If you know me, or even if you’ve just been reading this blog for awhile, you’ll know that I’m not really into staying in one place. Or, making concrete plans more than three days in advance. Usually, when I’m about to leave somewhere, I don’t have many regrets. I’m always looking forward to the next trip, the next place, whatever else is out there on the horizon. And once I travel somewhere I don’t tend to go back. In fact, I’ve never repeated an international destination. (This changes tomorrow, when my plane lands in Santiago, Chile.)

So, basically, what I’m about to tell you in this blog post is A BIG DEAL.

I’ve already told you how I fell head over heels in love with Rotorua. But, really, it’s bigger than that — I am infatuated with this entire country and I’m completely gutted (as the Kiwis would say) about leaving tomorrow.

While I am excited about the coming adventures, I know I’m going to have to come back to New Zealand. For one, I still can’t parallel park a left-hand drive manual. And I still want to go swimming with dolphins and hike the Tongariro Crossing and explore the Coromandel and do all the other things that we just couldn’t fit into 10 weeks in New Zealand.

And so, I’m making a huge commitment to New Zealand.

Remember how Macky and I bought a car back in January, 12 hours after clearing customs? Well, back then we had every intention of selling the thing before we left. However, approximately three days ago, we realized neither of us wanted to do that. We both wanted to come back. The new plan? We’re leaving the car with friends, making promises to come back next January and crossing our fingers that the car will still be in one piece when we return.

Why are we so determined to come back to New Zealand?

I’m not sure how to put it, exactly, but life here is incredibly rad. The mountain biking is amazing, the people are friendly and helpful and the scenery is, well, mind-boggling. But it’s more than that — living here is, in a way, easy. It just feels right. I have this idea of a perfect day and it goes like this: up early-ish with a cup of strong coffee and a good book, followed by a big breakfast and a long bike ride on awesome trails, all capped off with an evening spent cooking, drinking beer and hanging out with friends.

There have been a lot of perfect days on this trip.

While I’m aware that not every day can be so blissful, there is just something about New Zealand that makes things that usually stress me out less stressful and fills me with a kind of buoyant hopefulness and excitement that I haven’t always been able to find elsewhere. Frankly, I’m in love with this country.

A friend in Christchurch laughed when we told him how we had been traveling around, bumming free campsites and sleeping in the back of the car. “Ha,” he said. “You’re just having a one-night-stand with my country.”

And we were. But as so often happens with one-night-stands, we got emotionally involved. New Zealand is no longer just “somewhere we traveled.” It’s special, and we’re coming back.

What about you? Do you ever repeat a trip? How do you know when you find somewhere you want to come back to?