<\/p>\n\n\n\n We couldn\u2019t do it. By this point it was only early September, and we simply couldn\u2019t wait until our planned trip in late November. As we discussed our trip, we tried prioritizing activities and attractions. It quickly became apparent that if spending wasn\u2019t carefully monitored, it would be easy to go broke with all the wonderful and exciting things the country had to offer. If we truly intended on moving, it wouldn\u2019t be possible to do everything in the two to three-week trip and still have money left to move. As we attempted to prioritize, Rebecca suggested that instead of a vacation, I go alone and instead focus on finding work and to try to confirm what we thought we knew about life in New Zealand. We wanted to make sure we weren\u2019t \u201cmissing\u201d anything, or that there weren\u2019t some red flags that you can\u2019t see when you\u2019re 12,000 km away (Pop quiz: How many miles is that?). The other benefit to being on the ground is that many people had commented that being available in person made a world of difference when it came to getting traction for jobs. With that in mind, a plan was hatched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wellington \u2013 the capital city of New Zealand, highly regarded in all\nthe videos we looked through. Beautiful, bursting with culture, and most of all\n\u2013 IT jobs in corporate settings that fit my specialty, without as high housing\nprices as in Auckland. Wellington was\nwhere I had centered on my job search, and to this point, we had convinced\nourselves that we\u2019d be going there, come hell or high water, we were moving\nthere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As I began planning the trip, I found the quickest and most economical\nflight would be around 19 hours 30 minutes of travel time, with the longest leg\nbeing about 13 hours 30 minutes, the rest spent transferring from SeaTac and\nAuckland. This meant one full day of\ntravel and almost certainly one full day to recover from any jetlag. I didn\u2019t want to make my trip too short, as,\ncoupled with a return trip and associated recovery day, that\u2019s easily 4 days \u201cburned\u201d. The clock was ticking, too, since flight\nprices weren\u2019t getting any cheaper, especially with the US Thanksgiving Holiday\nlanding so near my desired travel time, it meant that there was a very specific\nwindow of only about 2 weeks before the flights got too expensive, or the week\nafter Thanksgiving for about a week before flights got absurdly expensive for\nthe Christmas rush. With that in mind,\nthe criteria basically set itself: I\u2019d\nleave October 25th<\/sup> (The cheapest day to fly out near the end of\nOctober), stay through the Thanksgiving holiday, and return on the cheapest\nflight back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thirty-nine days\u2026 that\u2019s a lot of dollars in accommodation fees. A hotel for that amount of time was out of\nthe question so I began looking at hostels which are abundant, located\neverywhere, and cheap. The downside,\nhowever, is the dormitory conditions aren\u2019t necessarily conducive to a business\ntraveler who may need to keep pressed clothes, have a phone call or otherwise\ndo some work. I investigated a serviced\napartment for the month, but as I saw the total price for the month, I got a\nfeeling of dread and doubt within me, thinking that flying all that way,\ncommitting to such a long term stay in one location without seeing any of the\nrest of the country would be foolish. \nWith that in mind, I headed over to AirBnB, a service I had never used,\nand began looking. Since the intent was\nto \u201clive\u201d in New Zealand to understand what it was like as an ordinary person,\nAirBnB seemed like a great fit. The\nprices were nearly as low as some hostels, but most offered significantly more\nprivacy with a private room, many had a desk, and some even had private\nbathrooms. Ultimately, I struck a\nbalance between budget, location, and amenities that would fit my stay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n By this point in my operation, I knew that it was time to let Right!\nSystems know about my feelings that I\u2019d be moving on, at some unknown point in\nthe future. It wasn\u2019t something that I\nlooked forward to doing: although I feel\nextremely valued and welcomed and we\u2019ve always done right by each other, at the\nend of the day, I didn\u2019t know how news of me wanting to leave the company would\nbe received. It was, however, the right\nmove, because I knew it would be difficult to cover such a long stay with PTO\neven though I had a good amount banked, losing an employee for over a month is\nnot exactly an exciting prospect. Of\ncourse, it was the right call and despite obviously not wanting to lose me,\nthey respected the decision and were very accommodating to the request for the\ntime off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I got back to my AirBnB hunt, and ultimately decided to stay outside of\nthe city in a suburb where it would be likely I would have my family. The intent was to live in New Zealand, not\njust enjoy the city and culture as tourist. \nOnce I had this in my mind, I knew what I was going to do: A week in Wellington, and rather than meeting\nmy contact from Inde in Wellington as originally planned, I would go to the\ncity of their headquarters, Christchurch, and meet them there. With the plan hatched, I drew up the route\nand booked AirBnB\u2019s and bus passage between cities (something that, amazingly,\nis superb throughout New Zealand, both in the cities and between cities. Seriously, to get to Enumclaw from Downtown\nPuyallup it\u2019s a minimum 1 hour 40 minutes; Puyallup to Olympia – 1 hour 16\nminutes. The system just doesn\u2019t exist\nhere). The plan was hatched: Wellington, ferry to the South Island,\nPicton, Christchurch (1 week stay), Lake Tekapo (hoping to do Stargazing in the\nUNESCO World Heritage site International Dark Sky Reserve in Mackenzie District),\nQueenstown (adventure capital of the world, they say). From there, I\u2019d fly to Auckland, where,\ndespite my strong desire to avoid \u201cbig city\u201d traffic problems, I felt I must at\nleast see and be available for interviews if it meant \u201csuffering\u201d through a job\nlong enough to be visa eligible and at least relocate. On to Hamilton (I had\nseen some job postings only but didn\u2019t look into this), down to New Plymouth\n(where the New Zealand lad I mentioned earlier lived, I wanted to meet him in\nperson!), Palmerston North (again, no research done here but I didn\u2019t want a\nsuper long bus ride all in one day bypassing something), Napier\/Hawkes Bay,\nthen backtracking to end in Petone on the other side of Wellington harbor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Back at home, plans were in place and I was ready to go. Reluctantly I had to inform my customer that\nour long-term engagement would be cut short as I was going to be leaving the\ncountry for an extended period, but they were understanding. I ended up booking my flight on airmiles\nrather than the flight mentioned earlier to save money, which ended up with a\ntotal travel time of 39 hours 40 minutes: Seattle -> Dallas\/Ft. Worth; 2-hour\nlayover -> Sydney; 12-hour layover -> Wellington. I wasn\u2019t thrilled with the very long travel\ntime, but I knew the 12-hour layover in Sydney starting at 6am until 6pm was\nsomething I couldn\u2019t pass up. A fan of\narchitecture and engineering, I\u2019ve known for almost twenty years I wanted to\nvisit Sydney to see the opera house and harbor. \nA daytime trip in the spring \u201cfor free\u201d would do just that. From there, on to Wellington, and a short\nuber trip to Karori in the hills of Wellington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Plan Is Hatched Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 We couldn\u2019t do it. By this point it was only early September, and we simply couldn\u2019t wait until our planned trip in late November. As we discussed our trip, we tried prioritizing activities and attractions. It quickly became apparent that if spending wasn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4815"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/avtempwp.azurewebsites.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov\/images\/imagerecords\/85000\/85332\/iss042e178671_lrg.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Part 1<\/a>\n
Part 2<\/a>\n
Part 3<\/a>\n
Part 4<\/a>\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n