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Thread: Where are you living right now?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Sep 2018
    Location
    New Zealand
    Posts
    5

    Default Where are you living right now?

    Having just posted about places I've been living in NZ, I thought it might be fun to hear from all the members on this forum.

    Where are you living right this moment?
    Tell us about it.
    Are you planing to move on? Where to?

    I'd like to get a feeling for where most of those who have already moved to NZ ended up.

    Looking forward to hearing from you.

    Rikdownunda

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2004
    Location
    NZ
    Posts
    852

    Default

    We haven't quite gotten our visa approved yet, but we are moving to New Plymouth soon! It was a bit of a surprise result, we had thought Nelson was our favorite the first time we visited, or Wellington if my husband had to get a job in a city center. He read something saying New Plymouth was supposed to be one of the top places to raise a family for some reason, I don't know where - but we ended up getting a really positive impression. I think it's actually more beautiful than Nelson proper (it's not like you can just live in Abel Tasman Park, hehe), because of the mountain and the black sand beaches along the massive coastal bike trail, and the downtown with murals all over the place.

    Cost of living is lower than the places you would usually think of, and it has a sort of up-and-coming feel. You would think with news of the oil and gas industry permits being shut down, there would be quite a downturn, but those will actually be going for another few decades...it's just new exploration that has been nixed. It is making people think about what to turn their attention to next, and there is an enthusiastic sustainability movement. The library, museum, and art gallery make for an architecturally impressive core to the town, and the community outreach (both officially through the library and also active Facebook groups) turned out to be very welcoming of newcomers. I had a weekly date at the meeting of migrant women organized by the library, which always turns into lunch/coffee afterwards. It feels like it will be fairly easy to get on our feet. The kids made new best friends in a couple of weeks and want to go back to that particular school. Very welcoming school environment.

    It was surprising to us that Ben was able to get an executive job matching his software/management experience, and is looking forward to helping the company scale up. There is a burgeoning tech industry there, just getting started it seems like.

    One of the friends we made lives in Inglewood which is pretty far for a suburb. She likes to joke that it takes her "12 minutes in traffic" to get downtown (she's from San Diego and loves the contrast). At peak traffic, it took me 25 minutes to drive from one end of New Plymouth to the other for school dropoff, and that's only because I couldn't enroll international students at the neighborhood school less than a kilometer away from our rental house.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Location
    NZ (Auckland; via Canada)
    Posts
    1,350

    Default

    Am living in New Windsor in Auckland, on the cusp between the "central" city and "out West". For our first year in Auckland we rented in St Mary's Bay. I work in Grafton and Himself works in Greenlane.

    New Windsor is the suburb no one's ever heard of: it's between Blockhouse Bay, Avondale, Mount Albert and Mount Roskill. The newish Waterview tunnel runs right through, so our motorway access is great: we're 20 minutes drive from the CBD and the airport. We've a basic 3 bedroom house and a wee garden with a pool. No plans to move: we both have around 20 minute commutes to work, off-peak. People who grew up in Auckland think it's in Siberia

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jan 2018
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    32

    Default

    Wanaka. The climate is similar to our hometown of Portland, Oregon, but there is much less rain. We like our 4 seasons, and the lakes and rivers mean fishing and kayaking etc is moments away. It's drop-dead gorgeous here, and hikes, biking, horseback riding, etc are on our doorstep. Going from over a million people (Portland) to 8,000 has been fantastic. We don't miss the big city at ALL.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2019
    Location
    New Zealand
    Posts
    21

    Default

    Me and my husband are planning to return to their country (Philippines) live there and hope it would be the best solution.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jan 2016
    Location
    Auckland
    Posts
    241

    Default

    Auckland City

    We are living in the City just for convenience! My office is two blocks from home, and my partner's job is 15 minutes from home...

    We don't have kids or pets, and the unit/apartment is small, but good for two people...

    I would love to go to a bigger place in the north/west, but the convenience of walking to work and saving in transport and time still pretty good

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