My goals here at Emily For President have almost always been twofold: I love using this space to discuss things I want to know more about, simplify big concepts, and provide resources for those reading to continue the conversation after I’m done yapping.

But as I’ve leaned more and more into that side of E4P over the past holy fucking shit it’s only been two months since Trump re-entered office, I feel like I’ve lost sight of my other aim which is to create a platform for people to share their experiences in the hopes they will resonate with someone else. As someone born with the burden of being an extroverted Aquarius, I love telling stories that help bring people together—sue me!!!

That plot is not yet lost, however, as today I am joined by a long-time reader, first-time guest who has had a year. She is currently living in New Zealand because…well, why not? She was already one of the coolest people I knew on American soil but she has outdone herself now by leaving her job, her home, and her friends, traveling across the world to build the life she wants to live.

This week, I’m joined by my friend Avery to talk about what made her want to move to another country on a work visa, what she’s learned about herself along this journey, and how other Americans can ethically emigrate elsewhere.

The bad stuff isn’t going anywhere, and neither am I…except for this week because I wanted to celebrate my friend and not break down the demoralizing historical context for some nightmare scenario or another that happened since last Monday.

Avery is a 26 year old that now has a better alibi when being blamed for living under a rock…she moved 13,000km away from her home in Atlanta, GA to New Zealand with a meatball recipe and a dream. She worked as a creative strategist on chicken and anti-gun violence clients at an advertising agency, and continues to contribute journalism to Eater, even when a bit far from the city.

She now whips up coffee and asks about local’s fishing trips and families most mornings. She has tried every hobby from aerial silks, to needlepoint, to running clubs with varying levels of success. However, her favorite and the one she feels best at is cooking and hosting friends for dinner.

Gorgeous Gorgeous Girls Go to New Zealand

Back in November, I got a notification that Avery had listed something in the local Emory marketplace. Why am I still in my college’s buy-and-sell Facebook group, you ask? For moments like this, obviously.1

In any case, while Avery went on after this exchange to tell me her grand plans for leaving, I wanted to give her the space to share her journey with all of you. Through what is probably the clunkiest-worded question ever here at E4P, I asked Avery:

Emily: Literally speaking, what went into making this move happen? And emotionally speaking, what went into making this move happen?

Avery: For a few years post-grad, I worked in advertising in Atlanta and really loved life there. However, I often felt a bit stuck in the routine of commuting, working a full day at the office, with qualms about over hour long commutes and overall safety living there. I wanted to exercise my free will a bit more and seeing more of the world before retirement (if that’s even in the cards…!).

Mid 2024, I experienced a wake-up call: I desperately wanted to take a break from my career that had included a long-winded, frustrating attempt to obtain a UK Skilled Worker visa. I also went through a breakup, and felt as though I suddenly had so many new paths in front of me for what was to come next. While it was sad, it was quite exhilarating to feel like I could really do anything next (within reason).

I had no idea a working holiday even existed as an option to leave the US before my dear friend Lily started one at the end of 2023. Since then, planning to move to New Zealand was something I had stored away in the back of my head as a faraway idea.

Even pondering and planning for a working holiday requires the privilege of saving up for one, and the ability to tie up loose ends in America. I had to transfer my lease, quit my comfortable advertising job of almost five years, find a place to home most of my belongings (whether it’s now someone else’s or taking up my parent’s closets in Florida), and breaking the news to people who I would and currently do miss dearly.

There is also so much meticulous planning that went into finding where I was going to go in an entire country of opportunities, jobs, and exchanges, and figuring what to do with the precious time given by my visa. The easiest bit was applying for and getting approved for the Working Holiday Visa.

Emotionally, it felt like teetering on the edge of a high dive until I made peace with the truth that if I didn’t go, I’d regret not taking the opportunity.

I’d traveled frequently out of the US since late 2021 due to friends moving abroad and a long-distance relationship at the time, and I took my first solo trip in August of 2024. Meeting new friends and experiencing the wonderment that comes from exploring an entirely new environment and culture was something I still wanted from somewhere I moved to, even if it wasn’t London. Plus, I wanted to travel while I lacked real responsibility for things like a mortgage or dependents.

When I felt like it was time to move along from Atlanta, there wasn’t some big aha! moment, but a calm excitement that I could just exercise free will and apply for the visa and see where spending some months living abroad could take me.

However, I cared a lot about what others would think. Would they think I jumped off the deep end in a concerning way? What would my coworkers think after years of building my advertising career alongside them? Would I be letting friends and family down? My conversations around New Zealand were largely met with support, hard but loving questions to make sure I had good reason, and excitement for the unknown ahead.

Look, I’ll be brave and say it: being in your late 20s is cursed. I know people who are getting married, already have kids, are doctors, lawyers, or some other high-ranking official at their respective companies. Meanwhile, I haven’t seen my best sports bra in two months and very well may bankrupt myself given how often I order dinner from Wonder.

By this I mean to say there are all sorts of expectations for your late 20s—timelines and goals and destinations that we’re made to feel like we need to reach by now, or at least start approaching. While we as a society have gotten better at talking about the dreaded quarter-life crisis, the conversations haven’t done much to ease the pressure to hit these arbitrary metrics or dull the pangs of comparison when your peers meet them before you.

Fearing these feelings were part of a hex placed on me by the ghost of my missing sports bra, I wanted to ask Avery about them as someone who has, in essence, opted out of the rat race if only for right now. I asked:

Emily: We're coming up to an age when a lot of people try to hit arbitrary life goals professionally, romantically, financially, etc. What are your thoughts on these societal pressures and do you still feel any internal or external need to buy into them?

Avery: Thankfully, I don’t feel too pressured to buy into them, but I did hear a lot of “now is the time to do it, especially before you put roots down.”

The start of my adult life was pretty standard and calculated: I attended university and had a great start in the advertising industry. I always wanted my career to take me abroad and to live in a culture different from my own, but it’s extremely difficult as I only speak English, and sponsorship as a midlevel professional is a business investment that can be next to impossible to justify…trust me, I tried.

I’m over the moon for friends getting married and buying houses, but those things might have kept me from being able to experience moving to a different country. Moving here already feels so lucky and wasn’t in my five-year-plan as a graduate, so I’m keen to assess what those next goals look like while I choose where to go next.

Because I’m me (sorry) and can’t help myself, I did have to add a liiiiiittle section here that almost completely undermines everything I said in the intro to today’s piece as it has nothing to do with Avery’s experience and everything to do with the fact that we are living in the darkest timeline.

As I was putting this together, I read an article in The Atlantic quite literally titled “Americans Are Buying an Escape Plan.” In it, journalist Atossa Araxia Abrahamian writes that

these days, buying a visa or passport is not controversial: About half of the world’s nations already offer visas, permanent residence, or even full citizenship for sums ranging from the low five to low seven figures. The U.S. itself grants up to 10,000 residency permits a year under its EB-5 investor visa program, which Congress has approved until 2027 and costs applicants about $1 million.

But if Trump expects a flood of takers, he has it backwards: The international rich aren’t trying to come here, so much as Americans are trying to get out. U.S. citizens now represent the majority of clients looking for an exit, through foreign citizenship, permanent residence, or a visa that allows them to live abroad.

Now let’s be honest: who among us at this point in the second Trump Administration (again—it’s been exactly two months) hasn’t made a joke about fleeing the country? Hell, maybe some of us have said it and not meant it as a joke!2

But, to kill the vibe, it can feel a bit tone-deaf for American citizens to joke or talk casually about emigrating at a time when immigrants in our own country are actively having their Constitutionally-endowed rights stripped away. Why are we, consciously or not, expecting to be treated well as immigrants elsewhere when our country won’t extend that kindness to the immigrants coming to us? We can debate the technicalities here (we’re not actually the ones violating their rights—Kristi Noem and her new face are), but the notes of émigré hypocrisy still linger.

So how do we work through this?

For starters, try your best to defend the immigrant population as best as you can. Demystify immigration and dispel false narratives, get involved with and support your community, and, if it’s relevant and comes to it, know how to use your privilege as an American citizen to thwart ICE.

Now, for those of us not jokingly looking to emigrate out of the US, I wanted to ask Avery her best advice on how to not be an asshole abroad:

Emily: There's been an uptick in people talking about leaving the US because of Trump. What is your best advice for how Americans can go about considerate and ethical emigration?

Avery: Go where they’re asking people to fill a need. I’m only here because there’s a seasonal labor shortage, not because I did everything in my power to get in.

Be a part of the community you move to. Join the local pool or gym, go to the local hoedown (and show them how to Cotton Eyed Joe), become familiar with those you see every day, get to know more about people who are from here, and understand and embrace the context of your existence there. Just be curious and kind.

Indeed, leaving the US may be the safest option for some people in the way coming to America was likely the best choice for those immigrating here, but not everyone has “low five to low seven figures” to make that happen. If you feel you want to start looking into life abroad but don’t know how or where to start, this next question is for you:

Emily: If someone is seriously thinking about emigrating from America, what are the first five steps they need to take to leave?

Avery: Where are you able to go? Depending on your status as a student, age, criminal history, and citizenship status, you’re offered a few options on where to go (or many if you’ve dual citizenship outside of the US). To qualify for a Working Holiday Visa in NZ, you have to be between the ages of 18-30 and it lets you live and work in the country, file taxes, etc. The actual visa cost me around $80 and took only days to approve.

Decide on what your lifestyle will look like. Do you want to move with a company, as a digital nomad, or do temporary work and travel? I can speak to the Working Holiday Visa for US citizens, which I feel like a lot of us don’t really know or talk about—I’ve been here since January and I only have met a handful of Americans over here on the visa. It’s a pretty accessible way to easily and temporarily move out of the US to either Australia or NZ for a year (or more, depending on the work you do).

What do your finances look like? How will you fund it? This one comes with a bit of careful planning, saving, and privilege to be able to do those two things to fund your emigration process. Then, you have to embrace that your lifestyle will likely not look at all like the one you’re used to at home.

Are you in the right headspace to do this? There is a lot of uncertainty and many questions to solve in terms of doing it legally, not losing more money than planned, what life looks like while you’re away from home, and what happens if or when you return to the US. Assess if you’re okay without your creature comforts and if you can handle receiving photos of parties in your old apartment with your friends who you miss. (If you’re reading this, please send Olipop and literally anything from Trader Joe’s.)

What will you do when you get there? Figuring out how to fill time can be a mix of travel, work, volunteering exchanges, etc. I’ve worked at a coffee shop for a few months in a very small town in the Mackenzie Region on the South Island. I volunteer at a beach hostel in exchange for a room and am applying for communications jobs at ski resorts for the winter. Many people pick fruit, au pair, or work in hospitality, but you don’t have to have a job lined up or always need one to stay.

Personally, I would have just said, “Get your shit together and don’t be an asshole,” but I see how Avery’s version is better.

Eat, Pray, Remind Yourself That Instagram Isn’t Real Life, Love

As a canonically nosy person, I’ve been enthralled with Avery’s posts from across the globe. I’ve never been to New Zealand but I follow her on Instagram which in many ways is the same thing (don’t question me on that).

Last September, I talked with Sara Delgado about the lessons she learned from spending a summer traveling around the world. I was thinking about that piece a lot throughout the process of assembling this one; I kept coming back to the understanding that Sara had learned a lot about herself, the world, and life from her journeys, and I was curious to know if Avery had gained insights of her own.

I asked:

Emily: What is the number one thing you've learned about traveling, New Zealand, or both?

Avery: The world is quite globalized. I think it’s really special how two friends or groups can become so close and relate on shared ground, yet come from completely different backgrounds. The baseline personality of most people who launch themselves into a new country alone is pretty warm and receptive to all kinds of people, and are easy to get on with, no matter how different our upbringings or home comforts are.

Emily: What is the number one thing you've learned about yourself?

Avery: I’m more adaptable than I thought. Everything feels scary and new until you fall back on the habits and routines that keep you sane. For example, going on a walk or run with my favorite playlist, swimming laps, and calling friends and family often are second nature for helping me navigate uncertainty when traveling.

Everyday life here just feels like everyday life as it did in Atlanta, even though one is a city of six million people and eight-lane highways, and one is a town of one thousand without a stoplight.

I still grocery shop, stress about the price of gas, go out for drinks, or host a movie night with friends. Now it’s just with a gorgeous backdrop of the Southern Alps, and with trails and bright blue swim spots that snap me back into the reality of being in NZ…and there are less guns.

Emily: What are some unglamorous parts of traveling or living abroad that people don't talk about?

Avery: Working, budgeting, time differences with loved ones, and friends moving on.

To be able to fund this whole adventure, even with savings from a salaried job, I still have to work 40+ hours a week while here. I adjusted to leaving the office setting and re-learning a hospitality role that can be quite active and demanding at times. Re-learning how to budget for new wages and varying expenses that are different from home is a challenge.

Also, I felt really lucky to land on my feet in a household of others around my age who are a social and inclusive bunch, but my first week in NZ before I knew really anyone in the country, it was a bit like, Okay this is beautiful, but what am I really doing here alone?

I remember sitting at a cafe in Queenstown, desperately wishing I could share breakfast with my friend group from Atlanta, and one of my friend’s songs coincidentally came on over the speaker. I felt really far away at that moment.

When Avery and I were originally conspiring to build a piece together, I told her I was fascinated with the relationship between the content she was posting online and the life changes that were taking place off-screen. If you’ve ever read E4P before, this is quite literally the least surprising thing I could have said, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

No one should exist entirely online, but does that mean what we present on social media is disingenuous if it’s not the full picture? I don’t know—you’d think after pondering a version of this question in so many pieces I would have figured out the answer by now. If we want to get philosophical here, perhaps the subjectivity of our individual relationships with social media determines whether what we post is honest or not.

Ooo! Deep!

All of this is to say I wanted to give Avery the space to reflect on this quandary herself, so I asked:

Emily: What is the biggest disconnect between how you are documenting your life online and what's happening offline?

Avery: I think about this a lot. Last year was quite challenging in terms of trying to navigate a feeling of being “stuck” after trying to transfer to my agency’s office in London for so long. I felt incredibly unsettled and unable to properly plan my future, but this was undetectable on social media due to my feed of editorial-type photography from travels both inside and outside the US.

I often wondered about my own social media’s impact on the unrealistic narratives we’re fed about other people’s lives, where we think others are thriving when they’re actually not at times.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t ever post anything about the challenges I was navigating, even though it’s all I could talk about to my friends and family in real life. I posed a question to my close friends on Instagram about whether there was a happy medium between beautiful feeds and sharing the actual anxieties we face in the real world, and the verdict is that we, as followers, are aware that social media operates primarily as a highlight reel. If you want to open up on a public platform, great. But if not, people aren’t assuming your life is perfect, either.

Now that I’ve reached a new chapter of taking a career break to travel and feel very free and detached from what I felt a bit stuck in, I worry a lot less about this.

As I said at the top of this piece, today feels a little celebratory. Could it be because we’ve largely avoided demoralizing conversations for a week? Maybe.3 Because it’s chockablock with sage wisdom and stunning landscapes? Perhaps. Because anyone living their life in a way that is authentic to who they are and who they’re becoming is really fucking cool and worth celebrating? Precisely.

I wanted to end this piece in that vein by asking Avery:

Emily: What has been your favorite moment in New Zealand so far?

Avery: When I pulled into a small town with one thousand people and two grocery stores, (they’re owned by the same company just meters away from each other because of small-town drama) coming from a major city like Atlanta, I was worried about if I’d made the right choice in where to spend a few months during such a big, dramatically different chapter. After all, I had all of NZ to choose from.

Because of that, my favorite moment was when the initial deadline to pack up and find another town or job was a month away. I realized I wanted to spend more time with my friends, house, hikes, swims, dinners, and nights out, not wanting to leave the community I’ve become a part of here.

As I was putting this piece together—through chatting with Avery, looking at her pictures, and reading all her wise words—I kept hearing the same line in my head. We’ve talked at length here at E4P about how heavy things are feeling right now, and the way it feels like we constantly need to fight and survive. But joy is also an act of resistance. Enjoying sweet treats, having meals with friends, exploring and venturing and experiencing. Doing something simply because you want to do it, as Avery has done, can be just as powerful as anything in times like these.

And so, the thought that I can’t stop thinking to myself: how lovely it is, to keep living.

Thank you so much to Avery for such a kindhearted and fun and gorgeous E4P debut!!!! I miss you a lot, so we’re getting Granola Bar the next time you’re back in America!!!

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