I have wanted to visit New Zealand my entire life.
When I was a small child, I used to stare endlessly at huge world maps and globes. I was in a financially strapped, lower-middle-class family, so visiting all of these interesting and faraway places seemed like a distant, impossible fantasy. China, Europe, South America, Russia, Japan. My eyes would also invariably be drawn to that tiny, remote island at the bottom of the world, tucked so far away from everywhere else, New Zealand.
“What a cozy place that must be,” I thought. All I knew about it was that it was full of beautiful landscapes full of sheep, relaxed people, and not much else.
Fast forward 40 years later, and by complete coincidence, based on all of my research, New Zealand eventually became one of the most likely places to establish one of my part-time homes when I leave the Collapsing USA in a few years.
Therefore, this trip is unlike any other international trip I’ve taken before. I’m not here to just experience the country and enjoy myself; I’m also here to ruthlessly analyze this place as somewhere I’d possibly spend six months out of the year, every year, for the foreseeable future. I say six months, since if I stay less than 183 days per year, I pay no taxes in NZ, and I want to spend the other six months of the year in more exciting places, namely Hong Kong. New Zealand will be my “rest” time.
After a week here, here’s what I found…
1. The People
NZ is full of very kind, chill people. In terms of niceness, they are a little nicer than the Australians and tie with the Canadians (who are the second nicest people on Earth behind the Fijians who are number one).
They’re also very polite. At the subway, people here calmly wait until every single person walks off the subway before entering, unlike people like the Chinese who smash themselves through the doors the split second they open without waiting for anyone. Everyone here actually says “thank you” to the bus driver whenever they leave the bus(!). It’s hilarious and I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. (I did it too. Hey, when in Rome…)
NZ people are also extremely informal. Walking around downtown Auckland, their largest city (about 1.5 million people) almost no one is wearing suits. There are probably less suit-wearers here than in any major city I’ve ever visited.
NZ is massively interracial and multicultural, rivaling even Singapore in this regard. One third of people in NZ were born in another country(!), so I guess if I get a place here I’ll fit right in, though as always, there are pretty much no Americans here. During my entire week here I didn’t meet any; all white visitors and expats here are Australians and Europeans.
Huge, consumer-based corporations like Subway and McDonalds always test out new products and promotions in NZ first before introducing them to the rest of the world. Why? Because there are so many different nationalities here, they figure that if it works in NZ, it will work anywhere. Interesting.
One problem with New Zealanders is that they’re spacey as fuck. Walking around, you will constantly have people walk into you or almost walk into you because they’re walking in one direction while staring in a completely different direction, off in their own world. At first, I thought it was just the Asians here doing this, but no, the damn white people do it too. The chill, slow people of New Zealand apparently live in their own little dream lands even when they’re awake.
They also share that lackadaisical culture with the Australians and Southern Europeans, where business moves very slowly, lots of things don’t work, and people just don’t take their work seriously the way we Americans do. I once needed to buy some socks, so I went to a clothing store in downtown Auckland, and the entire store was closed in the middle of the day because the one person working there (and this was not a small store) left a note on the locked door saying “I needed to get some food! Sorry! I’ll be back soon!” Again, hilarious.
There are pros and cons to this though. The good news is that the tax and residency attorneys I met with here could see me immediately, pretty much whenever I wanted. If this had been a place with more hustle like the US or Hong Kong, I would have had to wait a week or two, and they would have had to squeeze me in at some inconvenient time.
The population seems to be very young here. There are far more young people (i.e. people well under the age of 35) walking around than any other place I’ve seen. That might not be statistically true, but that’s what I’m seeing, and I’ve been all over the northern end of the north island.
Granted, once you get way out of the city, as in several hours away and into the boonies, the population does indeed start getting fatter and older, much like other nations.
2. The Women
Uh. Yeaaaahhhh. This is going to be a slight problem.
Sadly, the stereotype is true. There are virtually no attractive women in New Zealand. It’s really, really bad here. It’s not that the women here are ugly (that would be London), nor are they fat (overweight people are very rare in Auckland; everyone is skinny or average, men and women both). It’s just that the women here are overwhelmingly plain-looking and there are virtually no attractive women no matter how hard you look. You could walk around downtown Auckland for two or three days, see thousands of women, and perhaps see two or three moderately cute girls and one hot one. I also checked out some of the dating sites and sugar daddy sites here, and holy crap, it’s bad. Even on the sugar daddy sites (where women tend to be much better-looking) you have to really hunt hard for hotties. Oh, you can find them, but it’s needle-in-a-haystack game to be sure.
Any concentrated form of daygame or online dating in New Zealand would be impossible unless you dramatically dropped your standards. Like I said when I talked about London, I suppose if you grew up here and never traveled to any other country, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell. But as a guy who has spent significant time all over the world, I can tell, and man, it’s bad.
Once you get out of the city and into some of the more affluent suburbs (particularly the north and the east) where I was looking at homes, the women do get a little more attractive by a notch or two, but it’s still bad.
But BD, why the hell would you want to have a home there then if you can’t get any hot girls?
Because there’s a difference between “any” and “one or two.” As I’ve said many times, I’m not some young, horny Thrill of the Hunt pick-up artist looking to bang 100 chicks. I’m a guy in his forties with an open marriage who just needs one or two girls on the side. I can find one or two hot girls here. At a suburban mall today in a more affluent neighborhood I saw two girls I would enjoy, so based on my modest goals, it can be done, but if you’re the standard guy who wants to have sex with many women, NZ is not the place for you (again, unless you really drop your standards).
3. The Culture
If I were to summarize what the Auckland region is like, it would be “Seattle/Portland without all the disadvantages.” In other words, it has chill, mildly left-wing people and a mild climate, but with far less rain, cooler buildings and shops, better-dressed people, no fat people, no hippies or hipsters, and no one smells like weed. I really like it.
Auckland, and all of NZ, is also extremely clean, surprisingly so, even in the industrial areas. I spent some time in some commercial zones with machine shops and the like, and I was quite surprised at how clean everything is even there. NZ, like Singapore, is an example of multiculturalism actually working, rather than the cluster fuck it’s become in Collapsing USA and Suicidal Europe.
It’s not all perfect though; there are definitely problems. The internet here is horrifically bad, the worst I’ve ever encountered in the first world. On 3G, 4G, H+, and yes, even corporate wifi networks, the internet is noticeably slower no matter where I’ve tried it. Often you get “server unavailable” errors and all kinds of other problems. Even when it works, some apps either refuse to work or work oddly, including AirBnB and Google Maps. It’s a real problem. Jesus New Zealand, get your fucking internet working.
Like most of the Western world, NZ’s subway/light rail system sucks, in that it works, but is not well-designed at all. It’s about on par with the US, but still not as bad as Australia (which is the worst in the first world).
Exactly as I was warned by a few friends who are familiar with NZ, there are not a lot of brands of things to buy here, and that includes food, which can sometimes be a problem. For example, there is pretty much only one brand of bottled water in the entire country. It’s called “Pump” and it tastes like donkey piss. I was forced to drink this shit during my entire visit here. Yuck.
Auckland is a rapidly growing city, as indicated by the data and by the fact there is construction just about everywhere you go. Always a good sign of economic health.
Like the rest of the West, NZ is socialist as fuck. Many of the restaurants here plaster “Licensed!” on their marquees. “Look everyone! Big government approves of us! Isn’t that awesome?!?”
However, and this is something that surprised me, I don’t “feel” the left-wing here like I do in other places. Not once during my week stay did I “feel” the left-wing nature of this society, even when watching their television; much unlike Australia, where this gigantic wall of left-wing SJW bullshit smacks you in the face during the entire time you’re there and never lets up. No, New Zealanders would rather talk about things like food, cars, and going to the beach than politics.
Regardless, like a lot of left-wing cities, there are lots of homeless people, and they’re pretty aggressive. It’s not as bad as places like San Francisco, but it’s still bad. And I’m sure this problem will get worse (since left-wing governments think it’s “mean” to displace aggressive homeless people from the streets).
Shit is pretty expensive here, as I expected, though the difference in currency valuation from US dollars to NZ dollars helped me out a lot. Hopefully the US dollar will retain its lower value as compared to the NZ dollar indefinitely, so if I get a place here I can continue to take advantage of this. (I will not own any assets in NZ, ever, including their currency or bank accounts; this is required to keep my zero tax status.)
Speaking of taxes, there’s a god damn 15% sales tax here. This is on top of income tax rates that would make you shit your pants. Insane. (Gotta love that socialism. Jesus.) The good news is that the sales tax doesn’t appear to apply to food, which is helpful. Per my five flags plan, I won’t receive any income from NZ sources, nor buy anything here except consumables. (Just like my fellow Americans who refuse to move, I’ll let the New Zealanders who live here full-time pay their exorbitantly high taxes for the rest of their lives. Cool with me.)
The New Zealand accent is interesting. To my American ears, it sounds like a more feminine version of the Australian accent. This means that while the Australian accent sounds good when men speak it and bad when women speak it, the NZ accent is the opposite. When women speak it, it sounds a little sexy, but when men speak it, it makes their voices sound more girly. Just my impression.
What is not my impression, and I spent several days confirming this, is that men in NZ have higher-pitched voices than men in other Western countries. I’m serious. This is not my imagination. Men have higher voices here. They just do. Weird.
4. The Landscape
During my stay, I went as far north as Warkworth and as far south as Hamilton and Matamata. I didn’t see the south island (which is supposed to be even more beautiful than the north island where I was staying), but I was still able to see quite a lot.
It’s confirmed. New Zealand is the second most beautiful place on the planet I’ve seen, easily matching the Pacific Northwest where I’m from, and coming in second to Sicily which is probably the best. It has a hugely jagged coastline which is fantastic, because it means tons of beaches, all of which are amazing. The hills, the mountains, the forests, the trees, everything does indeed look like Lord of the Rings.
Which, by the way, I visited… Hobbiton anyway, where Bilbo and Frodo met Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. It was really fun.
The air here is amazing, probably the best air of anywhere I’ve ever visited, and that’s coming from a guy who was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest where we have amazing air.
There is always a constant, pleasant breeze off the water that’s all around NZ. It doesn’t feel hot here even when the sun is intense. It’s really, really nice.
I’m here now in May, which is their version of October, yet all week, it’s been sunny, clear skies, and warm enough to walk around in shorts and a T-shirt at night time. Fucking perfect! I can tell you for a fact that back home in my October, it’s cold and rainy as fuck, with little to no sun. It rained one day I was here, but it was weak pussy rain compared to what I’m accustomed to.
Conclusion
It’s official. I love New Zealand despite a few of its problems, most of which won’t affect me under my Five Flags system, and would be more than happy to stay part of the year here on a regular basis. My next step is to bring Pink Firefly over here and stay here longer, perhaps 3-4 weeks, and do that a few times to make absolutely sure we like it here. Staying in calm, relaxing New Zealand part of the year and spending the other part in exciting, pure-awesome Hong Kong, while paying 4% or less in total taxes, would be my ideal lifestyle.
And I’m going to have it. I can’t wait to get started.
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Intresting post. How can one stay in New Zealand for 5-6 months without residency/employment visa?
Tourist visa is 90 days as far as I know
I might be wrong, but I think those restaurants prominently display the word “licensed” because it means they have a licence to serve alcohol and not all do.
Damn, you are really obsessed with tax… I would personally find the hassle of bouncing between two or more countries and watching what and where I shop, just to avoid paying tax, not worth it.
We do it here in Ireland too haha. My relatives from Eastern Europe find it weird too, when they visit hehe.
NZ and Australia have those abominable drug laws similar to SEA as well. I’ve just recently read that you need a doctor’s script for melatonin in NZ… Disgusting!
Holy crap. But then again, going into the 2020s or 2030s 15% will be like nut low. I’m expecting the US to have a 25% Sales Tax by 2030.
When I get everything right, I’m heading straight for SEA it seems. There’s no nonsense there, and I don’t care if its a third world country.
Which races/nationalities did you see in New Zealand?
Did all the races/nationalities that you experienced share that same kindness/politeness?
Any Westerner can get an extended visitor’s visa for up to 9 months:
https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas/options/visit/explore-visitor-visa-options#
Even if you’re right, that proves my point. A) Any restaurant should be able to sell alcohol without permission from big mommy government, and B) in the US, all restaurants (except fast food) are able to sell alcohol. No special government permission not granted to any other restaurant is required.
1. If you make $30K per year or $50K per year, then yep, it’s not worth it. But if you make what I make, it’s more than worth it. I talk more about this at my other blog.
If you made what I made, you’d be just as concerned about your taxes as I am.
(That is, unless you were some kind of far-left socialist/communist who thinks it’s your “duty” to get raped by big government, but then, if you were that, you would never make the money I make in the first place.)
2. Taxes isn’t the only reason I’m leaving. It’s just one one many. Read this.
Yup. Big government. Disgusting.
Big government has taken over the world, so it can’t be escaped, just nullified via lifestyle.
Several different types of whites, lots of different kinds of Asians, lots of Māori (the indigenous race there), lots of pacific islanders, a few Indians.
More or less, yeah. The only assholes I encountered were the bums on the street.
LOL. No, dude, that is not what it means. It means “We can sell you booze with your lunch!” It’s an alcohol license.
Read the comment right above yours.
I’ve lived in New Zealand, on and off, for 18 years. I live in California now, but visit NZ frequently to visit family.
I’ve seen a huge shift to the left politically over the past 10 – 15 years.
I’ve also noticed a massive demographic change, as a result of immigration, mainly asian, Polynesian and Pakistani/Indian.
New Zealand used to be pretty Centrist, homogeneous, and sparsely populated. So these changes have changed the country, and not always in good ways.
Correct. Just like the rest of the entire collapsing Western world.
Very awesome. This spurred the idea, what if you could do go time in two different countries with one month breaks in between. Also I appreciate the heads up on the lady department and your positive attitude towards it. Im 26 and have some more typical desires at the moment so Ill just have to be prepared to account for whatever places downsides are but have a ridiculous amount of hot girls.
Yea the chicks is a problem, I’m in So Cal so I’m spoiled with the women looking good around here..
Which is why Vegas is my only true alternative.
Although BD you do travel A LOT so in a way you can Fuck all over..
Good points BD. Different point of view, didn’t think of it that way. Personally I just would never put tax rates so high on my priority list when choosing to move to a certain country.
BD – studies consistently show, and my experience substantiates, that real life relationships with people in one’s immediate vicinity has a huge impact on one’s quality of life. I have moved a lot and travelled tons, and I’ve found that having real, local friendships enriches my life. But I have also found it takes time for these freindships to form. Moving frequently can inhibit this process, unless you’re incredibly outgoing and charismatic. Do you consider this factor when planning your Five Flags lifestyle?
Um…..you mind telling us then how you plan on running three internet based businesses, maintaining a reliable internet presence, and doing online dating in a country like that?
What happens when your internet goes down and your service provider can’t fix it because he’s out to lunch?
As someone who can’t live without the internet myself, this would be the deal breaker to end all deal breakers!
That’s great for you, but that doesn’t describe me at all. I have no friends outside of my family/women/work life, and I’m perfectly happy with that.
Also, I won’t be “traveling tons.” I will be in three places regularly: NZ, Hong Kong, and USA… and eventually it will just be NZ and Hong Kong, with 3-6 months in each place every year. Plenty of time to establish friendships if I want them, which I probably won’t. Read this for more detail.
I don’t have three internet based businesses. Just one. My other two are offline. I would never want all three of my businesses reliant on the internet. Diversification of income.
I’m going to have to pay extra for my internet connection; cable, fiber, satellite, whatever, and back it up with a 2nd connection.
It will be very sporadic sugar daddy game, and it won’t require a strong internet connection.
As I said above, I will have two or three internet connections, plus a tethering option via my phone. Alpha 2.0 is all about redundancy.
You need to think more strategically. No one with a profitable internet business would ever rely on just one internet connection, regardless of what country he lives in.
Bullshit! That crap creeps me out. I want to have friends from a position of strength and choice, not by force of geography where I can’t get rid of them because they live right there.
You want your friends living far enough away from you that if the friendship dies, or turns sour, you don’t have to move to get away from them. You also don’t want people to be constantly annoying you or bugging you just because they live right there. It’s a prison, not friendship!
This is one of the many things I hate about the alt right – this whole “high trust society” bullshit which would give introverts like myself multiple panic attacks per day!
A high trust society is the antithesis of privacy. I’m an individualist who worships his privacy, so in order to avoid suffocating, I need a low trust society in which my closest neighbors are total strangers, never stick their ugly noses into anyone’s business, and friendships are created by mutual choice and ideological compatibility (read voluntarily), not by force of location (read: involuntarily) where you can’t pick friends based on personality!
The alt right is a huge threat to sexual freedom, individualism, and privacy, is what I’m trying to say, I guess!
Pure personality and ideological compatibility AND the convenience of physical proximity is usually an extremely happy and rare coincidence. Mostly though, the latter strangles the former and introverts like me (if conservatives have their way) will live in hell, while “high trust society alt right extroverts” will be happy!
The battles lines have been drawn!
Thanks for putting this together. Sounds perfect for you. I’ve made similar 3-4 week trips when I work remotely while studying a place to retire. I’ve confirmed it will be Latin America because interests are cost of living, women, latin american history (mayans, incans, and other indigenous peoples), studying spanish, and taking salsa classes. I’m 35 so I still have some screwing around to do. New Zealand sounds kinda boring right now.
This blog has helped me think a bit beyond the next 10 years though. Maybe I spend a decade in LATAM while scoping out another move to asia as the final frontier for the future of earth.
I’m a kiwi. I have dual nationality with another country and travel widely. This is – by far – the best and least biased view of my country that I’ve ever read.
Please bear in mind that we have just elected a rabidly socialist government (actually we didn’t, we kinda got it by default but that’s another very complicated story) and that the social and political situation is going to get a bit less friendly here over the next two electoral terms.
This will not matter so much if you have good money, you’ll be able to insulate yourself from most of the socialist nastiness that’s coming.
Absolutely excellent, and very perceptive article mate, well done.
Yes, I think NZ would be too be way too boring for most unmarried men under 40, particularly if you set up a permanent residence there (rather than a part-time person like myself). Argentina was my second choice, and it was a close second.
Good to hear. I always try to be absolutely objective in my analysis of any country, the good and the bad.
Like the other commenter above, what you’re describing is more or less happening all over the entire Western world as it continues to slip towards a slow, left-wing collapse. It’s not just NZ. It’s damn near everywhere in the West, at least to some degree.
Five Flags baby. That will protect me from all the nastiness, at least from NZ. (Protecting myself from the nastiness of the USA will be a little more complicated. But still doable.)
^^ Kudos mate.
I’ve heard repeated indirect references to you exclusively running SDG now. Are you done with normal online game? Will you write an article about the reasons behind this? Although I can more or less guess that it’s age and the pursuit of higher efficiency, but would be nice to read about for people aging in the future.
There’s a lot of social pressure that you’re not “normal” unless you have lots of “buddies”. Very happy to see you openly say this as I’ve felt this same way but I thought I was an odd-ball. For many years I forced myself to have a large group of friends but I usually felt like I had to pump myself up and convince myself to hang out hours and hours weekly with them.
What’s your response when women you’ve begun to see ask you about your friends, such as, “Why don’t you have friends that you hang out with?” and/or “When are you going to introduce me to your friends?”
Yes – what in the UK would be called an “on-licence” (licensed for the sale of alcohol on the premises), as opposed to an “off-licence”. I didn’t realise that no sort of licence is needed in the US for a restaurant to sell alcohol with meals.
The South Island is indeed stunningly beautiful scenically, though of course it’s colder than the North Island but also, in many places, not as wet. Well worth the visit for the scenery alone.
No. It’s a slow transition. Right now I’m about 70/30 SD/normal. I’ll probably be at 100% a year from now. (I’ll be 47 in a year! Damn!)
And by the way, I am not indirect. I’m damn near the most direct blogger on the internet.
Not yet. But soon.
I more or less already did here and here and here. Plus I have the added factor of being in an OLTR marriage. SD women don’t care as much as normal ones if you’re married, and your OLTR wife will be “happier” if she thinks all the woman you’re fucking on the side are “only doing it because they’re getting paid.” (Regardless of if that’s actually true or not.)
Eh. I’ll consider it, but I really think I’ve already addressed the basic reasons.
I’m sure you know what my position is regarding “social pressure.”
You’ve been brainwashed by Societal Programming then, and have more work to do regarding cleaning it out. If people don’t like the way I live my life they can go fuck off. All of them. And I’m speaking literally.
“I don’t have any friends… unless you’re talking about the other women I fuck, or the men I work with, or my brothers.”
Just be a fucking man and say it. Never pretend to be something you are not. Be the man you are. If people don’t like it, FUCK THEM.
No license should be required at all. That’s my point. If it’s a legal product, anyone should be able to sell it to anyone, period, without any government interference. Any other position is anti-freedom and quasi-authoritarian. Shit, I’d almost rather you just make the product you don’t like illegal rather than say “its legal BUT!, in order to sell it, we, your overlords, will force you to do this, and this, and this, and this, and this, now jump through these hoops little monkey…”
Yes, definitely going next time; spend several days down there.
I’ve always found Maori and Polynesian women to be ugly, which also includes half breed ones NZ has, who are half Maori and half something else. There’s hot Maori and half Maori chicks around, but not a lot and they’re usually all taken.
There’s a lot of social pressure that you’re not “normal” unless you have lots of “buddies”. Very happy to see you openly say this as I’ve felt this same way but I thought I was an odd-ball. For many years I forced myself to have a large group of friends but I usually felt like I had to pump myself up and convince myself to hang out hours and hours weekly with them.
If it feels too much of an effort to hang around those friends, it’s not worth it. One thing I myself have come to realise on my journey to Alpha 2.0 dom (about half way there) is to stop surrounding yourself with people who are holding you back or drain you of your energy. (This includes family)
I started softnexting a lot of friends this year, since a big part of my peergroup were behaving like a cheap soap opera. Fights over nothing, trying and succeeding in sleeping with each others girlfriends (resulting in one pregnacy), fistfights, one guy ending up twice in ER in the same weekend for taking too much XTC, all fueled by a combination of ego, insecurity, and alcohol and drug abuse. Most of them are hardworking 30-somethings, so it’s not visible from the outside right away.
It was interfering with my plan to stop any unnecessary drama in my life, so I stopped hanging out with them. Gave me more time to focus on stuff that really matter for me, building my own bussines, having fun with women etc.
Ontopic: NZ is also high on my places to visit next. Everybody I know who’s visited NZ told me they immediately fell in love with the place. Don’t have any experience with NZ women, but from what you wrote the’re comparable to Australian women in the looks department (at least the women I’ve met. Exceptions like Margot Robbie notwithstanding, the’re average looking for the most part.
Odd comment about London
Every nationality in the world lives in London and has their own corner of the London culture so unless you find the whole planet ugly it’s very weird to describe women in London as ugly.
This is not true. Certain fast food places serve alcohol (Taco Bell is test marketing it, Chipotle has it) and all of them require licensing and oversight by ABC.
I was involved in relocating a liquor store displaced by a public works project and you have no idea the scrutiny and oversight involved.
https://www.abc.ca.gov/permits/licensetypes.html
In Illinois, you have to have a liquor license to sell alcohol, and the towns decide the times of day it is allowed. In my town, you can’t buy alcohol on Sunday before 10am and depending on the restaurant, cannot sell it after midnight.
This was better than when I lived in FL, and you couldn’t buy alcohol until 1pm on Sunday. Half the stadium at the football game missed kick-off because they were waiting in line to get beer. As soon as the ball was kicked-off, they started pulling the taps.
Madness.
It’s also worth remembering that one of the reasons restaurants in NZ prominently display the fact that they’re “licensed” is to distinguish themselves from those that are “BYO” – “bring your own” (wine, that is). BYO is very common in NZ (and also in Australia), much commoner than in other places, I’d say. Some diners prefer to go to a BYO place, because they can take the wine that they know they want to drink, and also it’s a less expensive way to drink.
I think it’s generally accepted that it’s wine that diners will bring, though it’d probably be acceptable to bring your own beer. Not sure that you’d generally be welcome to bring your own bottle of whisky or gin though …
What about the food?
Did you check out some supermarkets to see if they have the brands you like? (You didn’t seem to be too keen on the water).
Is there a good variety of different restaurants? Did you eat out? How expensive is it?
If you are like me then food will be a very important factor (even if you could satisfy your food cravings when you are in Hong Kong).
I agree. I’ve never found women in London notably unattractive, the opposite in fact (as a generalisation, of course).
I don’t agree that NZ women are necessarily unattractive either, though I refrained from saying this, knowing that one man’s meat is another man’s poison, so to speak. But I’ve met very cute NZ women, and fucked some of them. It could be notable, however, that most of the ones I’ve had sex with were not in NZ (mostly they’ve been travelling in either Australia or Europe), but that could also simply reflect that I haven’t spent a lot of time in NZ compared with these other places. (And New Zealander’s are keen travellers.)
Would you raise your children there? Or is it feminized?
The food at the restaurants was good.
Oh yes. I visited several supermarkets and the food was “okay.” The water thing pissed me off, but the food was a little better.
Huge variety, yes. That is one of NZ’s strengths.Very nice.
Not too bad. Perhaps slightly higher than average. The stupid 15% sales tax did not apply as far as I could tell.
No, food is no problem in NZ, in terms of eating out. When I don’t eat out, I don’t eat a variety of food anyway, to avoid getting fat, so I don’t really care. (I eat mostly broccoli and chicken.)
Yes, definitely.
The entire Western world is feminized. If you want a non-feminized culture, you’ll have to move to S. Korea, Russia, the Middle East, etc.
Staying in clam
Your spell checker let you down. =(
Great article about NZ though, I have friends that live there, pretty accurate write up!
P.S. I would happily proof read for you! =)
My dilemma is high net worth, but average income. I’m in process of setting up some new cash flow businesses to increase income, but until that grows, its not worth the hassle of relocating the business. Luckily, my real estate investments have pushed me into 7 figure net worth over the past couple years from significant appreciation, so I’ve got a nice cushion. Problem is when I sell, I will be hit with capital gains taxes.
BD, your plan on reducing taxes is framed more about reducing income/business taxes. Do you have strategies about reducing or eliminating capital gains taxes on existing assets you hold?
I have recently done some initial research on getting a Hong Kong citizenship/residency/passport. My father was born in HK and relocated to Canada when he was 4. Although he hasn’t been back since, he does have a current Hong Kong (or Chinese??) passport. Not sure why he’s never looked into using that towards his tax advantages as their investment holdings are significant. But because my father was born in HK, I think I am entitled to getting some sort of residency/citizenship. Looking into that now to see if it benefits me in any way, as this could be very advantageous from a tax perspective as my income and net worth grows. Could also make it easier for me to move there too should I ever decide. I’m turning 30 later this year, so I’m not super young, but young enough that compounding benefits (if any) will add up by the time I reach my 40s.
I was in New Zealand in 1991 as part of an extended trip (4 days in Hawaii, a week in Fiji, 10 days in New Zealand and then a bit more than 3 months in Australia). Spent some time in Aukland then hit Lake Taupo, Rotorua and Tongoriro. Of course, Hobbiton didn’t exist at the time but I did climb Mt. Doom (ie. Mt. Ngauruhoe). I didn’t get to the south island, but I was told by other travellers that playing tourist for something like 6 weeks was enough to see pretty much everything worth seeing.
It never really struck me as a place I would relocate to, especially on rotating basis. It seems a bit too slow paced for my 24 year old sensibilities (at the time) and the “Big City” (Aukland) really isn’t. Maybe things have improved in the last quarter century. On the latter point, it’s about a 13 hour flight from LA to Aukland (if you want to get to the east coast then add another 5+ hours because of the stop over and connecting flight) and roughly 12 hours from Aukland to Hong Kong.
Regarding Hong Kong, I don’t like it. It’s too crowded, too noisy and stupidly expensive. Maybe there is some out-of-the-way place in the New Territories, but I didn’t see it in, say, Sha Tin. I prefer Shenzhen, which is right across the border, but as with HK it gets crazy hot and humid in the summer. You can get a 10-year, multiple-entry L (tourist) visa with 60 days stay. The thing is, you can hop on the metro, go to Hong Kong for a few days or even a day trip and that resets the clock.
Fixed. Thanks.
For free? Sure. Email me.
That depends on your scenario. For example, if you own a bunch of real estate in the US, you could liquidate it, not pay taxes via 1031 exchange, and purchase real estate over in SE Asia where you’ll get much better appreciation and pay less or zero taxes on your income. Or liquidate the real estate and purchase new real estate under a foreign trust.
You have so many options to remove yourself from the tax rape of the USSA (not a typo). You just need to think outside the box a little.
Of course. Go read my other blog. All of my assets will be held in other countries with no capital gains taxes. (It’s almost that way now, but not quite.)
FUCK YES it will benefit you, in numerous ways.
If you’re a Westerner and you have the opportunity to get a second passport, DO IT.
As I said above, I do not recommend NZ for any man under the age of 40, especially living there 12 months a year. Too boring. I’ll be spending a few months a year there because it’s boring, as a rest from the rest of my amazing life.
It’s my favorite place in the entire world, but I wouldn’t live there 12 months out of the year. (Way too hot and humid during the summer, as just one problem, as you mentioned.)
You guys need to remove the Societal Programming that says you must live in one place 12 months out of the year. You don’t.
So Caleb are we going to talk about the Royal Wedding at all?
Why the fuck would we want to talk about a barbaric ritual performed by two virtue signaling losers who think they’re better than everyone else just because of their bloodline?
Go on a blue pill site if you think that has any significance to any enlightened person.
I assume you’re making a joke.
You are still hit with a five buck a head corkage or more so not really that much cheaper.
Hey
I was just wondering if you are thinking that this way of life of yours, is what would benefit society as a whole the most, or just a part of the male population?
I’m honestly fascinated by your thinking, but for some reason, maybe because I’m a irrational woman (in a non bitter way hehe), I can’t seem to understand how this would be best for the world, you know what I’m saying.
Not that it’s necessarily wrong or whatever to pursue your own goals and wants and needs first, and the society’s later.
And, if you had a daughter, would you still have the same view on things?
Really hoping for an answer. And congrats on being a rising star.
@ Blackdragon
I am surprised that Jack Outside Box (JOTB)did not vent his disgust with your desire to incresse your Sugar Daddy/ Sugar Baby (SD/SB)relationships considering how disgusted he says he is with prostitution. Let us be clear that SD/SB are prostitution technically speaking. Someone needs to tell JOTB that it becomes increasingly difficult to even sex with ugly and plain women in their 20s and much more so with cute and gorgeous women in their 20s without paying money directly or indirectly for its one gets older than his mid thirties. No wonder you and I never debated about prostitution.
As you know, I am not disgusted by prostitution unlike JOTB. However, I am not a fan of the SD/SB kind because it leaves one more likely to be financially, legal and emotionally exploited. I think it often costs as much if not more but this is not always the case and sometimes it is financially cheaper and legally safer, but not emotionally safer. If you are considering an SD/SB relationships then you should consider the hourly rate relationships of prostitution. Prostitution has been completely decriminalized in New Zealand which is better than the legalization of Holland and Germany because it is more libertarian which is usually if not always better than any other way of doing things. Sadly the USA and to a lesser extent Canada have their collective heads up their anuses regarding prostitution and impose the worst thing one can do with it by vigorously enforcing prostitution prohibition. I say this as an American and veteran of the U.S. Army as well as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars when I say New Zealand is better than the USA regarding prostitution.
@ Blackdragon
I should add that it is legally safer to do the SD/SB relationship in the USA than the hourly rate pay for play, P4P method. Note I never said that the SD/SB method is safe in the USA just safer than the P4P method because one is less likely to get arrested and be a victim of crime. It makes more sense to engage in the P4P method in New Zealand for the reasons I made in this post and the above post as well as some others not stated.
https://blackdragonblog.com/2017/10/02/what-if-everyone-did-that/
https://blackdragonblog.com/2016/02/29/the-deal-with-the-manosphere/
I have a daughter. And yes:
https://blackdragonblog.com/2013/07/11/5-pieces-of-advice-for-my-daughter/
Waitwaitwait… a rising star? I thought I was already a star!!!! 😉
I laid out my position on all that here, here, and here.
BD I’ve just been offered an opportunity to build a finance based business in Shanghai working with expats with a UK FTSE 100 wealth management firm. Same skill set as my other business I ran successfully here for 15 years. Would mean selling up my other business here and starting again from scratch over there. But probably massive upside if I’m successful. Which I’m pretty confident I would be.
Given I know you love Shanghai and see it as growth vs the West decline. Sounds like a pretty good idea? 🙂
Just on a general philosophical level of course not specific advice. Seems like a no brainier to me but just wondering if I’m missing anything. I’ve been to lots of major Asian cities. But never Shanghai.
Eureka! I recently moved to Melbourne after 30 years of living in Auckland and thought I was imagining this, glad that someone else can objectively corroborate this. It drives me nuts, holding a (non-left) opinion here is tantamount to financial suicide, all the more reason to develop income streams that are not location dependant. Reading your books is helping me with this. I would also agree that New Zealanders are on average a little nicer than Australians, just based on the interactions I’ve had in the last 18 months.
This is one of the best reviews I’ve read of Auckland…very accurate I would say. Your observation about the age of the people is interesting, New Zealand actually has the first or second highest number of passport holders in the OECD countries who don’t reside there (something like 1 million passport holders). Most of my friends 21-35 have left to earn more money elsewhere. They only return if they are planning to have a family or retire. It’s definitely the primary motivation I had to move to Australia. The aging population of NZ is actually a real problem for the government, as they have less young people to fleece through tax to pay for the huge numbers of old age pensioners!
As far as women go, I actually find a lot of the women in New Zealand very attractive, particularly the Maori and Polynesian women, and there are many beautiful mixed Chinese and Polynesian women. We also get a lot of beautiful tourists from South America and Brazil.
If you do get to return to New Zealand for an extended period, can I recommend that you make a visit to Gisborne, which is in the far east of the North Island and, alongside the stunning parts of the South Island like Queenstown, is hands down my favourite part of the country and where I plan to retire. The climate down there is amazing as is the food and wine. Stunning beaches and really friendly locals.
Going further north you will experience more rain, and humidity in summer. Coromandel has a lot of rain too, as can Auckland. You were lucky with the weather, though global warming has improved our climate 😀
We do have multiculturalism problems, though nothing like overseas… yet, mostly it is immigrants driving up the house prices (good thing you’re not buying). FYI we don’t have capital gains tax.
Internet is getting better, we have fibre in the cities & towns. Make sure you go with a small provider if you actually want to get through on the customer service.
For water brands, we have a range but you may have to search for them at different supermarkets or boutique shops or corner stores.
Many counties are trying to bring in laws banning homelessness (Tauranga & Nelson).
You will pay the sales tax on everything, even online purchases! Ironically it was a republican government who promised not to raise the tax then immediately did!
If you want friendly people it will be hard to find them in densely populated libertarian societies.
You will love the south island.
@Ilijas Jung
Not feminised, but is heading that way.
@entropy-7
Auckland has changed drastically since you were last here, the rest of nz has a little too.
Becareful of buying real estate in china they do zero maintenance. Buy new or for land value only!