Australian correspondence is the weekly newsletter from our Australian bureau. This week’s issue is written by Pete McKenzie, a journalist based in Auckland, New Zealand.
It’s 2022, and Lucy Schultz is fed up. When she worked as a wedding photographer, she and her husband traveled across the United States in their recreational vehicle. Wherever they go, communities seem polarized and the news is bleak. “We have the lowest opinion of America,” she said. “It’s an endless chaotic time warp.”
Ms Schultz was later hired by an American client who wanted to get married in New Zealand. She had been there once before meeting her husband, in 2014. Later, when she described the remote Pacific Islands to him, she said, “I turned a deaf ear to him because the way I described it to him felt like a fantasy.”
This time, after the assignment, Ms. Schultz’s husband joined her on a road trip through New Zealand’s sparsely populated north. The country has proven to be an easy sell. In a small café near Golden Beach, he turned to her and asked: “When are we moving?”
As tensions grow in the United States, New Zealand has become an object of desire for many Americans, and so has Ms. Schultz. Following Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory, the number of Americans moving to New Zealand surged by 65%. During a 2020 presidential debate, “How to move to New Zealand” became a popular Google search topic. As another U.S. election approaches, those who took the action say they have no regrets.
“One of the great things about leaving the United States is that I can hit the unsubscribe button in the midst of chaos,” Ms. Schultz, 31, said. “Politics and elections put stress on your nervous system when you live there. I was just able to verify this.
Ms Schultz and her husband have settled near the small North Island city of Hamilton and are applying for permanent residency. She is delighted with the functionality of the country. “This may be a weird example, but public bathrooms are not a nightmare. You can go to the toilet and the hand sanitizer dispenser actually works,” she said. “Or there’d be a park with real functional barbecue grills.”
She volunteers at a nearby nature reserve, where she can wander through pristine forests, and becomes passionate about the country’s friendliness. “I may have had some optimism,” she admits, but said she was “shocked by the sense of community that is embedded in the culture.” New Zealanders look after each other.
Other Americans were equally enthusiastic. Sophie Zavaleta, 27, was studying to become a teacher in Alabama when she traveled to New Zealand for a study abroad program in 2020. , she extended her stay.
She quickly fell in love with the country. Her host family took her on trips to the beach, where she became enchanted with the coastal scenery. She found a teaching job in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, and found the job to be far less stressful than the pressures she faced in the United States. Her two-month trip has been extended to four years and may become permanent.
There are some disadvantages. Ms Zabaleta said food and rent were much more expensive in New Zealand than back home, and she missed her family. But as the U.S. election approaches, she said, “I’m glad I live here and don’t have to deal with all the political craziness that I know is going to happen there.”
New Zealand has a points-based immigration system that largely requires immigrants to have specific skills or work in certain jobs to fill labor shortages. According to Statistics New Zealand, 5,874 Americans moved to New Zealand between June 2022 and June 2023.
Todd Henry, a 41-year-old bar owner in Auckland, grew up in Pennsylvania and moved to New Zealand permanently in 2013 after several brief stays there. He said the positive mood in the country was in sharp contrast to the mood in the United States, where “there’s a negative vibe that permeates a lot of the conversations I’m having with people. It’s hard to describe, but I feel like it’s weighing heavily on me. Everything is It’s a political disaster.
During Mr. Henry’s return home, he noticed growing interest in his decision to move. “I see people saying, ‘New Zealand, what is that? Why do you want to move there?’ ‘How can I move there?'” he said.
He noticed some familiar changes in New Zealand. The country recently experienced a divisive election in which several conservative parties ousted the liberal government from power. “Unfortunately, New Zealand is also changing in some respects in the direction of the United States. Although not as extreme,” Mr Henry said.
Even so, Mr Henry and some other Americans who have immigrated to New Zealand say they are shocked by conditions at home. “It’s weird looking at these things from here,” Mr. Henry said. Few said they were eager to go back. Ms. Schultz said America “has come too far to be saved by voting alone.” “If I thought it was salvageable, I’d still be there.”
Here are this week’s stories.
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