How I Became a New Zealand Travel Expert

As an immigrant, I’ve seen more of New Zealand than most New Zealanders.

Hopefully, in this brave new era of international isolation, that fact’s about to change. A silver lining on an otherwise depressingly dark grey cloud.

But how come I’ve seen so much more of New Zealand than the average citizen? Well, my family was never one for overseas holidays. We couldn’t afford them. Growing up in England, I never set foot on Continental Europe. To me, visiting Scotland or Wales counted as a foreign holiday. We never went to Ireland, or even Northern Island.

Only once did we leave Great Britain. When I was seven, we went to Florida – but only because my nana had been given a year to live and was spending all her money on us. (I didn’t know that at the time and, two decades later, my nana’s still with us and living in Tauranga.)

Then, when I was ten, we moved to New Zealand. Obviously, emigrating was a massive expense, but things were cheaper in New Zealand back then. And the exchange rate was three dollars to the pound. We bought a house far posher than I’d ever dreamed of living in: four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a massive lounge, a deck, a walk-in wardrobe, a stained-glass window, a garden we didn’t share with the whole terrace… Most of my parents’ salaries went towards the mortgage. They were teachers.

Of course, this meant we still couldn’t afford to go on overseas holidays. Not that we cared. I mean, to us, New Zealand was overseas. Instead, we went on holidays around New Zealand.

And they were awesome.

We went to the Bay of Islands and Cape Reinga and Ninety-Mile Beach. We went to Waitomo and Rotorua and the Coromandel. We went to Napier and Wellington and Taranaki. Mount Maunganui, Rangitoto, White Island. Christchurch, Dunedin, Queenstown. All around the South Island in a campervan. And so much more.

It wasn’t until after uni that I started writing about all the places we’d been. I’d always planned to earn a living by my pen, but not as a travel blogger. Now I needed to visit more places in search of new material. And more. Then tourism companies started offering me things in exchange for writing about them, so I visited even more places. Before I knew it, I was an unofficial expert. Whenever a question about New Zealand geography came up, the quiz team turned to me!

And apparently that’s my role now. People ask me for New Zealand holiday advice. I know about many obscure places you wouldn’t necessarily think of going to. I know about the places you absolutely have to go to. There aren’t many places in New Zealand that’ll disappoint you.