Live in a caravan with your family in New Zealand.

One year ago I spend my holiday to find a job in New Zealand. You can find jobs and apply for it online, distance doesn’t matter. But if you want to show them that you are serious, you must go to the country were you apply.
At this time it is almost impossible to get a visa for New Zealand without job, or you must have a lot of money. I am lucky that I did technical education, here in New Zealand they don’t have enough workers to fill up all the vacancies. I found a job at a nice family company and I am still working there.

When you emigrate with your family to a country, you also need a roof above your head. In the cities of New Zealand you have to pay a lot of money for renting or buying a house.

I love to see the youth travel around the country in a campervan, this is probable the most wonderful time of their live. Why shouldn’t we do this?

We did it, we bought a caravan and we still live in this caravan. We sold our house and equipment in The Netherlands and we only took 10 suitcases. It is strange that you collect so much things you don’t need.

When you have a caravan you have basically the most things you need. The only difference with a house is that you have to bring your waste water to the dump station (the kids still think we are connected).
We have three children and I am surprised how good things are going. They play more outside and we show them a different way of living in a new country.
We have no mortgage and no lease agreement, now we can save some money. When it is necessary we can go where we want. Of course we want to have our own house in the future, but we also want to keep this freedom. Our plan is to buy a freehold section and build a nice house. When we have the land, we can use the caravan until our house is ready. When the house is ready we can use the caravan for holidays or for family when they come over.

A lot of people leaving their luxury house in the summer and go with their caravan or tent to a foreign country. They have three weeks quality time with their family and this is often the most wonderful time of the year. Why work 40 hours a week for your fixed charges and if you are lucky there is some money left for a short holiday.

Now we are staying on a camping, it is easier to be more active. We can walk to the beach, we can jump in the hotpool, the kids can jump on the trampoline our play table tennis. Not only for three weeks but the hole year.

(You can also think the opposite, because camping is a way to get out of the system).

We shall see what the future brings, for now we just have fun and have everything we need.

In the near future we try to live self-sufficient somewhere rural, follow me to see if we can do this.

@gerben