Our Story: Part 1

8 months. That’s how long it took from the moment we accepted the opportunity to move to New Zealand until our feet landed on the island.

We’d bought our home 2 years prior, in a town near where we both grew up - we’re high school sweethearts - and thought could be our forever home. Travis was working as a software engineer at a company we loved. R was set to start preschool in the fall. We had a brand new baby, just a month old.

Travis came home from work one day in May and said his company announced they were expanding operations to a few international locations. They invited employees to message if they were interested in more information about accepting an international assignment to Ireland, Paris, New Zealand, or Germany.

“We’re interested, right? We’ll just get more information.”

Instead of receiving an email as we expected, he met with a senior manager who answered some questions and gave very basic information about the opportunities. Teams of 2 developers and 1 manager would be going to each location to build up local teams. At least a 2 year commitment.

Three days later he came to me looking like he’d seen a ghost.

“I have a meeting with a VP tomorrow. This escalated quickly.”

We’d really never had the international travel bug. There were infinite places to explore within driving distance of our home in the suburbs of San Francisco. We’d even talked about how some of our friends wanted to live internationally, even if just for a year, which sounded cool but wasn’t something on our list.

After the meeting with the VP Travis walked into the family room - an easy commute thanks to COVID-based remote work.

“I think we’re going to Germany.”

We didn’t know what to think. We spent 5 days practicing our German on duo lingo every night before bed. But when a spot opened up on the New Zealand team, we jumped on it. Any of the locations would have been incredible, but New Zealand was our first choice. For the outdoors lifestyle, the more laid back way of living, and the easier transition to an English-speaking country.

It all happened so fast.

They hadn’t ever asked an official, “Do you actually want to accept this assignment?” What we thought was a little information gathering apparently was more of a “Yes we want to go” in their minds.

But it felt right. Exciting. Meant to be.

We so deeply relied on our gut feelings. There were a million reasons to back out, to say no. But we trusted our intuition.

More intuition followed as we made so many decisions. To sell the house or rent it out? What to do with all our stuff? How to plan and prepare?

Travis’ company said hopefully we’d be in-country by the end of the year. It was May when the decision was made. We had many months ahead.

The preparations happened slowly and then all at once.

Based on a gut decision, we made the tough choice to sell our home. We decided to sell it early so that we could a) travel full time for a while because what an opportunity! and b) be more flexible with the visa process made even more complicated by COVID restrictions.

We went on a month long van trip around the American mountain west, with the help of paternity leave, while our realtor showed and sold our house.

When we came back, it wasn’t our house anymore. It was staged for viewings and the paperwork to sell had been signed weeks ago.

We sold and donated some of our things, but our move was made infinitely more feasible - financially and logistically - because of Travis’ company. They handled the lion’s share of the whole process. They hired a third party company to manage our visas, they hired movers and handled moving logistics, they organized temporary accommodations in New Zealand and hired a relocation consultant who helped us find more permanent residence among many other things.

The movers packed up our whole home in 1 day, while we stuffed the rest in our camper van and headed out on full time travel for who knew how long while we waited for our visas.

Our first border exemption request was denied. But with a little corporate support, it was re-reviewed. This took months, but was managed mostly by the third party company.

In the mean time we lived in AirBnB’s and our camper van in the Sierra, the desert, the red rock, and at the beach. We hot springed in Mammoth Lakes, went cave hunting in Sedona, hiked to arches and waterfalls in Moab, and beach bummed in San Diego. All while Travis was working full time remotely.

As our scheduled flights neared, we stayed with family while we spent a week cleaning out the van, packing our stuff into 6 giant boxes, 3 suitcases, plus a number of baby and personal items. We had tickets to fly out on Sunday. We’d gotten lucky in the MIQ (managed isolation and quarantine) lottery months ago and gotten these slots for mid January even though our visas hadn’t come through.

It was required at the time to stay in a government-managed hotel upon arrival to New Zealand for 10 days with a series of health checks and COVID tests before joining the community.

But our visas still hadn’t gone through. We were carrying on as if it would work out, but we really had no idea. We were simultaneously contingency planning. Maybe we’d just continue traveling in the states until the visas came through. Maybe we’d get sent to Australia for a few months until everything worked itself out. Possibly we’d get sent to Australia long term instead?

3 days before our flight, the email came: congratulations, your visa application has been approved.

Hallelujah.

Sunday came, and off we flew.

Learn more about our move to New Zealand through other articles in the International Move section of the blog.