Auckland would have helped in terms of costs or am I being naive to the just underwhelming purchasing power that New Zealand with it's only 4.5 million people to think that some costs would be cheaper in Auckland? I have not priced living items directly during my visits other than the times I may have needed toiletry items or the random shopping adventure which varied from reasonable to obscenely expensive.

    Despite your own plans for leaving, would you recommend New Zealand? I'm not asking for the PC response of "different strokes for different folks" but your honest opinion. I have an established life with a great job with around $4000 a month in disposable income, but I also have very strong desire for adventure and challenge and I'm attempting to temper these internal conflicts I have with what is becoming very large awareness of high costs, isolation and the she'll be right mindset. While I can see myself doing well, I also have this great fear that making the move will set me back a decade or more if it fails and at 36, do I have enough time in my life before retirement to recover.

  8. #8
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    As a North American that enjoys living in NZ, I hope many North Americans will read this before coming here. I think a lot of Americans idealise escaping US problems only to find a nation struggling with issues surrounding quality of life, widening wealth gap and inequality, and a worsening health care system.

    Quote Originally Posted by DMS View Post
    If I were to move it would only be to Auckland.
    In the US, I loved living in a proper city and despised living in urban sprawl/suburbia. I think Auckland is more like suburbia. I now live in a very small town, 15 minutes from a slightly bigger town, and 20 minutes from the outer reaches of Nelson suburbia and I love it. My husband is originally from this area and I said I would NEVER live here as I thought it was too small but I ended up really liking it. It does help that I spent my HS years living in a small agricultural area on an orchard and so this life is not completely unfamiliar to me. So, perhaps you might think about trying another area of NZ because I don't think Auckland is the kiwi version of NE.

    We moved here for family and to live a slow lifestyle. Because this slow lifestyle is really our top priority, all of the true negatives that are brought up by the OP don't really matter to us. We're not wearing rose coloured glasses, we just like what our life is like in spite of those negatives. However, if I didn't have family here, it probably would have been much easier to move to the PNW for a similar change of life.

  9. #9
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    We are from the UK but moved here 3 years ago after 20 years in the US.
    This is my opinion only.

    We moved after having done a reccie trip with family, and one on my own as my career was enabling us to get Residency. I think researching it was a huge help to us and really gave us an idea of what we were getting in to. There have been really good times, and some hard times, esp the first 3 months. I hated work at first (just so different), and really missed cheap shopping, 24 hrs stores and the fast pace of getting things done in the US.
    Since then (3 yrs on) we still live in the same beautiful town, kids go to a great primary school, and we are all happy, healthy and none of us regret our decision. All of us have a real sense of community(husband included which is rare for him as he is not the most social) and feel fully accepted by the kiwis. Our friends are kiwi, Australian, English, US, South African and I love that diversity.

    My job was not working so I reduced my hrs and took up another part time job, and am a lot happier. My husband got a pay rise and a promotion and it is also happier.

    Kids are in 3 different activities and slowly turning into little kiwis. We have bought and sold a house and are in the process of buying a lifestyle block. We have been on several short trips seeing different parts of North Island. We are looking forward to exploring South Island, Australia etc in the future.

    I do not really compare prices anymore and enjoy the slow pace of life here. I do stick to a budget, shop at Pak N Save, buy stuff on sale and we have older cars and a smaller house. Does it bother me, not really. The trade off is a feeling that my kids are safer, less chance of shootings etc, slower pace of life and we work less then we did in the US.

    We lived in Seattle for 10 years and visited BC a lot, beautiful country!

    I wish you luck with your decision and hope everything works out.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by DMS View Post

    Despite your own plans for leaving, would you recommend New Zealand? I'm not asking for the PC response of "different strokes for different folks" but your honest opinion.
    DMS, you make excellent observations, ones that a lot of potential immigrants don't ask themselves before making such a huge change. Your concerns are very valid. Coming from someone who lived in Washington, D.C., then Salt Lake City, UT to move to New Zealand was very different...in good ways and not good ways. It's hard to get a straight answer with PC responses, so I'll give you our experience as former East Coasters of the USA.

    We got tired of the traffic, smog, politics and rat race in America so New Zealand looked like such a fantastic place to detox. It was and has been great! A great adventure! After 5 years, you do realize that the country is very small and we missed the benefits of N. America (I mentioned a lot of them in my first post). When we first cameto New Zealand, we were a bit disenfranchised with America, to be honest. Now, five years later, America doesn't look that bad. Sure it has it's problems, every country does. The USA's big cities are rat races, but there are also nice smaller cities and suburbs that don't have the same issues but with better housing, income, convenience and travel opportunities than we found NZ had. I think before we moved to NZ we were exploring smaller cities in the Pacific Northwest and in hindsight, we would have been just happy as can be there. But we wanted a dramatic adventure, so we thought NZ would be it. And it was!

    I do wonder if we would have had a different experience living in Auckland vs. Tauranga. I think we would have really enjoyed it too but the housing is too expensive. But then, we didn't move to NZ for the city, we moved for the scenery and to get out of the city. Honestly, we would recommend it for a short period of time for anyone wanting to get a lifestyle change and to detox. It is so beautiful and there are so many treasures scenery-wise that it took us 5 yrs to see most of it (and I truly mean we traveled, camped and explored nearly every place possible). Long term, we don't know if we could recommend it. We found the isolation, expense and the "too laid back" culture and lack of culture to be stiffling for long term life. After five years of exploring, we've felt we've "been there, done that" and are ready to go to a larger area like British Columbia that isn't so isolated but still has many of the characteristics we love about New Zealand.

    I would definitely recommend it for single or married folks without kids for a few years. With kids? Not so much. We've seen and heard a lot from families who struggle being so far away from lifelong friends, brothers, sisters, cousins, parents, grandparents, and so forth. These people are the ones that you spend your holidays with, the ones that know you and love you no matter what, and understand you like no other. For us, it made us too sad to think that these amazing people really wouldn't know our kids very well. We want our family and extended family's influence on their lives. Perhaps it's our love of genealogy speaking here

    My suggestion? First, remember that while the USA and Canada or the UK aren't perfect, it's not like you're fleeing a war torn, dictatorship, third world country. America isn't really THAT bad where you feel you have to move to a small island country to escape it. We think that New Zealand is a fantastic place to visit for a period of time but permanently it doesn't have the staying power and advantages that N. America does. Like we've said before, life is already complicated enough so why add all of the complications of immigrant life to the mix. NZ is less complicated in some ways, more complicated in other ways. The narrow/lack of forward thinking, welfare state, PC Maori mentality did our head in and we wanted to scream! We struggled with this a lot, as did all our American friends. I'm afraid to mention anything further on this to be honest as it is such a divisive subject in NZ culture Other times, we didn't let those things annoy us and the people and scenery are so nice that it has made up for it. Sometimes it is so beautiful here that you almost get emotional and wonder how it could be that gorgeous! Again, pros and cons of both.

    We didn't read a lot of the "leaving NZ" forums when making our decision because we didn't want to hear the negatives because we felt we are resilient, traveled people who could probably live anywhere and make it work if we had to. We learned things by our own experience and over the years came to the same conclusions that the leaving NZ forum posts made. The only difference is that we don't want to come off as bitter ... just more realistic. It has been an adventure of a lifetime and we have been happy throughout the five years here. It's just time to move on and use this as a wonderful chapter in our life, which made us appreciate the life we had in N. America and has made me so thankful for my homeland of Canada.

    Just one edit: If you have $4000k per month in disposable income, sounds like you have a great life in the USA.

    Okay ... is this non-PC enough for you?
    Last edited by globetrecker; 27th January 2014 at 10:43 AM.

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