Living in New Zealand: The good, bad & ugly parts of life in Aotearoa
I love living in New Zealand — but life here isn’t without its downsides.
I’m a proud New Zealander — I grew up on a dairy farm, riding horses and motorbikes, and taking calves to school for pet day.
But as soon as I graduated university, I got on a plane and didn’t come back for more than 14 months. For years, I bounced between New Zealand and the world.
Pulled in by the great lifestyle in New Zealand, pushed out by the limited options.
With a high quality of life, a laid-back lifestyle, and a welcoming attitude toward immigrants, New Zealand is a great place to live.
However, it’s not without it’s drawbacks.
If you want to know what it’s like to live in New Zealand, this is my perspective. I can’t speak for every New Zealander, but these are the best and worst things about life in this little country at the bottom of the world.
jump ahead.
Quick facts about New Zealand
Population: 5.2 million people
Official languages: English, Te Reo Maori, New Zealand Sign Language
Size: New Zealand is about the same size as Colorado, or about half the size of France
Is New Zealand a good place to live?
Sunrise at Spirits Bay in Northland
In short, yeah, life in New Zealand is awesome.
We have a saying in New Zealand — “she’ll be right.” This everything will be okay attitude sums up the approach to life in New Zealand.
New Zealand is a great place to live as the quality of life is high, it’s a safe country, and the whole country is an outdoorsy playground, meaning you have many wonderful ways to fill your free time.
Living in New Zealand is generally laid-back and fun, if you enjoy outdoor activities (it’s a different story if you’re a city person).
Generally, people in New Zealand are friendly and enjoy a laid-back pace of life. We don’t subscribe to the same work culture as the United States, so people rarely work late or on weekends.
Combined with weather that is usually pretty good, this makes New Zealand a nice place to live.
The lifestyle in New Zealand is very relaxed — this is an island nation, after all. The dress code is so casual we often don’t wear shoes, and rarely dress up even to go to restaurants.
With a small population, New Zealand has lots of space. You can often go to the beach and be the only one there — in Europe, I am always blown away by how many people you see at the beach, because I’m so used to New Zealand’s quietness.
Some of the downsides of New Zealand are the flipside of that quietness, though. There’s not much nightlife outside of Auckland and Wellington, and even there options are limited.
There are also big distances between towns and they aren’t well connected — it’s not easy to get around without a car. Poor public transport and high housing costs cause some frustrations, but on the whole life in New Zealand is easy.
What is it like living in New Zealand? These are the things I love about my life here
I’ve been lucky enough to travel as far as Greenland, but I always boomerang back to New Zealand eventually.
These are the things that keep drawing me back to life here.
1. New Zealand is ideal for outdoorsy people
Wild camping in the mountains near Glenorchy
If you love the outdoors, you’ll love living in New Zealand.
Whether it’s surfing in Raglan, hiking in the South Island, or swimming at the North Island’s epic beaches, there’s always something to do in New Zealand.
Our national parks range from the volcanic peaks and emerald pools of Tongariro National Park to the glaciers and rainforests of the dense, wild Westland Tai Poutini National Park in the South Island.
New Zealand has an epic network of hiking tracks and huts around the country, managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC). This makes walks and hikes very accessible.
A typical weekend walk in Auckland — photo credit Miles Holden
Many people spend their weekends getting outside, heading to the beach or just going for a walk.
In Auckland, we’re spoilt for choice. We can head out west to the Waitakere Ranges to go on walks like the Omanawanui Track (pictured above) or head to Tawharanui Regional Park for white sand beaches and bird spotting.
I can also go surfing most weekends, as there is always a beach within an easy drive.
In the summer months, camping is a favourite past time.
Pitching a tent close to the beach and spending weeks at a time in togs (our slang for swimwear) with bare feet, cold beer, and a good barbecue, is our idea of a good time.
2. New Zealand is a very safe country
A solo hiking mission in the mountains for sunrise (with coffee, of course)
New Zealand is one of the safest countries in the world.
There isn’t a lot of crime in day to day life in New Zealand, which adds to the relaxed environment.
In summer in the small beach town near where I grew up, people leave their cars unlocked and windows down in the parking lot, as they stroll into the supermarket in bare feet to grab groceries.
Obviously crime exists here. There is a growing divide between the haves and the have nots, and on the lower income end of the scale, problems are rife.
Again, I’m just offering my perspective.
I feel safe enough to go hiking, camping, and campervanning around New Zealand alone.
As a woman, it’s very rare for me to feel uncomfortable walking around in the streets in New Zealand. There’s not a lot of harassment, and I have only ever witnessed one incident where a man snatched a woman’s handbag and ran.
When things do go wrong, New Zealand also has great systems in place to support you. Our police force is pretty understanding and we have good Victim Support and accident compensation (ACC).
3. The quality of life in New Zealand is very high
The famous church in Lake Tekapo
Quality of life in New Zealand is great thanks to factors such as high employment, decent salaries, good education, and good healthcare.
We have good social support and are a mostly egalitarian society.
This means people are largely pretty happy.
For the most part, New Zealanders know we have a good life down here, and appreciate what we have. We’re proud of our country and know we enjoy a high standard of health and comfort.
It’s so easy to take so much for granted, though.
Like having tap water that’s safe to drink, and being able to drink out of most streams in the backcountry (I often only hike with a small water bottle, as it’s so easy to find clean water).
4. New Zealand has a great work life balance
Working remotely from a cafe in Dunedin.
According to a study by global employment company Remote, New Zealand has the best work-life balance of the world’s top 60 GDP countries.
The is based on factors such as minimum wage, sick leave, maternity leave, healthcare availability, public happiness, average working hours, and LGBTQ+ inclusivity.
New Zealand achieves a great work life balance thanks to a generous statutory annual leave allowance (32 days — 12 public holiday days, and 20 annual leave days), a high rate of sick pay (80%), and a Government-funded universal healthcare system.
This checks out for me.
While we value a good work ethic, if I ever stayed in the office until 6.30pm, people would be concerned about me. It would also be very unusual to work on a weekend.
People still talk about burnout in New Zealand, and I did go through a period of getting intense headaches every time I started work for the day.
But overall, the pressures of work here seem to be less than in other countries.
5. The weather is good (most of the time)
New Zealand has a great climate, in that it’s rarely extremely hot or extremely cold.
The North Island has warm summers and mild winters. It can be wet in winter, but on sunny days it’s bright and warm enough to be at the beach.
The South Island is colder, and can experience snow in the winter, but this just means great opportunities for snow sports.
The weather means I get to enjoy a lot of my hobbies, like hiking and surfing, all year round. In summer I love going to music festivals and spending time at the beach, but I swim all year round in both rivers and the sea.
Here’s a full breakdown of New Zealand weather all year round:
6. New Zealand has amazing food and wine
Thanks to abundant coastline and a huge diversity of micro climates, New Zealand produces epic seafood and produce.
We grow everything from cherries in Central Otago to peaches and nectarines in the north. We even have bananas growing in Northland.
There’s also a variety of wild game meat — everything from wild pork to wild venison is common in New Zealand.
Visit restaurants in Auckland, in Wellington, or around Queenstown and you’ll get to taste modern Pacific cuisine.
Dishes of wallaby tartare, paua (a New Zealand shellfish), and kumara, a type of sweet potato, are all common on menus.
Then there’s the wine. New Zealand has incredible wine regions, like Martinborough near Wellington and the Gibbston region near Queenstown, which produce Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc on par with the best French wines.
We also have a thriving coffee culture, with excellent cafes all around New Zealand. Flat whites are the order of choice.
When I travel overseas, some of the things I miss the most from New Zealand are the coffees (even in major cities like London, I find the quality to be more variable than in New Zealand), the fresh fruit, and Whittaker’s chocolate, which I think is the best supermarket chocolate you’ll ever buy.
7. New Zealand is a very diverse country
More than one third of Aucklanders were born overseas. This means that foreigners are welcomed in New Zealand, and we get the benefit of a huge range of cultural influences on our cuisine, traditions, and holidays.
If you like Asian food, you’ll find epic Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean food in Auckland. Head to Dominion Road in Mount Eden for incredible dumplings, noodles, and yum cha.
In Auckland, Diwali and Chinese New Year celebrations are just as important as Matariki, the Maori New Year.
8. In New Zealand, we love open plan living
I consider this mindset a plus, as it just makes sense to me (although it’s obviously my culture).
New Zealanders like open plan houses, where the kitchen flows into the living and dining room. We don’t usually have separated living areas the way people do in countries like England.
We also embrace indoor-outdoor flow, and a lot of houses will have a beautiful deck, where people will sit and relax in the sunshine with a beer and a barbecue on sunny weekends.
If you don’t have a deck, you sit on the lawn — in my last house in Auckland, we would put bean bags on the lawn and have drinks and food outside in the sunshine.
The disadvantages of living in New Zealand (because it's not all dreamy sunsets)
There are some bad things about living in New Zealand.
1. You’re very far away from everything
New Zealand’s remoteness is part of its charm, but it’s a disadvantage too
There’s a reason that New Zealand so often gets left off world maps. It really is at the bottom of the world, miles away from anywhere.
One of the main disadvantages of living in New Zealand is that it’s expensive to get there and away.
International flights in and out of New Zealand are long and costly, meaning most people only take an international trip once every couple of years.
My mother comes from England, and since moving to New Zealand has only been back a handful of times. Particularly for older people, the trip from New Zealand to Europe or North America is exhausting.
New Zealand’s location at the bottom of the world is also why I leave the country for years at a time. It’s not easy for me to pop home in between travelling to different countries.
2. The cost of living is high
The cost of living in New Zealand is high, but it’s comparable to other nations like Australia or the United Kingdom.
The cost of food in New Zealand can be high, as there are only two major supermarket chains. The lack of competition means food prices are often inflated.
The cost of petrol in New Zealand is also higher than in a lot of other countries, which makes travelling by campervan or car very expensive.
There still isn’t a lot of infrastructure for electric vehicles, and because of large distances between towns, going electric to save money on transport is still challenging.
However, although eating in restaurants can be expensive, tipping isn’t customary in New Zealand so that’s one cost you don’t need to worry about.
3. New Zealanders are friendly, but can stick to themselves
New Zealanders are famously very friendly people. And while we are down to earth and casual, it can be hard to make friends in New Zealand.
Even as a New Zealander, I struggle to make new friends sometimes. As a traveller, I’m used to meeting people and instantly becoming friends — it’s easy to invite people to do things straightaway when you’re all foreigners in another country.
However, at home in New Zealand, I find people are a lot more reserved. People I meet at work, for example, don’t typically want to socialise with me outside of work hours, except for the occasional after work drink.
Because of this, many of my friends in New Zealand are from overseas. There are lots of people on working holidays in Auckland, and I find these people to be more open to being friends.
I once went for a flat viewing and liked the girls who lived in the house so much I stayed friends with them, even though I didn’t end up moving into the house.
But I worked with some New Zealanders for around two years, and never saw them on a weekend day.
4. Natural disasters are becoming more common
Sadly, extreme weather in New Zealand is becoming more common.
In 2023, there were several major floods which claimed lives, shut down Auckland International Airport, and washed out major roads.
Lives, houses, and cars were all ruined by flooding in Auckland.
The Coromandel, where my mum lives, was largely cut off from the rest of the country when Cyclone Gabrielle washed out the main road in and out of the eastern side of the Peninsula. As of November 2023, it still hasn't been fixed.
Wild weather is normal for New Zealand, but it is becoming more extreme.
If you do want to move to New Zealand, maybe find a house that sits on high ground.
5. New Zealand ‘cities’ are pretty small — and limited in what they offer
New Zealand’s biggest ‘cities’ are still very small.
If you’re a city person, you might not find New Zealand very fun. While Auckland and Wellington both have great restaurants, shopping, and live music scenes, you don’t have the same diversity as big cities overseas.
You can’t go to an amazing jazz club on a Tuesday night, for example, and if you want to go to a cafe after 5pm, forget it.
One of my friends from London said about living in New Zealand that you’re more likely to have disposable income, thanks to good salaries and a reasonable cost of living, but less things to spend it on. In London, on the other hand, you have less money but infinite things to spend it on.
6. Public transport isn’t great (when it exists at all)
In New Zealand, it’s very difficult to get around without a car. We have one of the highest rates of vehicle ownership in the world, because it’s so hard to get by without a private vehicle.
Although larger cities have their own public transport networks, getting between towns is hard, and to more remote areas is almost impossible.
There’s only one national bus network, Intercity, and no national rail. The only trains going between towns are scenic ones, which are great for seeing the country but less ideal for transport — they often cost more than a flight and only run on certain days of the week.
I am based in Auckland, but my mum lives on the Coromandel. As of 2023, there is no way to get to where she lives on public bus, as the only bus looping around the Coromandel stopped when the driver retired.
I’m conscious of my carbon emissions driving back and forth, and I would love to save money on gas, but as it stands I don’t have any option but to drive.
Thanks for reading this far! I hope this gave you an idea of what it’s like to live in New Zealand.
If you’re thinking about living and working in New Zealand, you might find these articles useful as well:
