We arrived in Wellington cold, homeless and hungry.

Yes, five months ago we arrived in this city and it’s hard to believe how much has changed. We had no idea where we’d go or what we would see when we first arrived in New Zealand, but we definitely didn’t expect to make such an amazing home in Wellington. This is the tale of what brought us to the windy city and how it blew us away.

After about five months of jobless travel around Asia and America, we took a chance and headed to New Zealand on a working holiday visa instead of saving up at home. We didn’t have a choice really. Since Ric and I are from different countries, this was one of the few easy ways to stay together and work. Parting was out of the question.

So we boarded a plane for a long flight in early July. Destination: Queenstown, but not for long. Queenstown was our original arrival city, because-well it’s Queenstown; winter wonderland, extreme sports, lots of backpackers. Unfortunately, our arrival date was mid-ski season, making it hard to find work. Further, it had yet to snow in Queenstown that season, making it even harder to find work.

On the way from Queenstown to Blenheim in July.

No worries. Ric had a friend he met in Australia living and working in Blenheim. Biggest legend ever, not only did she let us crash at her house for a long time, but also sorted Ric out with a job before he even arrived.

We arrived at the small town in the middle of Marlborough, a huge wine region, and met our friend for drinks. While at a bar, I met a guy who worked in viticulture and he gave me a contact for a local vineyard looking for workers. Next day, I was sorted with a job.

We thought we made it. We thought we were going to be okay. We thought wrong. Family matters had me on a plane back to the States only ten days after arriving. I spent two weeks at home then was on a plane back to New Zealand. Talk about jet lag.

In that time, Ric was ready to leave Blenheim. It’s not the most active town, plus Ric wasn’t doing his passion, cooking, so he had enough. To add to that he had fractured his thumb, making him actually unable to work for a few weeks.

I arrived back in Blenheim with a choice. Either stay in the quiet town doing jobs that weren’t nessarily our favorite or make a move to Wellington, the closest city, and see how it worked out.

We went for Wellington.

It’s not a cheap trip either. Wellington is on the North Island and Blenheim on the South. People must take either a plane or a ferry to get to Wellington from the South Island because they must cross the Cook Strait, either way your looking at spending about $70.

We came to Wellington with one night booked at a hostel, hoping to find a flat, jobs and a routine in a day. That’s when things started to look up.

It was just me job hunting at that point. Ric couldn’t because of his thumb. I felt so much pressure hunting for jobs that day. Between contacting people on TradeMe and walking into places, I had about seven job opportunities within the first day of looking.

I remember sitting at a kebab shop on Courtney Place, nervous but excited about what would come in this city. The owner gave us one of those “buy-ten-kebabs-get-one-free cards”. I wondered if we would even last long enough in this city to get that free kebab.

Ric was in charge of finding us a room. He looked on TradeMe and Easyroommate. We had a few good prospects in just two days of searching. One room and couple looked like an especially good match for us. That night while I had a job trial, Ric looked at a room. At the end of my trial, I had a message on my phone that said, “Come home.” I grabbed my stuff from the hostel and hopped a bus to Mt. Cook.

Since we arrived so late, we didn’t really have time to make our new room comfortable. Our new roomies were nice enough to give us comforters and pillows, but they were covered in cat fur and Ric and I are both allergic. The room only came with a bed, which is actually quite lucky considering most of the rooms we saw came with nothing. We had to make it work though.

God that first night. The matress was so old that the springs had worn out, so Ric and I just kept rolling into eachother in the middle of it. On top of that we were sneezing and coughing all night because of the cat. I’m not writing this as a complaint, just as a funny note on how ridiculous that first night was.

The next day I did a trial at Fidel’s Cafe, pretty much a Wellington icon, and was hired. The next week we both organized our new room, sorting the bed out, using boxes as tables and dressers and putting some art up on the walls. The following week Ric found a job at Hotel Bristol and was hired to do what he loves, cook.

This little door can be found out the back of Fidel's. I fell in love with it when I found it. Photo by Bobbi Lee Hitchon

Leaving Wellington we are in a completely different situation. We both saved up a lot of money, met so many wonderful people here who were so welcoming, got to experience the World Cup in one of New Zealand’s biggest cities, beat our cat allergies (we both fell in love with the little guy) and we’ll even get to eat that free kebab.

Now that it’s time to say good bye to Wellington, I can’t help but look back on how we arrived and just give the city and all the people in it a massive thanks. I can’t speak on behalf of Ric, but I’ve never had a work place treat me so well and the people working there welcome me so much. We made a home here when we were literally close to being homeless. Everyone here was so amazing, it was a true realization of how kind the kiwi spirit is.

My favorite shot of Rondell, the best cat ever. Photo by Bobbi Lee Hitchon

For the first time in my 25 years on earth, I spent an entire calendar year traveling.

And what a year it was. 

A year of traveling with a partner for the first time. A year that took me to a new continent, Asia. A year that pretty much brought me around the globe. Even a year in which I got to travel around my own country a bit.

This year has been a spectacular one. Let’s have a look back on what I did in 2011.

 Australia

My year actually started with an end. On January 26, Australia Day, I said farewell to the massive country I had called my home for most of 2010. My final days in Australia were spent mainly in Melbourne, where my boyfriend Ric and I lived in a tiny apartment on Chapel Street.

It was really hard to say goodbye to such an amazing country. It was even harder to close one of the best travel experiences of my life, the work holiday visa. I met so many amazing people in Australia, but the best of them all was the hardest to say goodbye to on that last day in the country.

Ric and I bid each other farewell as I headed off to the Philippines and he stayed in Melbourne.

Philippines

Hello Southeast Asia! I never thought or planned on visiting this part of the world, but after hearing how amazing it was from travelers in Australia, I just had to. The Philippines was my first stop, Donsol in particular. I visited for whaleshark season and after three tries I actually got to see one of the big fellas.

From Donsol, I headed to Cebu City where I spent some time with a friend of a friend’s family. After seeing such kindness from total strangers, I was moved to extend my visa to the Philippines by one more month. One month just wasn’t enough.

It’s a good thing I did as my next stop in the country, Malapascua, was just too hard to leave. I visited the tiny island planning to stay three days. I ended up, not only staying six weeks, but also earning my divemaster certification.

And guess who came to meet me in the Philippines?

Only the most special boy in the world. Ric spent about 12 days in paradise with me as I finished up my training. Later, we kicked off our travels together in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong

I wasn’t sure what to expect in this massive city. I thought of it as China, but people would say it’s not really China. At first glance I was just in shock over how many apartment buildings were in the city.

I really loved the place and I especially loved sharing it with my new travel partner. We visited the Big Buddha, went on a bus tour of the city, road the Peak Tram and ate lots of dim sum. It’s an expensive place to visit, so I’m hoping to go back one day with more money.

Thailand

We headed to the mother of all backpacker destinations, Bangkok, in late March. There we met up with my friend Julia who flew all the way out to travel with us for a few weeks. Bangkok is the most pleasant surprise I’ve ever had traveling. I expected it to be this seedy town with nothing but ping pong shows and heavy drinking to offer.

But it’s so much more. 

For starters, it’s an international city with amazing museums, restaurants, malls and more. But for backpackers, it’s something much more. I’ve never seen so many travelers bobbing around happily as I did on Khaosan Road. It made me wish I planned a few more nights in the city, but no worries, we would end up coming back three more times.

From Bangkok, we visited Ko Samet and Ko Chang, where Julia and I became deathly ill for ten days. I think it was bad eggs, but hey, I lost about 20 lbs, so silver lining. We said goodbye to Julia then spent probably more time than we should have in Lonely Beach.

We left the island to meet Ric’s mom and brother in Pattaya. It was my first time meeting them, so I was quite nervous. But they are amazing and we had a great time. There we celebrated Songkran and made a visa run to Cambodia. However, Pattaya is probably a place I’ll never return. It’s pretty much what I expected of Bangkok originally.

After another sad goodbye, Ric and I kept on traveling Thailand. This time we headed south visiting Koh Tao. We mainly relaxed here as we were gearing up for the famous Full Moon Party on Koh Phangan on April 18. We spent the next day recuperating on Koh Tao, then continued traveling south to Koh Samui.

On our visit to the over-commercialized island, we rented motorbikes, swam under waterfalls and visited Ang Thong Marine Park, the real inspiration for “The Beach”.

But we wanted more “Beach” action so we crossed Thailand to Ko Phi Phi on the west coast. A $US10 tour of the islands proved to be our best purchase and best day in Southeast Asia. Also, my best Easter Sunday ever.

After Ko Phi Phi we had to leave Thailand as our visas ran out.

Laos

First stop in Laos was Vang Vieng for its famous tubing. We spent a week in the tiny town on the river and never actually completed the tube route on the Nam Song River. But we had loads of fun, drank lots of buckets and watched an absurd amount of Family Guy.

After Vang Vieng we needed a serious detox, so we spent another week in 4,000 Islands. In this quiet area of Laos, we spent a lot of time lounging, but also did quite a bit of exploring. We rented bikes and visited the largest waterfall in southeast Asia. I also got to see Irrawaddy dolphins. I saw them alone as Ric broke his bike and was too defeated to walk any further.

 Cambodia

The trip from Laos to Cambodia involved two intense bus journeys. It took an entire day, but we finally reached Siem Reap in mid-May. The biggest attraction here is Angkor Wat, which is stunning, but I actually really enjoyed the town itself. We spent about a week there watching football and drinking cheap beer.

USA

It was time to fly our tan selves to the US of A, my homeland and Ric’s dream destination. It was Ric’s first time visiting the States, so the trip home was a really special one for me.

We landed in California, where I surprised a friend. There we drove the Pacific Coast Highway from Laguna Beach to Hermossa Beach. We also visited Hollywood and ended up on the set of our favorite show, Entourage.

No one from the east coast knew I was in the country at that point, except my Uncle. I had been secretly planning a trip home with him since October, so I could surprise my dad for his birthday. Everything went as planned. We spent one day hiding out at my Aunt and Uncles, that night my dad opened their garage door to see Ric and I standing there with ribbons around our necks.

But we didn’t sit still for too long. After about a week, we were on the road again. We drove from NJ to Alabama for a wedding in which Ric was best man. On the road trip I showed Ric around Washington D.C. and made a lot of fast food stops. He couldn’t get enough of America’s burgers and sandwiches.

It was my first time visiting Alabama and it was good to see the southern comfort side of the States. We spent most of our week there playing on a lake located behind the house we were staying at. We jet skied, tubed, kayaked, even jumped off a ridiculously high bridge. That really hurt. 

The wedding was beautiful, the party was wild. We left Alabama extremely hungover en route to St. Augustine, Florida, where I showed Ric around my first real travel destination.

The rest of my time in the States was spent in NJ and Philadelphia. Erin, a friend I made studying abroad in London came out to visit, Ric climbed the Rocky steps and we celebrated the Fourth of July at the Jersey shore. But the highlight of my trip home was welcoming my gorgeous nephew Jake into the world. I love my life and all the traveling it entails, but it means missing out on some really spectacular occasions at home. I’m just happy I didn’t have to miss this one.

Add another farewell to my 2011 of goodbyes, as Ric and I left the States to go back down under, this time for a work-holiday visa in New Zealand.

New Zealand

We arrived in snowy Queenstown in July, but didn’t stay for long. We spent two days driving up to Blenheim where Ric already had a job sorted. Then a real twist came when I had to go back home for an emergency. I came back to New Zealand two weeks later and we were on the road again, this time only a short journey to Wellington.

After quite a hectic first half of the year, Ric and I were exhausted and broke. So we made a home in Wellington, got proper jobs, worked loads and saved up for our next adventure, the South Island in 2012.

We’ve been in Wellington for four months now and I’ve grown quite attached to the small city. We held back a lot during our time here as we were saving, but we still managed to accomplish quite a bit.

In September we rented a car and visited Lord of the Rings’ film locations in the area. October was all about the Rugby World Cup, so we went to see USA vs. Australia at Westpac Stadium. I got to see the All Blacks parade Wellington after they won. In November I celebrated yet another Thanksgiving abroad. In December we bought a car and started road tripping to nearby beaches and towns. Oh, and I met a good portion of the cast of “The Hobbit” through work.

We didn’t just get to know Wellington, we pretty much became a part of the city. I’ve even started saying “mean”.

It’s been another year packed with adventure and it’s only going to get even more intense in 2012. January and February of the new year will be dedicated to traveling New Zealand. However, February is depending on whether or not I survive the Nevis Jump, so let’s hope for the best.

What did you do in 2011? Have you visited any of the same places? Do share.

I love the idea of a bucket list and especially love reading other bloggers’ lists. I not only get ideas of things to do from their dreams, but I personally enjoy watching them cross something off their lists.

So if I love it so much, why have I never done it myself?

Because the idea actually scares me. Jotting down every thing I want to do before I die! I’ve always been the type to just go with it and grab any opportunity that is thrown my way. But I’m constantly noting things I want to see and do, so why not express it with the world.

Thanks to some inspiration from Latin Abroad and Two Travelholics, I’m finally getting around to writing my very own bucket list. Since I’m doing it so late in the game through, I’m going to take Two Travelholics’ advice and make a sort of reverse bucket list, write some of the accomplishments I’m proud of. Here are some things I want to do before I died, some may already be checked off and plenty more will be added to it.

1. Tandem Skydive check: Interlocken, Switzerland 2007 and Mission Beach, Australia 2010
2. Travel from China to Russia by train.
3. Live in an Ashram in India for three months.
4. Live in another country. check: England 2007, Australia 2010, New Zealand 2011
5. Walk across the USA, seriously!
6. Visit Uruguay.
7. Backpack South and Central America.
8. Ride an elephant to a waterfall while wearing a green dress.
9. Swim with whalesharks. check: Donsol, Philippines 2011
10. Become a dive instructor.
11. Get over my fear of sharks. check: Malapascua, Philippines 2011
12. Live and work on a vineyard in Tuscany, Italy.
13. Write a guidebook.
14. Go on safari in South Africa.
15. Climb Kiliminjara.
16. Breathe the air in Montana, USA.
17. Bungy jump. check: AJ Hackett Cairns, Australia 2011
18. Bungy jump from Macau Tower.
19. Get married in Vegas.
20. Bring my dad on a backpacking trip.
21. Live in Spain.
22. Visit Antarctica.
23. Travel India with my first travel partner and best friend, Erin.
24. Learn how to ski.
25. See the Northern Lights in person.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

The day I learned that I knew nothing about coffee.

Fresh off a great two month journey up Australia’s East coast, I arrived in Port Douglas, ready to work. I walked into a busy cafe called Rehab, now closed, with the local paper’s classified section in hand.

Falling in love with the cafe instantly, I thought, “Why not here?” And as luck would have it they posted a “barista wanted” sign in the window. With my one-year-worth of experience as a barista at Starbucks in the States, I walked up to the counter with confidence and asked the dreadlocked manager for a job.

“Do you know how to make coffee?” he asked.

“Why yes sir,” I replied. “I worked at Starbucks.”

“Then you don’t know how to make coffee,” he said with a judgmental look and continued what he was doing.

At first I chucked it up to Aussie arrogance. But the more I traveled and the more I tasted, the more I realized how right he was.

Forgetting all the reasons people hate or love Starbucks, I’m sorry but their coffee is not very good.

I know the company treats their employees well, but giving an 18-year-old an hour-long online course and a few hours of training at an automatic coffee machine, does not make him or her a barista.

I learned this in Australia, but am now trying to learn what does make a person a barista in New Zealand. What I’m finding is that it’s practice and attention.

It’s amazing how much they care about coffee down here and quite refreshing. It’s not just a job, it’s an art.

I was a frequent customer at a tiny cafe called Origins in Port Douglas. The barista there would buy antique or hard to find coffee-making objects. I saw through him what it meant to care about coffee. It payed off, I couldn’t get enough of the place and still long for their cappuccinos.

I worked at a small cafe called Neighbours on Chapel Street in Melbourne and the baristas there were obsessed with creating a perfect cup of coffee for each customer each time. As a waitress there I saw what that meant when most customers averaged three cups and quite a few visited more than once a day.

I’m not saying that coffee is completely terrible in the states. In fact, I know it’s not. On a recent trip home, I visited a number of places that served coffee with attention. They created a perfect shot, frothed the milk just right and even created designs between the coffee in milk. I just think that places like these are unfortunately overlooked.

So I’m pledging to myself to learn to make coffee like they do down under and I think at home people should embrace small coffee shops that are doing something similar to here.

Banner photo by Bobbi Lee Hitchon, taken at Rehab.

Know of a great coffee shop somewhere in Oz, NZ or USA? Post is below so readers know where to go.