[napiers]

... when you thought 'that's it, I've got to get out of here'?

Was wondering at what point did others decide that emigration was the way to go? Was there a particular incident that set you off on the rollercoaster ride or was it a slow burner?

OH and I have had a bit of both - since he's a Kiwi it's always been out there as a possibility, but for him a bus ride to work way back in 2004 ,made him realise that at some point it would happen (I won't quite what his actual thoughts were because it wasn't very polite!) - he's never felt totally at home here anyway.

For me, it was when we went back to visit family in April 2006. It had been 3 years since our last visit and we were sitting outside at a cafe in Taupo on a beautiful day with various family and friends. The conversation got on to us living in the UK and someone asked if we were going to move to NZ and my immediate response was 'I'd move here tomorrow'. And that was it for me - what was in my head became a reality. We began to investigate partnership PR etc and went back to visit another 3 times in the next 18 months just to make sure!

What about everyone else? What did it for you?

[Arwen]

Well for us, it was largely driven by the fact that my husbands stressful job was starting to have a profound effect on his health, along with the fact that we wanted to raise our three children in a country similar to the UK we grew up in.

It was said by people we knew who had been here, that NZ is like the UK 30 to 40 years ago, and personally speaking, we have found that to be largely true. :)

Also, the last place we lived in the UK was Cheshire, and I was very reluctant to move from there. I thought to myself if we have to go through all the hassel of moving again, lets do something completely different and go live in another country!!!! and here we are!!!!! :D

Also we couldn't afford the type of properties we liked in Cheshire. :(

[jo1966]

I am the kiwi so always wanted to return home at some point but wanted my husband to make the decision for himself if you know what I mean. For him it is a combination of things including a bigger house (with room for his drum kit), a more outdoors life for our children and not having me upset whenver I phone home, as my Mum has the early stages of alzheimers. We are greatful that our 18 year old is coming too as I thought she might want to stay.
The house went on the market yesterday and we have had several viewings today and then next door said they might buy it for their son!! That roller coaster is certainly travelling fast in Essex at the moment.

[napiers]

After our initial 'we want to go' moment we sat down and wrote a list of pros and cons - and a list of questions/unknowns. Weighting definitely came out in favour of NZ - quality of life for us and children we may have in the future; outdoor life; space; family; homes etc all came into it. There are lots of things that were on cons list too!

I know exactly what you're saying jo1966 about hubby having to come to his own decision as I had to do the same. The idea of it was different to doing it. It helped when OH pointed out that he wasn't necessarily looking at it as a permanent permanent move - that made it a little less scary. Because of all the hoops I've had to jump through to sort PR, NZQA, teachers council etc I feel like I'm the one that has been driving the move more recently - OH knows that he could just turn up and that's that! He wants to be closer to his family, parents especially (although they are in Australia). We were in the UK when my dad died and we didn't consider moving for a while after that but mum's pretty sorted now and is keen to visit us when we move! :)

[victoria24]

ive always known i was going to emigrate, i guess it was an inbuilt thing as most of my family have and i went to school with international students. the world is a big place and i'd like to experience a lot of it :)

it was really the timing and i spose that happened with some force during our recce trip.

[Sovenok]

When we got access to the Internet, I begun exploring living in other places, it was 10 years ago and I couldn't satisfy immigration requirenments, but when I saw NZ nature, landscapes, the ocean I felt in love immediately :)

[Ana&Steve]

... when you thought 'that's it, I've got to get out of here'? It was when Bush was re-elected. I didn't know then where, I just knew I wanted out.
I knew it was NZ on our 1st trip out in 2006; it was a total lightbulb moment.
Now all we need if a way to get out:nice1

[drakew]

For me it was a friend telling us we should move to Australia or New zealand since she is in Sydney. She said they really need teachers and OH wants to teach, so it made sence. Then we started doing more research and it just seemed to fit with what we want for our family. I have been so nervous about after grad school, but now I feel like we have found the best option for both of us.

[Flutterby]

yes and no, its been on the cards since we got together (i was gonna go out to NZ on a working holiday visa to meet OH (we met on the internet and our relationship was mostly telephone comms at the time) but the company he was working for went into receivership so he decided to come here instead) i've always been pushing for the move but had to let OH experience the UK 1st.
When his dad got ill, we knew we had to go and visit as we didn't know if we would see him again, and it was on that visit experiencing the awesome sunny winter (i'm sure its not like that every winter) and noticing the vast difference between the two countries that we made the decision to just get moved there ASAP, infact for a short while we considered just not getting on the plane home!

[britzy]

OH has always wanted to emigrate,I have been more reserved to the thought but as the years pasted I realised that there is more to life.The desire to more far away became more appealing day by day.Life is too short to sit around and wait for things to come to you!plus getting more and more frustrated with the UK and the NHS where I work,but the list goes on...............
Helen

[Bobbysox]

Our defining moment was when we were sitting at Auckland airport waiting for our flight back to UK after our second trip here.
Neither of us wanted to get on the plane, because we had found that this was where we wanted to be for the rest of our lives..........
It took another 3 years to get here but was well worth it.:yes:yes:yes:yes

[BkyMonster]

Gosh, 6 or more years ago we decided to take more control of our lives and decide where we wanted to end up and what we wanted to be doing rather than letting life shuffle us about. 1 OH put through school for a skill on the shortage list (and likely to remain there), 1 house bought and sold, and 2 dogs acquired later, here we are waiting on the latest MA decision...

[JasonS]

It was when Bush was re-elected.


we can relate to that, as well,...it was a big part of the "light-bulb" moment. :yes

laurel

[NikT]

We decided that we wanted out of the UK.
So we thought how about NZ.

We came over for a look around in '03.
Within 5 minutes in the taxi on the way to Auckland CBD we both said; "I feel like i've come home".:nice1

And we have.

Caron & Nick.:cheers

[stellachiara]

I had wanted to live outside the country for a long time -- not really because of Bush, but just because we both feel pretty out of tune with American culture in general. We'd considered various countries that appealed to us, but once we looked into it, some kind of dealbreaker would inevitably arise. In 2007 he went to visit his auntie in the Wairarapa, and on his return he extolled the virtues of NZ to me. I was skeptical because it was so far away from everything, and I didn't know if I would like being "out in the boonies," so to speak. The next year we travelled to NZ for our honeymoon, and I fell in love with it too. I remember being at Te Papa and getting the strongest feeling that "This is home. This is where we belong." I had this feeling many more times on this trip. I even had the feeling that this is where I wanted to die (eventually!!!!). The more we looked into it, the more NZ seemed to fulfill many of the things we had been looking for in a place to live -- no dealbreakers! We are still in a kind of giddy disbelief that we are actually going to be moving there in 2 1/2 months! I am very happy to be leaving the US at this time of upheaval as well -- I will very be happy to be in my little corner of the world, watching what goes on here from afar instead of being embroiled in it!

[Sovenok]

Russian government has been a Big bad agg since 1917. They still live without responsibilities for what they done, Putin did nothing in his first term and not going to. In that country I feel that the country doesn't need people at all, so I really hate that sinister place and I never return back.

[Sam B]

When I was 18 and a very left-wing student, I read some article in The Guardian about where the best place in the world is to live for leftie feminist socialist types, and NZ came number 1. I think a seed was sown that day.

Fast forward my life 17 years and we were sitting in the car on some family day out, we were driving through Camborne which was never an uplifting experience, and we were feeling rather glum as my job was looking increasingly at risk due to the huge debt the NHS was in in Cornwall. It looked like I was going to be made redundant within 6 months, and although I would always get something else, I wouldn't have got anything as good as the job I had at the time. So I said "Shall we move to New Zealand?" not for one minute thinking ole stick in the mud J would EVER agree, and he said "well, I'll need to look at it on the internet" (which is as good as 'yes' if you know J).

5 months later we were here.

[Sam B]

PS By the way, the Guardian was WRONG, but I love it anyway.

[dbonnett]

It was when Bush was re-elected. I didn't know then where, I just knew I wanted out.

We went to bed the night of the election hoping to wake up to good news - when we heard the results on NPR (of course) we both said "Screw this, we're gone.." It took almost 4 years more to actually get here, but it was all but inevitable after November 2004.

One amusing trivia - we found out that our ITA was on the way the night of the 2006 mid-term elections when the Democrats stormed back in Congress and elsewhere; it seemed a bit ironic, but by then we were past the point of wanting to reconsider.

[napiers]

Our defining moment was when we were sitting at Auckland airport waiting for our flight back to UK after our second trip here.
Neither of us wanted to get on the plane, because we had found that this was where we wanted to be for the rest of our lives..........
It took another 3 years to get here but was well worth it.:yes:yes:yes:yes

Know that feeling well!

[NanMan]

I had wanted to live outside the country for a long time -- not really because of Bush, but just because we both feel pretty out of tune with American culture in general.

This is exactally how my wife and I felt just out of touch, and not because of bush, i voted for him twice (not to make any enemies), but just the running and gunning of American culture, the materialism gets to you eventually. When you realize sometimes you can't have everything you want no matter how much you give up or how hard you work at it, that was it for us.

[magcats]

My OH, who is a Kiwi, has often teased me about moving back to NZ to retire. I wasn't sure if I could leave my family. I swore if another republican won the most recent election I would definitely be ready to move to NZ.

Somehow we kept talking about the possibility these past few months. I want more for my daughter and I want a better way of life. I started getting on this forum and I read all of Angela's and Don's blog. Plus I emailed her and asked if she had any regrets. Her answer made me say, "LET'S DO IT!"

Only a year and 4 months to go!!!

[Mrs Pony]

I've always had the pull to move somewhere but i didn't know where and I didn't want to move alone. When we came to NZ for our honeymoon there was just something.. I don't know how to describe it really but I didn't want to leave! I also heard soo much hype about the place from my OH that I loved it before we even landed! Meeting his friends that he always talked about was awesome and i felt like i've known then for ages already!

We had everything in motion... Work for me was getting boring after they restructured. I was only doing paperwork (no student or parent interaction anymore) and i NEVER had anything to do... maybe a weeks work of things to do over a months time (thank God for internet!). I really didn't like it anymore and I couldn't wait to be in NZ. OH's job was being threatened and he wasn't sure he would have a job much longer. Plus the spoiled rich people that he had to deal with was getting to him. The me me me attitude and all he could think of was "you're yelling about paying $250 when you've already spent $10,000 and there are people all over the world that can't afford the eat" He was always in a bad mood because of it and needed to get away from it.

The last place that we stayed at over the honeymoon was a B&B in Queenstown. We were the only ones in the house so we had a lot of time to talk with the owners, who happened to also be American and had lived in NZ for about 20 years or so. When we were leaving they said that we should move to NZ and they thought we would love it and they would even sponsor us if we needed! OH and I just looked at each other and we just knew... As soon as we got back to our condo in the US (I would say 'home' but I just don't think that fits anymore) we started looking into what we needed to do to move to NZ... and well here we are! We arrived just over a year of us being married.

OH is home again... and I'm home at last!

[Tesall]

Without wanting to be a smart alec, I think what we are talking about is when we each had our epiphany, or wether we had one.

I did.

Standing at Paddington Station as the boards all clicked over from delayed to cancelled and I realised I would be hours late home, My feet were cold, my ass was cold, I had a cold and I looked up and saw an Air NZ billboard. I spent the next 2 hours staring at the billboard daydreaming of NOT standing at Paddington station in the vold waiting for train, and instead living in NZ. After 2 hours it was of course fate a compli. I (and wife) were doooooomed to moving to NZ. :nice1

[Andy-Dee]

We were driving back from a shopping trip, it was a fairly nice day and the area we were driving through was quite rural. OH is from 'down south' so I asked him 'if you could live anywhere where would it be?' I expected him to say Bristol or Harwich but he said 'NZ'.

I said 'so why aren't we then?'

Two recces later - house STILL not sold - but we do have PR and will be off as soon as the ink drys on the SOLD contract!

[Belmont Babes]

I had wanted to visit NZ from about the age of 13 when I had a pony. I remember reading a pony/horse magazine and there were photos of the horses in NZ. I fell in love with the look of the landscape. It was always in the back of my mind and I just knew that I had to move somewhere. There were the TV programmes about people emigrating and I used to think why not us? Then after Xmas 2006 I started looking into it more deeply. In one week this all happened. I was working for a lady who had a cat called 'Kiwi'. I was in someone else's house using a tea towel from NZ. I was looking through Friends Reunited and found a very dear friend from school 'Arwen' who is on here and noticed that she now lived in NZ and I got in touch. The defining moment happened on the Friday of that week. We had just come back from a funeral of an old neighbour who had died tragically in a work accident. We were both feeling a bit glum thinking "crikey, life's too short" and the phone rang. It was an immigration consultant who was advising us that we have enough points and we should proceed (we didn't use an agent in the end). Both my Husband and I were feeling that the UK didn't hold many prospects for our children and decided that the best gift we could bestow on our boys is to give them the opportunity to live in more than one country as adults and for their own children if they should have any.

[skibumwa]

My defining moment was on July 9, 2007. I was on my way home from an interview for a PERM position at Microsoft. Just 10 minutes from my house on a beautiful sunny day, I got a call from Los Angeles, my Visa Officer had happily called me to say "Your 30 month Work Permit has been approved! I hope your move to Wellington goes smoothely". 2 minutes later, the recruiter from Microsoft called me to tell me they wanted to make me a permanent job offer & were going to overnight the package to me. I was out of breathe and amazed. I gave no answer to her & told her I'd call her when I got home.

I got home, took a 30 minute walk on the beach near my house. I stared due West to the Olympic Mountains shining in the summer sun over majestic Puget Sound. I had 2 opportunities of a lifetime sitting in my lap. I cannot describe the feeling other than 1 small tear of happiness came down my right cheek. :D

For the next long hour, I looked back at my life, figured on what was best for me for the long term, weighed the risks for taking either one, and decided to take the big plunge; I called my recruiter at Microsoft and told them to save their time. I told them, "nothing would stop from taking such an amazing opportunity, except the opportunity of a lifetime to live & work in New Zealand". The recruiter was smiling behind the phone I could tell, and she said, I envy you and wish the best in your new life in NEW ZEALAND! She then reluctantly said that, "I don't think Microsoft can compete with that, hope your move goes smoothely, Cheers to you John"...
:cheers


Best of luck to all of you in your dream of getting NZ Permanent Residency!

Cheers,

John

[batgirl1001]

Hmmm....for me it was an essay I wrote when I was 12 (now 35) asking me about where I wanted to live when I grew up. So I wrote about NZ, having never been there of course and only getting my knowledge from books and tv. I remember other kids in my class writing about Australia, US or even Malaysia (??) but for me NZ sounds like a special magical beautiful place. Having watched LOTR, helped too!:D

I nearly got sidetracked when I studied and lived in Brisbane for 2 years and fell in love with living there. It was a tough decision because I could go either way and getting a PR in Australia was much easier for me and perhaps in the long run a better prospect. However something in the back of my mind made me stuck to NZ like a dream that was there all along and wouldn't die.

In the end it took us 2 short vacation visits for us to feel that NZ would be a better choice. This despite our family and friends obejctions and preconceived ideas about NZ. You know the usual rugby-mad, sheep obsessed jokes.

I am just 3 weeks shy of being in Auckland and can't tell you how scared and excited I am all the same about the BIG MOVE. I just hope my NZ dream goes well because for me and my family this is the biggest gamble of all. I just think that anyone else in the same boat can't help feeling all these things and worried about what the future is going to be like....and thinking that they must be crazy in such an uncertain time.

[welsh_italian]

I don't think I had an epiphany. I wanted to move to NZ for several reasons:

My brother had lived here for years and always said it was a great place
Everyone I knew who had been to NZ didn't have a bad word to say about it
I liked kiwis a lot
Two of my parents were planning to move there
The scenery in Lord of the Rings

So I had wanted to come here for years. I had even applied for jobs but had no luck with them because I was outside. In that time, I moved to the Philippines where my wife is from when she was due to give birth (she wanted her family around her). However, events like the RCBC bank robbery last year which happened close to us (Google for it - but it's an awful story) made me wonder if this was the right place for my daughter to live in.

I landed a job in NZ later in the year and have been here since early Feb. I am aware that I am so privileged to be in such a beautiful country, but it feels like it hasn't sunk in just yet. I guess because I didn't have enough money to bring my wife and daughter over with me (that's in process and I should be getting my ITA form through tomorrow) and I miss them so much, it feels like life is on hold until we're together again. I'm working and living and staying in contact every day, but it's like nothing is really happening in my life even though it is. I'm so aware that I'm missing a lot of my daughter growing up like her beginning to walk already. Missing my family is the hard part of this otherwise wonderful experience.

But maybe when I can finally take my wife and baby daughter down to oriental bay one weekend and show them the clear blue seawater, I will have my epiphany. :)

[Carey]

OH only agreed to come travelling with me 23 yrs ago, if we went to NZ. So we did, for 2 six month periods, with 6 months in Oz in between. Loved it and tried to emigrate then but had nothing to get any points. Then life took over in the UK, 3 kids later, a very hard time living in Sicily for 6 months and we wanted to end OH's sabbatical on a positive note so came to NZ for 6 weeks. Prior to that I'd been having very grave doubts about continuing living in rural Suffolk for much longer, but couldn't think of anywhere I wanted to, or could afford to, move to within the UK. By then I'd done lots of research and was pretty sure NZ was where I saw us living as a family. OH not at all sure.

After 4 days in NZ and without any pressure from me, OH announced that yup, NZ felt good and how was it we got to move here? That moment was standing on the shore at Lake Rotoma in April 2006.

[stellafella]

as soon as i saw what was happening to the uk (which is a place i would have defended at one time) with uncontrolled immigration and crime i knew we had to get out and havent regretted a single thing...been in Cambridge now nearly 6 months and never want to live in the UK again!!..its a dumping ground for all the crap that nobody else wants!!!!

[cappuccino]

I remember my geography 'o' level paper about sheep farming in New Zealand. I hadn't studied hard enough so just drew a picture of a sheep (!) but promised myself I would go to NZ one day to learn about the country.

Fast forward 20 years and I had the opportunity to travel to NZ and Australia with the BBC (story for another thread about the doco I made with them about being a 'grown up gapper'). Anyway, I arrived in Auckland and, sorry to say, hated the place!! However, when I arrived in Wellington I was sooooo taken with the city, it really grabbed me and I decided there and then that my aim in life was to emigrate here.

4 years later, I achieved my dream and I am the happiest I have ever been.

[DMcG]

I was living with my Kiwi partner in Edinburgh and we'd been together for a few years. During that period, I'd been to NZ 3 times and had met most of the family.

I'd been made redundant over a year before and had finally managed to get a short term contract for an IT company. Then we got an early morning phonecall from her father in NZ, who said he he'd been diagnosed with cancer and that it didn't look good.

She had to fly home, and I knew she could be away for years, so I could either stick with my tenuous IT position and lose the love of my life - or follow her into a (moderately) unknown environment with no job, but with at least my partners family to back me up - and then we would just wait and see what happened.

Five years later, various things have run their course, but I'm still in NZ and still loving it :)

Dougie

[benandclare]

Our defining moment was when we were sitting at Auckland airport waiting for our flight back to UK after our second trip here.
Neither of us wanted to get on the plane, because we had found that this was where we wanted to be for the rest of our lives..........
It took another 3 years to get here but was well worth it.:yes:

Very much the same as us.

We'd just finished our honeymoon and didn't want to go home to UK.
problem solved by moving here permanently 7 months later :raebanana:raebanana