I’ve heard that anything done once can be a fluke, but if you do it twice it becomes a pattern. New Zealand was supposed to be one last hurrah. It was a way to say my dreams were worth pursuing, however grand they may have seemed at the time. And now? I am currently living in Australia, in this fever dream I’m calling life.
After New Zealand
When I had left for New Zealand, I was a mess. I had a job that I sought since college, a partner, and student loans freshly paid off. But something was missing. So I left, on the chance I might find myself. And I did. I came away from the trip more confident than I ever had been. My confidence to move mountains was restored.
The Task to move mountains
Holiday working visas are no easy feat to pull off. You have the application fee, the plane ticket, and the initial months without work. Not to mention miscellaneous, unforeseen expenses. For example, if you’re tired and want to grab food after your flight. Or if your bank randomly adds foreign transaction fees to your card. If you’re doing back to back holiday working visas it can be extremely difficult.
My timeline is as follows: Pandemic -> quit job -> find work -> Pay of Student Loans -> get cavities -> New Zealand… New Zealand -> find work slowly -> start making good money -> travel last month of visa and accrue debt. Then I come back home and have 9 months to make money, which created a completely new timeline… Hop off plane -> say hi to family -> go to alumni event -> become soccer coach -> new job saving a Gala -> Finish Job -> Mini Vacation -> Job Market collapses -> become cashier -> Hop on plane. So as you can see, very little room for error. All this to be unemployed in a foreign country (at least for a couple weeks).
So as you can see, even if you are focused and know what you’re doing, you will have a period where you use the money you saved. This is especially true if you want to have a mini vacation, like I did my first week.
My Mini Vacation
New Zealand was messy. I spent two weeks in Auckland where I befriended a British person right away. This friendship pretty much sealed my fate of drinking every day (for the first couple weeks). For this trip, A week in Sydney, a weekend in Melbourne, and then a house in Adelaide. Sydney was bank account and tax I.D. (as well as a mullet) where I ate free breakfast at the hostel, made cheese sandwiches, and had pasta. My splurge was on a rooftop bar during happy hour. Melbourne? Pure vacation filled with live music, brunches, and clubbing. Did I take the train? Of course! And then a 12 hour bus ride to Adelaide. If I didn’t have the weekend, I would’ve lost my mind. And Adelaide? Settling in and getting to know my roommates.
The coming weeks
I just set up transfers with my US bank. Pro tip: do not pay international wires as they will have high fees and not the best conversation rates! Instead, get a Wise account. You could also try Revolut, although I haven’t used them. Set them up as an external transfer, similar to what you’d use for banks back home. That way, you can transfer money to Wise. Once you set up your account, you can transfer it to whatever country bank account you’re using!
My next task is to find work, which means updating my resume and getting a few licenses specific to handling alcohol and if I want to go the extra mile, a food handlers card. It involves reaching out to local recruiters for the industry I’m applying for and as an extra measure, joining local business professional networks.
Once that’s done, I can start looking into things such as run clubs and perhaps even board game cafes!
Is it worth it?
Obviously, yes. The amount of growth I will achieve on this trip is immeasurable. It’s tough to start but gets a lot easier as the visa goes on. I have my own room, with a desk, so I’m already doing a thousand times better than when I started in New Zealand! Cheers to the future and I’ll be trying to post when I get the chance!
As always, thanks for reading! If you have questions about travel, feel free to reach out! I love sharing my experiences! I’ve also expanded to medium, so I’m expecting a lot more traffic in the coming year!
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.” ― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
I grabbed a branch and held on for dear life.
Hi, yes, so I’m not dead. It has been many months since I last wrote. Why? I’ve been busy living and working. Originally, the plan was to write extensively like I did when I was in Germany almost a decade ago. However, study abroad and a working holiday visa are two very different experiences. Germany was a journey to share while I figured it out. New Zealand, on the other hand, is a journey best left to be shared at the end. So I’ll start the article with a snippet I took from an unfinished article. Then, we’ll move into the end of my journey. I’ll talk about my travels and key takeaways. I’ll add I few questions for engagement, so keep an eye out! Then, we’ll finish!
“If you could travel, where would you go?”
A Little Blast from the past: The Beginning
The hike that turned into climbing a mountain…
So I did try writing earlier in the trip! Some articles were published others were not, I took a few excerpts from the unpublished ones to put in here as a fun way to highlight some of my earlier thoughts as I was going through my travels:
“
So here we are, a few months into my visa and the trip has been working as intended. The goal wasn’t so much a grand adventure as it was a chance to give myself a nice reset. There has been a learning curve, for sure, but each day I learn something new about myself. This trip will define my next decade, so it’s something that had to be done. It was difficult to leave everything behind in the U.S. I’m learning to be more assertive in my approach to life and be more comfortable with imperfection. I’m a people pleaser at my core so advocating for what I want has been a puzzle for me.
Blame, Less
So this year, I’m putting the past behind me. To do so, I’m making an effort to blame no one for the past. Rather than dwell, I’m putting an emphasis on things simply being the way they are. As part of that effort, I’m trying to write less about the past. By doing this, I gain more focus on the future. My conversations about the past have run their course and the journey I was on is no longer relevant. I am attending Adult Children of Alcoholics meetings (ACA). I am also gaining more confidence with relationships. The pendulum is slowly swinging in the right direction.
Who Am I?
That is the question I am asking myself on this trip. What is my purpose and where do I want to go? My work is casual. I work once every couple of weeks or when shifts are available. This schedule gives me a lot of time on my hands. And a lot of that time has been spent doing a whole lot of nothing. I do not have the drive I once did and my boundless energy has become more bounded.
Focusing on Writing a Book
So I have a renewed focus on writing a book while I’m here. I have a few ideas for a horror story, a potential self-help book, and a poetry book. Earlier, I read a friend’s book and have felt inspired to take the leap myself. I have 6 months at my Airbnb. I hope to have a good start by the time June rolls around.
Setting A schedule
At the moment, I don’t really need to set a schedule. Falling into the habit of waking up late is easy. I often spend the day chatting with my 27 other flat mates. Okay, maybe not all at once. As a talker, this is great. For productivity, not so much. If someone is talking to me, I try to put everything away. I find it challenging to prioritize getting work done. There is a shed in the back where I can get some peace. I ultimately choose to sit where people will be coming through often.
A different trip
The greatest shock of this trip is in fact, that it is not study abroad in Germany. In fact, it is not even close. It is survive, thrive, and take a break. There is no go, go, go. No next purpose, no next adventure. It is managing my limited resources to make for an enjoyable trip. I honestly have no idea what to do with myself and that is perfect. It means my soul is still malleable and that I am still open.
“
“Would you take the initial risk to travel, even if it meant leaving the known behind?”
And every journey has a beginning, a middle, and an end, each stage weaving together to create the tapestry of our experiences.
The Middle
One of the many waterfalls I saw on my journey…
So I wrote during the middle of the trip and a lot of it was regarding traveling. A day trip here, a day trip there. A cold winter spent inside watching ‘Friends’ and a winter of making friends. It’s crazy to think that I simply lived. Looking back, there is beauty in that. The slower New Zealand days are now some of my favorite. Playing Catan till three am every morning. Drinking more than I should. Bowling, going to play board games twice a week. Reading a few books, going to boutique cinemas. Not to mention volunteering at a community garden, free restaurant, and bike repair shop.
A Few Stories:
My favorite story to tell is that when I first arrived, I was afraid to cook. Someone in the house had made fries and I thought it was impossible. I made cheese cubes, ate plain rice, and had pasta. It was a sad diet. And then I started going to Sunday markets and I decided to start cooking with potatoes. Then I tried making fries and it become my go to snack. I made them well and they were easy. I realized in that moment that sometimes you just have to try.
Or when I started going to Saturday writers meetups to get started on my book. I have one paragraph written. Regardless, it was a cool experience to try. I’ve never joined a writing group before but I’ll definitely look for the opportunity back home.
And another, where I got so drunk one night that we wandered the town. What did we find? A trolley (shopping cart), which I was promptly wheeled back home in.
“Where do you find meaning in a journey?”
Endings can be daunting, yet they remind us that nothing lasts forever.
Journey’s End
So here we are, at the end. When I arrived to New Zealand, I was but a child. As I leave, I leave with more independence and confidence in myself, which was the ultimate goal. I wasn’t satisfied back home and needed to escape. I’ve found how much I truly enjoy traveling. New Zealand is a beautiful country and to be able to live in it was a true blessing.
The Last Month
I lived and worked 11 months in Wellington, my city and one of the best cities to live out there. I started as a corporate box host. I worked for the national museum of New Zealand. I finished as a chef at a board game cafe. It was huge for someone who never really cooked in their life. So, last month I decided to travel. I explored the South Island’s West Coast. Then I visited Mount Cook, Lake Tekapo, and Milford Sound. Then from Wellington all the way to the tip of the North Island. It was crazy, messy, and all together beautiful.
What I achieved
A successful relationship – I had a relationship overseas, and it was absolutely wonderful, even if it was super brief. I used to think I’d be single for the rest of my life. Now, I have hope that past failures in love will not dictate future results.
Living less of the high life and a more practical life – When I arrived in New Zealand, I wanted the best. I aimed for the best experiences. I ate out quite a bit, I drank, and I chose an expensive hostel. In Wellington, I started to OP shop (buy secondhand) and even picked up sewing as a skill! I bought flour and learned to bake and as I chef, I learned to cook. I saved a lot of money after I figured out how to be a proper backpacker.
Found a part of my soul – As I’ve gotten older, I’ve felt very stagnant in life. Spinning wheels and going nowhere. New Zealand has been the opposite. The effort I put in, I got back ten fold. I stopped worrying about climbing the corporate ladder and let life slow down. I went on walks and just took joy in the simply pleasures, with things such as baking.
Realized giving up isn’t an option – I’d been a quitter back home in the US. I was resigned to shitty jobs and just playing video games or watching TV. Part of living for the full year was to take jumper cables to my soul and reach deep within to restore what I had thought to be lost. So I’m back to doubling down like a used to and going all in even though it’s terrifying. I live in less fear and more in hope than I did a year ago.
Adversity should be embraced – So nothing really went quite to plan, and I had to learn to be okay with that fact. I never put my foot and set boundaries back home, so here I got a nice reality check. To get what I wanted, I needed to stand up for myself and ask for what I wanted. My whole life, I thought I had done this, but I hadn’t. Now, I’m better at dealing with authority and treating myself as an equal. It feels relatively nice.
A Summary of what I learned:
I love a good adventure. My accomplishments this trip were no small feat. I had no idea what I was doing when I set out on this journey. I was leaving my known world behind for the unknown, praying it would be better. My key takeaway is that nothing is impossible and what is broken can be fixed.
And it was not a perfect journey! I had to fight my internal demons and I wasn’t sure who would win. I wanted to quit after three months but the goal was always a year. Persevere and then persevere more.
Australia
So I will mention now, that come 2025, I’ll be moving to Australia to repeat this experience all over again! I’ve been granted a visa and plan to stay three years. My time in the US will strictly be to make enough money to fund the initial move. Originally I was thinking Ireland and then Canada. Enough people were able to convince me Australia would be better and I’m glad they did!
There will be more on Australia but for now the plan to start in Melbourne. The dream is to become a barista with farm work mixed in. I’ll stay as long as I can and then see where life takes me.
The End
I wish there was more to say. The truth is a lot of the journey is hard for me to fully articulate into words. These journeys are truly best experienced firsthand. I left my hobbit hole what feels like ages ago and now I return home ready for a good rest. Will the Shire be as I left it? I have a couple days left in New Zealand and everything to be done, has been done. I have no regrets. Until the next tale.
The Actual End
So, my year is at an end. I will be back home for the holidays and I’m looking for time to relax. I’m better than I was before I left but I am tired. I’m ready for a break to settle and then unsettle myself once more. Traveling in my thirties is scary but so good for me. My writing is rusty. With any luck, it will return once I get back to the states. I’ll have time to unwind. As always thanks for reading and joining me on these journeys!
When my journey began in shire…When my journey ended in the Shire…
“Is a journey sad when it’s over or can it be enjoyed for what it was?”
So go out and travel! Embrace the experiences that come your way! You don’t have to know everything; just take that first step! I encourage you to respond to any questions in the comments or ask me anything about travel! And please share your travel stories—I’d love to hear them and connect with your adventures!
If I can become a chef with no cooking experience, then truly anything is possible. Remember, the only limits you have are the ones you place on yourself. Step out of your comfort zone, and let the world surprise you!
So we are now officially a month and a bit into my stay at Wellington. A couple weeks of fun in Auckland and now adjusting to living in a city versus simply traveling. The fact of the matter is… It can be a bit boring to talk about! This trip is very much a personal journey, one where I’m learning to adapt and make appropriate adjustments to my life. I’m learning to take things less seriously and just simply be. Which is a story I’ve told a thousand times before but one that’s always worth telling.
A journey of self discovery
So I’ve been learning a lot about myself on this trip. What I like, what I don’t like. And I’m learning to relax. The hard reset is in full effect. I don’t have to do anything here. I can just live and adapt. There’s no rush to be anywhere and I have become reinspired to improve my life. I went to church (once) and have been going to ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics) meetings on a consistent basis. I’m also trying this new thing where I take full responsibility for my problems and don’t play the blame game. It’s been a while since I’ve lived on my own, so it’s been a big adjustment getting into the swing of things on this trip. No money? Get a job? Need to save money? Don’t eat out. Buy secondhand, don’t buy new. Learn to sew instead of throwing away clothing. It turns out, a lot of basic necessities and skills I need to simply survive as a human being I am simply lacking, so I am slowing leveling up my skillset. It’ll take work but I’m up for the challenge.
Living vs. Adventure
So it turns out if you’re living in a foreign country, you can’t travel all the time! I am grocery shopping, I am going on swims, I am going on hikes. Wellington is absolutely beautiful and the city is fantastic. The activities I enjoy, I can do for free. There’s been a live concert series and night lights in the botanical garden for the summer, so it’s been something to do while I pass the time.
Coffee culture is great and I only had coffee a couple times! I’ve opted for a thing called “freeze-dried” coffee which is cheap and not too bad. I’ve been to the bars and they’re also fun! A lot of the bars have live music, so I’ve been doing some dancing as well. I’ve also been spending a lot of the time with the British since my arrival and have learned of wonders such as “marmite” and “beans and on toast”.
No Money, No Problem
My first job will be this week and it’ll be a casual job for a Foo Fighters concert! I was sick for a week so I was unable to apply for other roles. Since office work is hard to find with it being the holiday season, I’ve opted to send out applications to restaurants and work there while I wait. I spent a lot of time in the US obsessing over money so here I’m trying to relax a bit more and just have faith that it’ll all work out. Rent is cheap and I’m in a nice area (beach 20 minute walk, next to the city center, and hiking 7 minutes away), so I can’t complain. Basically all I want is to watch concerts for free, get free or discounted meals, and maybe do some catering work so I can get fed gourmet meals.
Still Figuring it out
So this travel series is a little different than when I was in Germany. Germany I traveled every weekend, ate delicious food, and had a lot to talk about. Here, not so much. It is a quiet, simple life where I lay on a beach without sunscreen and burn myself to a crisp. I’m starting to do more writing related activities outside of my blog so it’ll be interested to see where those go. Right now, I am reading a draft for a book and am hoping to write a review for it here on this very blog. It’s nothing crazy but it’s a start after 10 years of blogging.
And that’s a wrap! Unlike study abroad, this isn’t the most flashy trip! I picked a place to live and am living. Once I get a bit more established, I’ll write guide articles on how to navigate traveling abroad! I’ve done study abroad and now I am living abroad, so I am gaining a lot of knowledge on this subject. Cheers!
So this is the year. The gears have been turning for a while now and everything has lined up. It is time to hit the reset button. My crazy fever dream is just beginning. As of writing this, my working holiday visa application to New Zealand has been accepted. I have been working a new job for over a month now and I plan to fully commit to running a half marathon.
So this year, my resolution post is going to be formatted a little differently. I have been heavily goal focused for the last 3 or 4 years now. This year, I wanted to take some time to go over life and some of the reasons behind the big changes.
When Life Loses its flavor
So for a while now I’ve been trying to avert certain disaster and I’ve just been barely able to keep my head above water so I don’t drown. Along the way the world has brought me to my knees. A lot. And each time I have gotten back up. As a consequence, life has lost a lot of its flavor. I try to feel with my whole heart and there is barely a pulse left. On the outside I’m posed with purpose but on the inside I can feel myself imploding like a dying star. The hope is that when I finally go super nova, the energy released breaths life into a New Mike.
The Long Journey
This year, I want to be more honest when it comes to love and that comes with acknowledging where I’m at. When I was young I thought I’d be married by 29 or at least in a relationship. Not drifting aimlessly and not lost to the darkness. My personal growth has seen me invest heavily in friendships and self-love, all of which I have in abundance. It even saw me coming back home and reconciling with my family. Now, my life lives in paradox. I am both surrounded by people and love but am also alone.
The Goal
This year, I want to reset and I want to just let love happen (well, not entirely, I do have a plan). To do this I cannot walk the path alone. So instead of hopping back on dating apps, I’m going to explore why I’ve been single for so long. And as such, it’s time for a dating coach. I have also relayed to my friends if they have any single friends they know to send them my way. I remember what love felt like when I was younger and want to learn how to recapture that energy. It’ll also be a year of dating books and podcasts as I seek to understand what love is and where it fits in my life. The hope is to make the process more fun and less work and while my “Year of Desire” went a long way for getting back on the saddle, there is still much to be done.
A Focus on Imperfection
This year I’ll be exploring imperfection and learning to find the beauty in it. My whole life has been spent obsessed with perfection. I thought if I didn’t follow a certain path, I’d end up like my father. In truth, I was partly right. I became obsessed with mental health in college and set down a journey of constant improvement that has made me a better man. And yet, here I find myself drifting. I feel shame and find myself in a state where I’m never truly vulnerable. The walls I thought I had torn down are in fact, still there. Why can’t I talk about my craniosynostosis? Why can’t I talk about my romantic failures? Why am I still so conflicted over my childhood? I thought being the best I could be would propel me forward in life but it didn’t, so maybe it’s time I look at the imperfections that make up so many parts of life.
The Concrete Goals
This year, the goals are practical. They are boxes to be marked that will prepare me for my journey in life and in the near future, New Zealand.
Running
My long neglected bastion. The one thing that has always given me peace in this world. It has always been there and is a measure of who I am. So it’s time to propel it into my adult life with a half marathon. The plan is to run the bridge of the Gods in the Cascades come August 6th and this time I have the tools I need. Nike Run Club has a fitness coach and has a 14 week half marathon running plan, guidance I have been sorely missing since high school. I’m going to try to get a friend to do it with me and it should be a nice send off before I live in New Zealand.
Coding
Ah, the journey I started on during the pandemic and what has been an on again, off again relationship. Coding skills I need, there is no way around this fact. My problem is I’ll do a little and then lose motivation, even though I find the concepts interesting. If I learned to code, this would open up a world of possibilities for me professionally and now I have the perfect catalyst; yup, you guessed it, my journey to New Zealand. I have a Codecademy subscription and the program is being vastly expanded, so it’s time I jump back in. My goal is 8 to 10 hours a week as I believe this amount of time is what I need to have some professionally ready skills by the time I live overseas. While communication is my forte, I want a true technical skill to fall back on.
All Other Goals
With great effort, my goals from years past have formed into stable habits. The journey may not be perfect, but I no longer feel the need to put cooking, biking, language learning, and piano on here. I practice them enough and am slowly building a strong lifestyle of having them integrated into my everyday. This year is for the big goals and I have no more time to dally.
The Human Capital Question
This year will also have a renewed focused on revenue streams, which means trying new things as well as looking back at the old.
Freelancing
In New Zealand, I’ll be a casual or part-time worker. As such, I want to have as much at my disposal as I can. That means not relying on one stream of revenue. Imagine making money part-time and then freelance writing on top of that. This in fact may lead to my return to social media, in a professional capacity. I’m still looking at the logistics but I really want to make freelancing work; not as a sole source of income but as an additional revenue path.
Sponsorships
I am officially considering sponsored content. Currently I am in the early stages of looking at how it would work but the idea popped in my head when I got a random email asking for brand ambassadors. I figured if there’s a product I’m using a lot, it could be fun to have the occasional sponsored article. After ten years of writing, I think it’s time I start at least exploring content like this.
Contests
Contests I have also been very curious about for a while now. Enter a fiction contest, win a cash prize. Easy, straightforward and what I hope to be fun. It’ll be a good incentive to invest more time into my writing and since I’ve been writing short stories for a bit now, it seems like a good time to jump in now that I have a general sense of where I want my life to go.
And that is my current roadmap for the upcoming year. It’s time to usher in the next chapter and fully enter adulthood. It’ll require a look at relationships, myself, and my professional capital. Last years goals helped establish a good lifestyle so now I’m making one last push to live as the best version of myself. I’m excited to see what this year brings. And as always, thanks for reading!
To the Moon 
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