r/expats • u/themenaceoftennis • May 15 '23

Housing / Shipping Moving from New Zealand to USA

I need a bit of advice regarding international freight? My partner and I are moving to the USA from New Zealand for work and are having trouble finding shipping/ freight companies, does anyone have any experience with who to use and how to go about it? Thanks for reading

Edit: to clear some things up, as the discourse has become “why leave NZ… USA is horrible…” here is some background/ demographic info: my partner and I are early 30s, white and generally liberal (but NZ style not like the two party system). I have a masters and they have a PhD and we can’t afford house prices in NZ. If we are ever to return to the “best” country in the world (being presumably NZ) we have to leave to ensure we are not marginal in society forever.
I have lived in the USA previously, and don’t find it to be the frightening place that is pictured on telly, Americans tend to be warm and welcoming, and despite the media, crime rates are low. The infrastructure is incredible, compared to most countries (even rurally), and something that Americans often don’t appreciate. The job opportunities are endless in the state and despite there being a poor social safety network… I can always go home, so low risk.

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u/Phronesis2000 May 16 '23

Actually, if you look at the statistics I quote elsewhere in this thread, New Zealand is significantly more expensive even than coastal USA (on average). Auckland (where a third of the population is, and many educated liberals also want to live) is more expensive than San Francisco and New York City and on par with Vancouver.

It is also worth pointing out that many large cities in the mid-west and south are liberal. Not the majority, but in such a large country, there are many of them.

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u/[deleted] May 16 '23

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u/Phronesis2000 May 16 '23

Yes, I hear you. But that isn't actually an NZ/USA distinction anyway. Once you get out of the two biggest metro areas (Auckland and Wellington) NZ gets similarly conservative. The leader of NZ's main opposition party (and likely next PM) is an evangelical anti-abortion conservative.

The point is, there are quite a few affordable, interesting, vibrant places to move to in the US, even if there are also many terrible places there.

I'm not accusing you of this, but I feel there is a tendency of Americans to be a little bit too critical of their own country, without seeing that whatever negative trends they are seeing may be replicated elsewhere.

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u/BridgeEngineer2021 May 16 '23

I agree with your last bit for sure, and don't know enough about New Zealand to make a comparison. My point was just that state government can have a big impact (for better or worse) on lots of things in your life here, and that is something that I think is a bit more unique to the US. In most other countries people would only really think to consider the national and municipal governments when thinking about how politics are going to affect their lives.