My husband was right. (Yes that is in bold, maybe it should be framed?). That is a very difficult statement for me to make as you can imagine and for this instance I am going to admit ok it’s true. He was right this time. I am the type of person who likes to plan, organise, think forward, be prepared etc etc and he is (sometimes very annoyingly) very laid back with planning and likes to let things happen.
It was quite difficult for me to come to New Zealand without any kind of itinerary. TJ didn’t even know what that word meant ha ha. We had a very high level plan of buy a car, buy a caravan then go travelling. Very not me! When we arrived 2 months ago and I wanted to sign us up all over the place and TJ said he would rather get to know people and see what happens….I did not agree….but as I said, he was right (ok I’ve said it enough now).
Anyway, to get to the point and the reason this post is called Social Monster, I am amazed by the power of not only social media but social networking. The way this is developing for us is amazing. Through the power of people we are able to move from place to place and meet wonderful people willing to help, looking for help or offering support.
We have over the last 2 months built up such a network of “friends”, be it friends of friends or via FaceBook groups or friends of people on FaceBook groups, the list is endless. It started slow but now we have offers left, right and center from farms or horsey people looking for help or houses and pets that need to be looked after, all over New Zealand!
We had to put ourselves out there a little bit (so I was allowed to organise something) by signing on to the Kiwi House Sitting organisation and posting an introduction on the Wwoofing FaceBook page, but via the social network we have offers lined up both for now and even for months ahead….something I would never have imagined! I am spending a lot of my time replying to offers of places to stay or questions about what we are able to help with or what our plans are. Often, even if we are not a good match with what people are looking for, they know someone else or they offer tips on other places to look, it’s astounding.
The backpacking community is also amazing, those guys really pull together. But also lots of questions asked and tips to be given, its so nice to see and the atmosphere is very chilled and positive.
So, long live the Social Monster! We are now “booked up” until 6th of February with 3 different locations to either house sit or help out at a farm….oh and one of them even wants me to train their horse for them…winner!
Great that you found it so helpful it is truly a great experience – remember whey back when you where looking for help I recommended HelpX and homeforexchange which we have used three times in NZ.
I hosted lots of HelpX people in my last villa and they helped me out with gardening and painting the house – stuff that I never thought I would get done.
We met loads of wonderful people that I still keep in touch with and it was an all round fantastic experience – help on both sides of the fence for us and for the travelers that stayed with us.
The other great thing is as a traveler you don’t know and area you get all the local knowledge very quickly.
So great you are having fun in a wonderful country like NZ.
I hope you’re making lots of notes, this is a book that is just waiting to be published 😊 Great to hear things are well, I look forward to your future posts.
Thanks Elaine! Glad you are enjoying it. 😊
K