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One of the most common questions I get is “How do you afford to go to New Zealand every year?” I don’t have one really good answer for that question, I think it’s a combination of a lot of tools we use to help us save money for travel, and save money in general. I’ll give you our 5 ways we save money to fund our flights. Here’s how we do it.
Continue reading “How We Save Money to Travel”
I had planned on sharing about our DIY vinyl plank floors this week, but the trim isn’t back up yet! So, I thought I’d share a little bit more about us. You have probably read About Us, and you have also probably read about How We Met. If not, go do that first! It’s a great story, if I do say so myself. But today, I want to share our proposal story!
Continue reading “How the Kiwi Proposed to the Girl: Our Proposal Story”
If you know us, you know that skiing and snowboarding are a huge part of our life. We both started to ski at the young age of 2, and our families took us skiing nearly every weekend in the winter. We met at a ski resort, where I was a ski instructor and James was training for the upcoming Vancouver Olympics in 2010. James was a professional snowboarder, and for years travelled the world chasing the winters and snowboarding at the best resorts and mountains in the world. If you ask him though, where his favorite place to ski or snowboard is, he will tell you New Zealand. Specifically, one mountain in New Zealand. Read on, and we will share our top three places to ski in New Zealand. Continue reading “Top 3 Places to Ski In New Zealand”
I lived in Auckland for four years, and have never been to Waiheke Island! So during our recent visit to New Zealand, when my mother-in-law suggested we take a day trip to Waiheke, I was all in! I had heard so many great things, and seen awesome pictures! Sign me up for the 9am ferry! I said. Little did I know the mishaps that would arise following that decision….
I figured it was time to address some “basics” about New Zealand! James and I get a lot of questions about New Zealand. I’m from Michigan, which makes New Zealand quite literally on the other side of the world. So, listen up, I’m answering your questions about our south pacific home, and I’ll let the pictures do the rest.
Continue reading “Frequently Asked Questions About New Zealand”
I want to start off by saying: I love Queenstown. It’s definitely one of my favorite places in New Zealand. I’ve travelled to Queenstown in the winter and in the summer, and it’s hard to say which I love more. It’s also really hard to write and discuss ALL the reasons I love Queenstown and ALL the activities I recommend in one post, so I think I’m going to have to write a short series! I’m going to start it off with my favorite – or one of my favorites, I have a hard time with favorites – wine tasting along the Gibbston River Trail.
Just a few months after James and I were married and starting my fifth year living in New Zealand, my two best friends visited us New Zealand for 10-days. We spent time on both the North and South Island, and we spent 2-3 of those days in Queenstown.
Continue reading “Wine Tasting Tour on Mountain Bikes in Gibbston Valley, Queenstown”
Going through photos of us in Rotorua the other day made me reminisce about our love story. We have quite the tale to tell, so I thought I’d share our story!
It started in January 2010. I was 17. I was ski instructing at the Otsego Club & Resort in Gaylord, Michigan, and the Vancouver Olympics were right around the corner. The whole club was buzzing with excitement because we had snowboarding teams from all over the world coming to train at OUR ski club! Â It was pretty exciting, and our parents even took us out of school (I was in my Senior year of High School) for a long weekend.
Continue reading “How The Girl Met The Kiwi – Our Love Story”
Rotorua is located on the North Island. James earliest lake memories are catching rainbow trout off the boat with his dad at Lake Rotoiti at their rented cabin. Now, James family has a cottage, or bach, on the lake and when we lived in New Zealand we’d travel there basically every other weekend for lakeside adventures. James even proposed here, high on a cliff over looking Lake Rotoiti. When friends visited us in NZ, Rotorua always made the trip itinerary.
Rotorua is a geothermal area – you know when you’re close cause it might smell a bit of rotten eggs, but this is just the bubbling mud! It feels a bit like Jurassic Park.
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Continue reading “7 Adventures Not to Miss When in Rotorua”