We love visitors! It makes life more interesting – most NZers are big travelers, even though we’re miles from anywhere. It’s pretty standard also for people to take a couple of years after university to do a Big OE (overseas experience) traveling, or working overseas for a few years before settling back here.

Whenever I’m in NZ my nose burns no matter how much sun block I put on so I’ve resorted to wearing a hat.

Re: Burning. I’ve travelled quite a bit (espec. in Africa) yet it wasn’t until my first time down under that I experienced such a fierce sun, it really is much more intense than anywhere else I’ve ever been (I’ve been across the Sahara 6 times) and will easily catch out the unwary.

The hole in the ozone layer is much bigger in the southern hemisphere – we suffer from the northern hemisphere pollution. 🙂 NZ and Aussie have the highest skin cancer rates in the world by quite a way.

I’ve heard people say the same to me about NZ. Yeah, I have friends who are dark skinned and have had skin cancer in NZ. I sometimes think dark people are more susceptible because they don’t burn and get nasty doses of UV the terribly white don’t.

Hi Diana – it’s actually the North Island I prefer too, and most of these videos focus on the South Island. I burn a bit too, but I really miss the beaches where I am now. I’ve already had a benign skin cancer thing removed of a type that’s rare for my age (they usually turn up in 70 year olds), but probably due to my childhood in the sun in Gisborne.

I remember a guy a met once from Germany who had two months to “do” Australia and NZ, and he decided six weeks for Australia and two for NZ. When he got here, he wished he’d done it the other way ’round because there was so much more here even though we’re so small.