This is our reaction to the video by YouTubers GoodforGaia about what they say are 10 things they don’t tell you about moving to New Zealand.
Renata (right) was born and raised in New Zealand, and Josh is from the UK. In May 2022, they quit their jobs to travel the world with their toddler and have been documenting it on their YouTube channel.
Two weeks ago they made this video talking about things that Josh especially found shocking after his 3 years living in New Zealand. Please support their YouTube channel.
Let’s work our way through them.
1. People don’t wear shoes
This really threw Josh when he saw so many people not wearing shoes in supermarkets and going about their business. Our reaction: it’s not common throughout the country but it’s not unusual either. New Zealand is a fairly relaxed, casual society, so being barefoot is not unusual, especially during the summer.
But we haven’t quite got to the point of wearnig jandals in the office - especially not yellow, black is the colour of preference which you can pick up for only $2.50 from any The Warehouse store in the country. (We’ll do a story in the future talking about the main shops in New Zealand and their UK and US equivalents)
We call them jandals, for others they’re a sandal, flip flop, thongs, pluggers, slops, plakkies, tsinelas, smagol and in some countries they’re known as slippers.
2. Amazon slow delivery
Yep, Josh is right. New Zealand is a long way from anywhere, so there’s no such thing as a speedy Amazon delivery. Be prepared to wait for a week or two.
3. Paying at the counter in cafes
They’re correct, this is the norm in cafes and most restaurants. There are of course some fancier eateries that will come to your table, but in main, you pay at a counter when you depart. Other major differences are that most people pay by card rather than cash and you don’t have to tip - it’s generally not expected that you tip in New Zealand.
4. Everyone loves birds
Heck we’re named after a bird - Kiwis. With the natural beauty of New Zealand’s environment, our Polynesian cultural history and even our farming heritage, affinity for the land and nature is something that is generally engrained in most New Zealanders.
5. Importance of Māori culture
Something that Josh and Renata didn’t fully appreciate but were delighted to see, was how much of the Māori culture (the indigenous people) is evident in everyday life. The Māori language is an official language but it wasn’t until the 1980s that it started to gain more prominence publicly. Today the Māori culture and langauge is visible in almost every aspect of New Zealand life, but there is still a lot more that needs to be done for New Zealand to be a truly bi-cultural or bi-lingual country.
6. It’s expensive
Yes, New Zealand is expensive. As the couple point out in the video, petrol, supermarkets, house prices and rentals are expensive. This is mostly because imported items have a long way to travel to the bottom of the South Pacific, and property is often used as a form of investment because we don’t have a capital gains tax. In recent times the cost of imported goods has been exacerbated by increased shipping costs globally and the shortage of some supplies. But as the Josh says in the video, “it doesn’t offset all the great points about living in New Zealand.”
7. Buying flights out of New Zealand expensive
Again another downside to being a long way from anywhere and being the last major stop before the massive Pacific ocean. While bagging the national airline Air New Zealand could be thought of as a national pasttime, a travel writer in online media outlet Stuff, asked whether it was time to cut the airline some slack. “Rising airfares, for example, are an issue worldwide as short-staffed airlines struggle to keep up with much higher demand than they had envisaged in the darkest days of the pandemic.” But most Kiwis are rightly proud of Air New Zealand which regularly wins international awards for the quality of its service and who can forget some of their icnoic inflight safety videos.
8. New Zealand is really big
New Zealand is the sixth-largest island country in the world, with a land size of 268,710 km2. And when you overlay it across Europe, you really start to get an idea of just how long it is. It’s roughly the same size as Japan. New Zealand is long and narrow, and stretches around 1,900 kilometres from top to bottom, and is about 400 kilometres wide at the widest point.
9. Petrol station food is weird
Yes, many overseas visitors think so. Especially our fasincation with pies - and we’re not talking pumpkin pies or anything sweet. We’re talking ‘meat pies’. Popular YouTuber “How to Dad” explains.
And there is one thing that coffee-crazy New Zealanders won’t tolerate at a petrol station and that’s bad coffee. People will drive past a petrol station that is conveniently located, to a petrol station that has a proper espresso-making machine further away.
10. There’s 2 degrees of separation betwen New Zealanders
The answer is yes. With a population of just over 5 million people, it’s not difficult for Kiwis to meet up even as strangers, and work out that there’s some sort of connection only 2 degrees apart.
All currencies are in New Zealand dollars. None of the video material in this article is owned by "Matahati - Confessions from New Zealand" . Video material embedded for this story is used on the basis of fair dealing to support the news reporting, criticism or the review objective of the article. Please support any YouTubers listed by liking, subscribing and, if appropriate, donating to their channels.
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