Finding Home Across Oceans

The more we learned about New Zealand, the more it felt not just like a good idea, but like the only way forward. A path toward the kind of life we wanted to live, one where our children could see the world from a different angle, one where values like empathy, community, and fairness still had cultural currency.

I write this today not because it was easy, not because we had or have all the answers, we still don’t. I'm old enough to realize we never will. But maybe someone else out there is staring at the same search bar I once did, asking, What if? And where? Maybe this story can help them begin to answer.

When I first landed in Auckland back in 2019, I arrived as a tourist. I wasn’t wearing the lens of someone scoping out a new life. I was here for a break, a curiosity, maybe a change of pace. My first impressions were vacation impressions, polished, sunlit, surface-level.

Auckland struck me as a city. That may sound obvious, but for someone like me, who’s never been drawn to big cities, that’s a loaded description. I’ve always gravitated toward natural beauty, mountains, coastlines, wide-open skies over traffic-clogged streets and mirrored skyscrapers.

To its credit, Auckland is beautiful in parts. They don’t call it the City of Sails for nothing. The harbors sparkle. The view from the bridge at golden hour is genuinely stunning. That little pocket where the cruise ships unload, the manicured sidewalks, the boutique cafés, it’s brochure-perfect.

But step even a block outside the tourist bubble, and like most cities, the shine wears off. The contradictions rise to the surface, the sprawl, the roadworks, the rough edges. There’s a reason locals call it the Big Smoke, or more accurately, the City of Road Cones. When you tell Kiwis from other parts of the country that you live in Auckland, they often shrug and say, Sorry. It’s a joke, but not really.

After three years of living here, I can say this, I don’t love New Zealand because of Auckland, I love New Zealand despite Auckland. And yet, I do appreciate this city. There’s convenience, there’s opportunity, there’s plenty for kids and adults alike. We needed a place with population density to do the work we do, and I’m glad we chose this one.

What I’ve come to love, what still takes my breath away, is everything outside of Auckland. I’ve traveled from the top of the North Island to the bottom. I haven’t made it to the South Island yet, but I’m holding onto that anticipation like a breath.

In California, where I lived inland, seeing the ocean meant an hour’s drive and a parking hunt, ending at a crowded beach boxed in by lifeguard towers and snack stands. Here, you can stumble onto a beach and be completely alone. Wild, untouched, no boardwalks, no vendors, just sky and tide and the steady crash of surf. It’s stunning in a way that feels elemental. Still, when I see the ocean, I gasp. The gasp is deeper now, less about excitement, more about reverence. I hope that never fades.

California is beautiful too, astoundingly so. But we’ve covered so much of it in concrete, fencing, and invisible boundaries. This is my beach, Don’t walk here. New Zealand doesn’t carry that same ownership, at least not yet.

The Kiwis I’ve met are some of the most pragmatic people I’ve ever known. It’s become one of my favorite national qualities. They don’t sugarcoat things, but they don’t dramatize either. They take life as it comes, the weather, the traffic, the wins and losses. It’s not flashy, but it’s steady. That groundedness has rubbed off on me more than I expected.

I’ve been lucky to meet a wide variety of people here, across generations and walks of life. There’s a cultural humility in New Zealand that at first comes off as an understatement, that yeah-nah-yeah tone, that subtle shrug. But it’s its language, one that doesn’t demand attention, but invites you in anyway.

Honestly, that’s what I wanted all along, a place that didn’t just look different, but felt different. Not perfect, but possible. Not louder, just truer.

I used to think home was a fixed point on a map, a house, a flag, a familiar street under a familiar sky. But now I know home can be many things, a language we grow into, a feeling we carry, a choice we make again and again.

When we left America, it wasn’t to run away. It was to run toward something, a slower rhythm, a softer place to raise our children, a chance to breathe. And yet, even oceans away, America never really left me. Some days, writing about our move feels small in the shadow of war, injustice, and collective grief.

What does one family’s relocation matter when so many others are being displaced by force, not by choice? When children are dying, not just adjusting to new schools? But I’ve come to believe that stories like mine, quiet, complicated, voluntary, still matter.

Because they show that Americans are not all the same. That some of us still care, still vote, still question, still reach for something better. That some of us leave not because we stopped loving our country, but because we want to remember what it could be. Even from here across oceans and time zones, I’m still watching, still rooting, still reckoning with where I’m from and what I hope it becomes.

This story is not just a migration story. It’s a love letter, to the place we chose, to the place we left, and to anyone trying to grow new roots while still tending to the old ones.

Sometimes I wonder if telling our family’s story of leaving is too small for a world in flames. But I believe there’s power in quieter truths. I want people to know that not all Americans look away. Even across an ocean, I still vote, I still care, and I still want my country back, not as a fantasy of some non-existing time, but as it could be.