Over the last four months, my girlfriend and I have been traveling across the stunning landscapes of New Zealand and connecting with countless local Kiwis and other travelers from all over the world. We’ve been living a camper van life which has allowed us to chase the sun and experience New Zealand in a far different way than I did when I was a student on a semester abroad at the University of Auckland some eight years ago.

As summer and millions of tourists descended upon the Southern Hemisphere in January, we sped towards the cooler South Island and settled into Wanaka, a homey, adventure-filled town on the edge of Lake Wanaka and surrounded by picturesque mountains. After working as housekeepers at a campground here for the last couple of months, I started to reflect on what the process was to get to this point. While being a relatively easy country to transition to as a native English speaker, there are definitely some confusing hurdles that we had to overcome. There are little secrets that we’ve been learning that could have easily made our journey smoother. Because of that, I thought I’d offer wisdom to those looking for the adventure of a lifetime.