As mentioned in a previous post , I moved to NZ in mid 2016 for a job with an appliance Manufacturer. While I had a number of moves in my life in the USA, this was the second major move of my life- comparable only to my move from India to the USA in 2007. While this is quite clear to me now, it was not at all apparent on how large a magnitude the change would be at the time. An OECD country with an english culture- how different could it be?

Quite different is the answer.

While this blog is not the place to cover all the differences and similarities between life in the USA and in NZ, it did have significant effect on my travel photography. This is because for the uninitiated, NZ is at the arse end of the earth and traveling anywhere outside NZ is an expensive exercise.

NZ makes up for it by having enough diversity in nature across the length of the two islands to be comparable enough to the contiguous USA. For example, you can get great surf in the USA (Anywhere in HI for instance), good skiing and snowboarding (Aspen, CO for example) and good river rafting (AR comes to mind), you can do all this and more in the space of a weekend in the North Island of NZ. This makes NZ quite the tourist destination. While this can be positive in many ways, one major drawback is that there are a ridiculous number of tourists just about anywhere you look in the season, competing for hotel rooms, rental cars, activities, campsites, restaurant tables etc. You learn to plan ahead to miss the worst of it but there is no avoiding it altogether.

My travels in NZ (apart from the visit from Candace towards the end of 2016, which will be the subject of another post soon) my explorations included the City of Auckland, Puhoi, trips to Mt. Manganui, Hamilton and Raglan. The gallery below is a mishmash of Film and Digital images from those trips and activities.

While the sights and views in NZ are great, getting around can be difficult due to winding narrow roads, expensive petrol and rentals and obnoxious tourists. If you work your way to a destination without getting too worked up over everything it took to get there, the experiences are very rewarding.

Since I have been in NZ since 2016 – with no sign of moving away at the time of this writing, I will compile a post for each year and put photos there for my local travel. Stay tuned for more.