Kristin writes:
“Hello
I just read your blog page titled “moving to New Zealand” – about Halloween. Cracked me up that they have ant-trick or treating signs available at Kmart. We are moving to New Zealand from Seattle, and I am wondering, how will we carve pumpkins on Halloween if its in the Spring? I figure they won’t have pumpkins in October in NZ, no? Did you celebrate it in March or April? Or were you able to get pumpkins in October? At the local grocery store?”
We responded:
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There’s an interesting conversation going on over at TravellersPoint.com on the merits of hitchhiking vs. car rental vs. busing it in NZ. Here’s a snippet from the discussion about bus travel:
“I did this for most of my time in New Zealand, and I had no complaints. The buses go pretty much everywhere you’d want to go, daily, and between a travelpass for longer distances and a flexipass for shorter distances, was quite cheap. However, since you got such a good rate for the car, the added flexibility of being able to stop by the side of the road whenever you see something particularly beautiful definitely weighs up against the perhaps slightly higher cost.
The one real benefit of a bus is that you wouldn’t have to be driving through snow yourself, if you hit that (which isn’t guaranteed, but is definitely a possibility on the South Island).”
There’s also some talk on car rental for those of you out there interested. The hitchhiking aspect hasn’t been covered, but I can attest that it’s done quite regularly on the South Island and w/o any of the urban legends assosiated with hitching in the U.S. Hit the forum chat for more info!
A reader recently asked,
“Me and my family want to move to New Zealand and are going through an agent at the moment but have now sold our house and want to move faster . Could we just go and get a job and apply out there without returning to the UK?”
My answer:
Yes, you can simply move out to New Zealand and apply for a job and attain a work visa later. However, it is a little risky. NZ has a visa-free condition of about three months for people living outside the UK—if you’re coming from the UK, it’s six months. After that time period, you must then apply to stay longer–which means you must also adhere to their conditions of extension.
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