Primo Hermano – January 2020 Update
January was the month to get our feet wet and experience New Zealand through HelpX — and it was so full of new adventures, meeting kiwis, and learning new things!
Here is a summary of our expenses for Jan 2020 per person (hover on bars for the interactive effect!):
As you can see, we spent a total of $350 USD per person in the month of January, which is fantastic! And that $181 of transportation costs on 1/26 was a flight from Auckland to Invercargill, which of course that’s going to cost a lot! Fortunately, we have been saving our accommodation and most of our food costs by staying at these HelpX locations — so if you’re looking to do a Working Holiday Visa on a budget, this is a GREAT way to travel the world.
Here is a summary of our Jan 2020 events:
Jan 1-10: Stayed at Nat’s HelpX near Pukekohe. Read more about it here.
Jan 7: Spent our day off in Auckland watching the ASB Classic – a small tennis tournament which happens prior to the Australian Open.
We were given the day off at Nat’s place on Jan 7th since we worked a double shift the day before (8 hours instead of 4). With the day off, we decided to go to Auckland to watch the ASB Classic. The women play in the first week of the tournament and we were able to watch Caroline Wozniacki, Lauren Davis, and (our personal favorite) Usue Arconada, among others.
[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nPi_BooATk&w=854&h=480]
Jan 10-20: Stayed at Mandy and Kenny’s HelpX in Huia. Read more about it here.
Jan 20-31: Stayed at Jim and Melanie’s HelpX. More on that in our next post!
Jan 25: Met my cousin in Auckland! I just found out recently that I had a cousin living in Auckland. Never having met him, I was a little nervous calling him up to hang out. But he and his girlfriend were super nice and they took us out for brunch and guided us on a little Auckland tour through Mount Eden and Princes Wharf.
Here are some more photos of us experiencing Auckland.
Plans for Feb 2020
We finally have our trip planned up to Feb 19th (which doesn’t seem that far away, but it’s taken a lot of planning to get there!) and here are some things that we have on our list:
- Since it is currently summer in New Zealand, we are traveling to the south island first to take advantage of the warmer weather there.
- We have heard that there are 10 “Great Walks” in New Zealand. One of them is called the Rakiura Track and it is in Stewart Island, which is an island south of the main south island of New Zealand.
- After Rakiura, we will likely be doing more HelpX, but nothing past 2/19 is set in stone!
If you liked our post, comment below — I’d love to see what you think we should try in NZ!
