Have you ever wanted to live abroad? Maybe you just graduated and want to take a gap year before going back to school. Perhaps you never studied abroad in college but always wanted to (or you did but dream about going back). Maybe you want to see the world a little before starting a career. Or maybe you just have this thirst for adventure and the idea of living abroad sounds exciting! Whatever your reason is, it’s easy to live abroad with a Working Holiday Visa! And what better country to experience than beautiful, adventure-filled New Zealand?

I have gathered all the info that I learned from starting my Working Holiday Visa in Queenstown, New Zealand and have written the following guide so that you can get out there and have the experience of a lifetime!

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Before you Go

Applying for a Working Holiday Visa

Please note that this information is written for Americans applying for a Working Holiday visa in New Zealand. If you are from a country other than the United States, the process might vary.

The application for a New Zealand Working Holiday Visa is super simple and is found completely online! See if you meet the following requirements and then click here to apply!

Requirements

• You must be between 18-30 years old

• You must have a return ticket booked or enough funds in your account to buy one later

• You need to additionally have at least NZ $4,200 to live on (you will absolutely need more than this to stay for a year in New Zealand so be sure to get a job if your funds are low)

• You must have medical insurance that covers your entire stay

• You need to be in good health (more on this below)

Chest X-Rays

In some cases you may need to provide evidence that you haven’t contracted tuberculosis. You will need to get a chest x-ray if you have spent more than 3 months in the last 5 years in a country that does not have a low incidence of TB (or if you live in one of these countries). The list of countries with a low incidence can be found here. If you have been in a country that is not on this list for at least 3 months in the past 5 years, you will need to get a chest x-ray.

I had to get an x-ray because I’d lived in Spain for 5 months a few years prior to my New Zealand visa and I can tell you that this process was the most time-consuming and frustrating part of the visa application.

You won’t be allowed to get an x-ray from your usual doctor. You will need to go to one of the approved panel physicians. Sometimes, the closest doctor to you may be located out of state (yikes). I had to drive nearly 2 hours (each way) to get to my appointment. Find your closest panel physician here.

Like I said before, this experience can be time-consuming. Once I arrived at the doctor’s office in Berkeley, I filled out a form and waited. Then, I was finally brought into a patient room where I waited some more, only to eventually speak to a doctor for 2 minutes (non-medical chit-chat) who handed me some paperwork and told me to drive to another location (in Oakland). Once I got to the radiology department, I waited in the waiting room for over an hour before I was finally brought back to get my x-ray taken (which only took 10 seconds) and then was handed a disk with my x-rays on it and told to drive back to the previous office to give them the disk (like, why wasn’t there a more modern way of, say, emailing this information?). On top of all that, I was told that insurance would not be accepted since there was no “medical need” for the x-ray to be taken. Some other panel physicians might take insurance if you’re lucky. It just depends on your location. I ended up paying $500.

I write this story in hopes that a decision-maker will read this and ideally make some changes to the process so that others won’t have to be as frustrated as I was driving home from Berkeley in rush hour traffic.

Submitting Your Application

Before you submit your application, make sure your name is exactly the same as it is on your passport. We got super delayed at the airport on our way out because Nico’s passport showed his middle name but his visa did not. Because of this, it appeared that Nico didn’t have a valid visa even though it had been approved long before. Luckily it all worked out in the end but save yourself some stress and triple check everything ahead of time!

After your application is submitted, it will take only about 27 days to process! Someone will email you if you need to provide more information (such as a chest x-ray). Even with your visa approved, your year in New Zealand doesn’t start counting down until you enter the country.

Deciding Where to Live

While some people choose to spend their year in New Zealand in one location, others decide to travel around and live and work in multiple locations. The latter is made possible with seasonal jobs (such as farm work or ski resort jobs) or you can check out a gig website such as HelpX, Wwoof, or WorkAway. I even met a decent amount of people who lived in camper vans instead of renting a room (more on this later). I lived in one place in New Zealand (Queenstown) but still had the opportunity to travel around and see a lot of the country. If I were to go back and do things differently though, I would try to live in more than one location.

New Zealand is divided between two islands – the North and South Island. If you want to live primarily in one location, it’s a good idea to pick the island with the most locations you already know you want to visit (although it’s easy to travel between the two and you definitely should!) or the island that can offer the most of the lifestyle you’d like. The North Island is more populated than the South and tends to have more opportunities for jobs outside of the farming and hospitality industries. The South Island is more mountainous and the towns can be quite small. I would choose to live on the South Island if you have an interest in adventurous activities, prefer less crowded towns, or enjoy winter sports. I would pick the North Island if you prefer city life, have a low tolerance for the cold, or want a job in a field other than hospitality, farming, or engineering (though you can find those types of jobs on the North Island as well).

Read on to find out more about some of the major towns and cities…

Auckland

Auckland is probably the most well-known city in New Zealand and has the largest population. It has tons of great food and is a short drive from many beautiful natural attractions such as volcanoes and beaches. Auckland would be a great place to base yourself if you love city life, are looking for inexpensive rent, and want lots of different possible job options.