Moving Abroad: The Three Year Plan

Preparing for quite an adventure

Published on April 6, 2005 By Zoomba In Life Journals

Abel Tasman Natl. Park

In 13 days I'll be 23. I have a college degree, no debt, no wife (or girlfriend), no kids, nothing tieing me down. I'm at a point in life where I can pick up and go somewhere else if the mood takes me. I just have to find a new job wherever I go, a minor detail in the grand scheme of things really.

So with all of that in mind, I figured why not try living outside the United States for a few years? Experience something new, a different culture, a different attitude... just something different. Many people dream about doing stuff like this but talk themselves out of it with excuses of bills, family, job, whatever. Most of the people I grew up with will likely never set foot out of this country... many of them will rarely leave Pennsylvania over the course of their lives. I want to have a few adventures in life before I settle down somewhere. I want to have cool stories to tell people when I'm old.

Public Gardens in Hamilton

Now I'm looking at what is involved in actually moving abroad. I figure I would like to stay away probably 5-10 years, but what do I have to do to get permission to stay that long anywhere? It depends on the country. Right now, I'm looking at New Zealand. I was there for a 3 week stay last Summer (See my story on bungee jumping here), my parents have visited the country several times in the past 12 years, and it has all the qualities I am looking for in a place to live

Scenic
I grew up in a "Tree City" so I'm used to being surrounded by a lot of greenery. I want trees, mountains, rivers etc. I don't deal well with the grays of urban living with all the cement and pavement.
Live rural. Work urban
Major cities like Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch are full-fledged cities. They're big, sprawling, congested places where a lot of stuff happens. This is the sort of environment I would like to work in, but not live in. Thankfully it's a very short drive from the cities to the comparatively rural areas I would like to live in (see point above).
Safe Place
NZ is among the safest countries to live in the entire world. This is due to a mix of culture and scale. A single murder is so rare it's national news. In this respect, NZ is what the US was like maybe 40 years ago, when you didn't have to worry so much if you forgot to lock your front door one evening. Not to say bad things don't happen, they're just fairly rare.
Friendly Attitude
New Zealanders are considered some of the friendliest people in the world, and I've experienced that first-hand. This creates a very warm and welcoming environment, one which is harder and harder to find here in the US. It was strange being at a grocery store checkout and having the clerk ask how my day was going... and MEAN it. She was a bit offended at first when I gave the automatic "fine" Thankfully when I realized she was actually asking me and wanted to know, I answered fully and things were kosher again. It was a refreshing change.

Sunset in Kaikoura

A river running near the shore in Kaikoura

A glacial lake between Christchurch and Queenstown

There's just so many nice things about the country that I wouldn't mind for a moment spending a number of years there. However, it's not exactly easy to move to NZ as they control immigration with an iron fist. They like having a small country and want to keep it that way. So, I have to work the evil points system to be considered for immigration. Thankfully I work in IT. In NZ, they're desperately trying to build up their national IT infrastructure, they're about 5-10 years behind the US and most of Europe in this regard and they don't have a well enough trained native workforce, so this is one of those professions that pretty much gives you a pass into the country, provided you have the experience.

In the IT field, they ask for a degree, plus three years work experience with any of a number of technologies and programming languages before applying. Since I just started working about half a year ago, I have around 3 years left before I can be considered for this slot.

So I have 3 years to prepare for this grand adventure. What do I need to do?

Get those 3 years work experience. I'm hoping to specialize in infrastructure engineering at my current job very soon.
Save up enough money to make the move. I would idealy like to have around $20k banked for this move so I have cash on-hand to get a place to live, and a cheap form of transportation. This means a savings of around $6600 per year. If I'm smart I can manage much more than this.
In about 2 years begin the paperwork/job application process. I want to be ready to go when the 3 year point rolls around, so the details needs to get started on probably a year or so in advance.

I'm sure there is a lot more to do than that, but from this point 3 years away it's the high level stuff I need to be looking to take care of. These are my goals to reach over the next few years. Good goals to have regardless of whether or not I'm looking for a job abroad.

Note: all photos in this article were taken by me on my trip in 2004. I have roughly 750 digital images from the 3-week trip. These are very small thumbnails of a few of them. If interested, I can send along a link to the full gallery.

Comments

Shovelheat

on Apr 06, 2005

Your very first sentence says it all. Go for it!

foreverserenity

on Apr 06, 2005

Yep, I say go for it too and good luck! I have heard that New Zealand government does keep a strict watch on immigration and how they do like to keep it that way. So good luck with getting through. If you can't, why not try the UK? That's where I would go. I have friends and family there, so easy for me to say that's where I would go. But when the reason really is that it's so much more acceptable of foreigners and more easily accessable to all the other countries too.

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