 Moving to New Zealand from the US, sharing my experience, that's what we're gonna talk about today. If you are new to the channel, we are a family of six. I have moved from the US to New Zealand and have been here for seven years. So in this video, we're gonna talk a little bit about a couple things. I'm gonna do a little bit of my first impressions of New Zealand when we first arrived. And then I'm gonna kind of talk through some of the hot topics that people always are asking me about in terms of, you know, what's it like? How does it really compare in some of these big issues? And I've done lots of videos on these. I've talked about healthcare, I've talked about education, I've talked about so many different topics. But what I'm gonna do today and what's gonna be a little bit different is now that I've been here for seven years, I'm gonna kind of give you an update on my thoughts on this. Both pros and cons, as I've gotten more in depth in the education, more experience with the healthcare, and just kind of, you know, what has been my experience and my reflection living in New Zealand now that it's been seven years. So here we go. In case you haven't heard, I have launched a new community online, it's free. I'm trying to connect all my social medias in one place because it's getting hard to communicate with everybody and all the different platforms. So if you're interested in just kind of getting closer with me and doing some cool things and meeting other people in this community, click the link in the description and you can join our online free community, it's pretty cool. Let's start with a story. Let's start with what was my first impression of getting off the plane in New Zealand from the US. We don't know anybody here. We don't have any family here. We have never been here. And we just moved our family of six over here because we're crazy. Or we're very adventurous. Or we're super fun. However you wanna look at it, that's what we did. And we decided to come for two years to give our kids an international experience. And that was kind of the intention from the beginning. So basically the way that it worked for us is that my husband came for a month ahead of us. Started his job, got a lot of things sorted. So that was really great. But what that meant was that I had to come by myself with four kids, my youngest being one at the time, my oldest being 11. So that's, you know, and I'm moving to a country where I don't know anybody. I don't know what's going on. I'm leaving everybody and that's a whole other story. And I was like, okay, so I get on the plane. Let me tell you my flight on the, I think it was Delta on whatever the connection was from Chicago to LA was not good. I got on the plane and I had the one year old on my lap. And I asked, do you have any extra seats because it would be really nice to not have them on a three and a half hour flight on my lap. And they're like, no, there's no other seats. I'm like, okay, that's fine. I didn't book it. It's fine. Then I go through the whole three and a half hour flight which was exhausting. He was okay, but it was still exhausting. I get up, I stand up. And all these seats are open. I was okay. So I get off in LA and I'm like, okay, I need your help. I need to get to the Air New Zealand. What do I need to do? Do I need to, you know, recheck my bags? Like I'm just all new to this. And they were like, oh yeah, you need to go back to the ticketing. And they had somebody escort me which was the other side of the LA airport. And let me tell you, it's the worst place to be. Anyway, that's a different story. So we get to the ticketing. And in my mind, as I'm walking, I'm like, I don't think I need to do this. I already have my boarding pass. And if I go to the ticketing, I'm gonna have to go through security again. Anyway, I get there and they're like, oh, this isn't gonna work. Or like one of your bags was a little overweight and it was a whole mess. And my kids start crying and I'm just like, you know what lady, you're gonna need to help me out here. And I had to go through security again. So I'm pushing these huge carts, all these kids. And I didn't even need to go there. It's like, what the heck? So I get to the Air New Zealand, like, you know, like eight, right? And I sit down and I'm like, you know, and it was so nice because this is true story. The Air New Zealand agents came up to me and were like, how are you doing? I must've looked pretty bad. And they came up and they're like, are you okay? They're like, let's get you sort of, can we get you a seat where you can put a toddler in the toddler thing so it can sleep? Cause this is the overnight flight. This is a really long one. I didn't even know you could do this. Like honestly, have never traveled this far before. So I'm like, oh really? They were so nice. It was like the first time I felt like I could breathe. I was like, oh, finally someone, you know, where you don't, like in the States, I always feel like I had to fight for everything. And here it was like, finally. So they got me this, you know, like exit row seat where I had extra room for the baby. It was amazing. Now the flight. I forgot that I don't really like flying because it kind of makes me nauseous. So I was throwing up in the bathroom. I got all these kids, the kids are fine. My one year old were having like, I don't know, manic. I don't know. I've never experienced this before. He was screaming out really loud. Like in the middle of the night, when everybody was sleeping. And so he only did it one time. But once he did it the one time, I'm just sitting there. I didn't even watch one show, one movie, nothing on a like 14, 16 hour flight. Give you some idea of all that I was doing. And well, I couldn't, you know, I couldn't rest. I was throwing up. Anyway, he didn't end up screaming anymore but I didn't know that, right? So the whole time I'm like on it. So anyway, we arrived in Auckland. My husband meets us. We're so glad to be there. Everybody cries. And I was like, literally in my head. I was so tired. And it was like, it was so emotional. Such a big deal. And then I just remember feeling, this better be worth it. What the heck are we doing? And so I immediately was like, I need to get a coffee. So I'm in the Auckland airport. I go to the closest coffee place. And really nice guy. And I ordered, I'm like, I don't know, latte. You know, and he was like, sweet ass. And I was like, what did you say to me? You know, you guys have heard that story before where I literally thought it was two Ss because I was in the mood and I was tired and I'm like exhausted. And the, you know, the way that they talk, like the accent was difficult. And so I was like, okay, anyway. So our first night, first we get in the car and my husband starts driving. And I literally screamed and crawled under the seat because we're on the wrong side of the road. It was very scary. I didn't realize. I mean, the thought of me driving was also very scary, but it was just as bad to be in the car. Couldn't even look. Drives us to Hamilton, which is not far from Auckland, about an hour, hour and a half. And just so that we can sleep. So we just got this motel and we just went and we literally crashed. And then the next day we woke up. Me and my oldest daughter went to grab a coffee and I'm walking around Hamilton. And I'm like, if you don't know, Hamilton is kind of like, it's not bad. It has beautiful gardens. I hear that the community is good. But it's kind of like one of those things that you laugh. It's not like the best place because it's like in the middle of the country and it's not by any of the water or mountains. And so it's like that. So that's just kind of the reputation that it has as a general rule of thumb. But I was like, okay, okay. This is where I moved. And so then we've traveled down to Wellington the next day. Or maybe we did Hobbiton first. I think we did Hobbiton first. Amazing. If you haven't done that, do that. If you're like Lord of the Rings and that sort of thing. Anyway, so we went to Hobbiton. Then we head down to Wellington and there's like this big hill that we're coming down, down to view the Wellington Harbor. And it was, is this place like where did we move? It was amazing. And so many times our family has said over time like, where do we live? This place is so amazing. So yeah. So that was literally my first like experience reaction coming into New Zealand and I loved it. I like, I like loved it. I was like, are you serious? And it was also noticeable like how the air felt really clean. Everything felt really calm. The birds were so loud. It was just beautiful. So that was my first reaction to New Zealand. Okay, fast forward seven years. Now I've talked a lot. I've had two years I think are more on this YouTube channel. So I've talked a lot about my experience in New Zealand. So go ahead and check it out if that's of interest to you. But let's talk about some things because I feel like, you know, my perspective, you know, is adjusted from like my first experience. My first two years was great. I didn't have a lot of homesickness. I, we enjoyed it immensely. Your, if you're bringing kids here and they're about the same ages of mine, that's the time to bring your kids. The second time that we came, so if you don't know our story, we moved back to the US because we were only planning on being here for two years and we didn't want to move, but we did. We didn't expect to love it here so much. And then we moved back to the US with no intention of coming back here to New Zealand. And then, you know, various things happened and we needed to come back. It was just amazing. And we loved raising our kids here. There was just a lot of benefits. But at that point, we had teenagers and middle schoolers and that was harder, you know, I think harder on the kids. And overall, they would say it was a good decision, but yeah, so it's just a bit of an adjustment for them coming the second time. So we can talk about that. But now that I've been through all of the primary school, intermediate school, college, which is high school here in New Zealand, yeah. So I really, they do education different. And so when I try to compare them, it's a little bit hard to compare. If I was, and it's hard to compare to the US because the schooling system in different states are totally different, you know, so even the public school. So in New Zealand, education is, all of the curriculum is nationalized. So no matter where you go, you should technically be getting the same education, even though that's just not the case depending on how large the classes are or difficult or, you know, there's just different factors that come into play. Culture of the school comes into play a lot more here in New Zealand and it's just different. Their focus, their values. What's cool about New Zealand is that they teach them a lot of practical skills, gardening, cooking. They make the kids have exposure to all the different sports, plays, drama, music and all done during school time. Whereas a lot of these things in the US is outside of school and I've talked about all this. But I, and then when they get into high school at the college level, they go through NCEA and I think that that's either they're keeping that or not. And it's basically like when they hit year 11. So they hit year 11, 12 and 13 is basically level one, two and three of the university level. And then when they go become a freshman, they're hitting in at level four. And that's just kind of how they have their education set up. And their universities are really well rated. I've worked at some of the polytechnics and some other academia and you know, they're okay. I would say university level to be honest with you is definitely inferior to the US. But of course that all depends where you go. Like if you're in a small community college as opposed to an Ivy League university, you know, I've just, I've taught at university of Wisconsin schools. And so I guess it would be compared to that. They don't do certain things well here. I don't, they don't do foreign language well. They introduce foreign language, but not enough for them to really pick up a language in my opinion. Spelling, like I just feel like overall New Zealanders, even with clients that I work with in marketing, like spelling and grammar is not taught well. However they have that in their curriculum is, you know. And so even when I was a professor in the US, spelling and writing was also a struggle there. So it's a struggle there and it's a struggle here, but I think that they're struggling different. Like in New Zealand, they really focus in their curriculum on creative writing and, you know, really detailed creative writing whereas, you know, and they do that in the US as well, but they also very structured like learning grammar, clear concise direct kind of more of a focus also good. So it all just kind of depends. New Zealand doesn't require homework and I have just found, I think about my conclusion after seven years and kids going through different things. I think that that's good in some respects and maybe for some personalities, but overall I would say there should be more homework. There should be more, this is what I've learned today, now apply it. Because as a teacher, I just know the value of that. And I know my kids have a lot of time in the evenings and I just think that that overall could be better. But again, just a matter of my opinion. So yeah, they do things differently here. Their NCA program is okay. The things that they do well is they don't do so much standardized testing and it's more of like, you can't just give the right answer, you have to explain it. So it requires a little bit more critical thinking, which is good. Expectations are quite low in my opinion. And so there's the balance. So I just wanted to kind of share some of my thoughts on education. If you have other questions, go ahead and comment below or email me if you're like concerned about this because I like to be real honest. And as you have more experiences, I can reflect differently because I was watching some of my older ones and thinking, okay, yeah, I could probably do a little bit of an update on that. So that's what I wanted to talk about today. All right, let's talk about healthcare. I've done quite a few videos on this. As you know, if you've watched my latest one, my daughter had knee surgery and so we've gone through that whole process through the ACC program that they have here, which is if you have an accident, it's covered. And if you are working, then it covers like 80% of your wages as well. It's like, it's an amazing program. I'm gonna have to say a couple of things about the healthcare overall. Overall, it's amazing that the value system here is that everybody deserves a level of healthcare, right? Depending on where you are in New Zealand, good or bad, whatever. There's lots of opinions about that. I personally haven't had really bad experiences at all with the healthcare system. I mean, a little bit of waiting, but I also have insurance that if I need to go private, I can and not everybody has that. But it is just, I think that overall, it is so nice to not have that stress or that fear that you can go bankrupt if something happens to you in the US, the way that it's set up is not good. But in saying that, the specialty services, yeah, just, it's a bigger place. It's just gonna be better in general in terms of what's available to you. So if something really, really bad happens to you, you're gonna want the best service, right? And while you can, depending on what it is, you can get it here or maybe you can't, because there's not that many people and everything is limited. And they're always having nursing and doctor shortages here, and I just don't see a lot happening to improve that other than just bringing people over here. And so that's a little bit frustrating. But some of my GPs have been really bad, like really bad. And obviously you just make your own effort. You have to manage your own health. Whether you're in the US or in New Zealand, you have to manage your own health. You need to find the right doctor for you. You need, if something's wrong or something that a doctor said just doesn't sit right, get a second opinion, same in the US. US is all crazy about constantly doing tests that I think are unnecessary. You know, obviously the insurance situation is horrible, like horrible, like it's really a problem. And yeah, so there's a lot of things that are messed up. But at the same time, like the doctors are trying to do good work and care. And you know, there's just a lot of options that way. I also, I just realized recently, like in the US, they do a lot of every year doing a checkup on your kid as just like a normal process, especially with a pediatrician. So you're getting like a child doctor, but they don't really have that here. And I just realized, I've been here for like five years and have my kids had a checkup, you know? And like, of course you can and I just need to manage that a little bit better. It's just not built into the system. Dental is built into the system where like they'll call you and schedule it because it's free for children here and make sure that they get that dental checkup because obviously that could get out of control a little bit more than probably just a health one. Or like in the US to play sports, you have to get like a sports certificate from, I don't know, maybe they don't need to do that anymore to play a sport. And so you're just always getting to, and I just realized like, oh, I've never really had my kids checked out in a while. You kind of just go if something's wrong. And yeah, and so in essence, I like that on one level and another level. I think it's probably good to have a little bit of pre-checks so that making sure that you can kind of catch something early, right? Is a good idea. But yeah, so just in terms of like women's health has been pretty good, mammograms and just various things that women need have been good here in New Zealand. In my opinion, like I haven't seen like a whole lot different. But like, yeah, the physical therapy or they call it physio here is really good. What I like about New Zealand is it's interesting because the doctors aren't the only ones that have a lot of authority in healthcare. So like a physical therapist here in New Zealand actually is like really good. Like more, I don't know if it's more training or has more authority in things. Even like their midwives are like partial doctors because they use midwives to deliver babies here. If you go to the pharmacist, they are like, you can actually talk to them about your problem and they will help you. So you don't necessarily have to go the doctor to figure that out and then get the prescription there that you can go there and say, this is what I'm struggling with. And that was chemists, whatever you want to call it. That was different. Like I could just talk to them about it and they're actually really helpful. And they have medicines that do different things and yeah, the medicines are different because they have different approvals and things that are allowed or not allowed. And we don't have all the pharmaceutical companies. I don't think anyway. So yeah, those are some of my thoughts currently updated on the healthcare system here. And the third and the last area I want to talk about just because I don't want this video to be too long is and I'm just trying to highlight some of the big things that if you're moving here, what would affect your daily life and what it would look like. I just want to talk a little bit about what it's like working here. Working in New Zealand is really great in some respects. You have really good work-life balance. You have significant paid time off compared to the US. If you want to pick up your kids from school, that's a very reasonable thing. They have adjusted completely after COVID to working from home very easily, very normal, even if it's just like you work in the office for two days and at home for three, whatever it is, depending on your job. It obviously depends on your job. Obviously, if you're a nurse, you're not working from home necessarily. So that's good. Things that I don't like about working in New Zealand is probably my biggest frustration and I don't know if I've ever said this on here has been the fact that they really hesitate. I don't know all of the human resource rules and laws around it, you have a significant hesitation to fire people here. So on one end of the stick, that's really nice where you can kind of come in and feel that your job isn't at risk if something happens, if you're late one day, because it can get a little crazy in the US in terms of like you could lose your job quite quickly and easily. They have a lot of safety nets in for employees so you can have that stability in your life. So when I first started working, I really liked that. But as time went on, I found that it was, the problem is, is it doesn't create very efficient working environments. Generally, people that probably aren't great in their position have been there a really long time and they just either move them around or give them professional development. I've had situations not where I work, but like maybe at my kids' school and different situations that were really horrendous if you ask me, but like to get rid of the teacher was not an option. I'm like, really? And so that's been an adjustment for me because I don't think that keeping an employee that's not good at their job is good for them at all. And they just think like, it's the worst thing in the world to fire them and I don't think that that is. I think it's helpful to them to give them actual accurate feedback in a very constructive way, but also saying this isn't probably for you and let them move on with their life instead of just like dragging it on. And then what happens is is that they ruin the morale for the good employees, right? Like you don't wanna be there. You don't wanna be on that team. You don't wanna work with that person. They've been there too long. They're not efficient anymore. They don't have that gumption to do something new or like, this is the way we've always done it. It's like acceptable. And you just don't see that in the U.S. Like it's a lot of people. It's a lot more competition. You have to continually to improve. The work ethic is different, you know, because they let so much have so much holiday and they really value that and that's really good. Like I would say overall, that's better for sure, but then they don't have that same drive probably as Americans because you kind of have to continually improve and fight and do better. And of course it all varies on who you're working with, where you're working, the culture. I worked in all different areas and cultures. I've consulted in a lot of different ones and have seen totally different things. So this is a generalization and just a little bit on my experience, but they tend to, you know, disregard, you know, they avoid difficult conversations, avoid giving like really accurate feedback like in management and I'm just like, oh, that does nothing but help them improve and move ahead than to just ignore that they have all these problems. I don't think that that's good. Those are some of the things, but overall it's a very pleasant work environment. It's stress level is way lower than my experience in the US. They really value you as a whole person and your time off. They don't want you to check in over your holidays. They don't want you to check your email. That's kind of a whole new concept for me. And so in fact, as I've had the opposite problem, I've had a hard time turning off. You know, I've had a hard time, like in my mind for me to do a good job is to give 100% all the time. And I don't mind checking my email a couple times when I'm on holiday because I have a lot of downtime. I don't mind checking it because I don't want to do all, you know, keep things moving so that when I get back it's not like this big mess, right? But yeah, they don't value that. So, you know, I'm running my own companies now so it's a little bit of a combination of both for sure. Whereas I just have to keep reminding myself like it's okay to be done. You know, come on, I could just keep going because I love it. When you're doing what you love it's not, it's not boring and it doesn't feel like work and that sort of thing. So I hope that that's helpful for you. Well, I hope that was helpful or insightful if you're thinking about moving here or have just moved here or living here and just kind of wanting to know my experience, please comment below with any other questions you have or your own experience I would love to hear. I feel like there's so many more things I could talk about so maybe they'll be a part two. If you're interested in that, let me know because I can certainly do that and I'll see you next week.