I’ve been in New Zealand for four years and live in the Waitakere Regional Park, just outside of Auckland. This is a beautiful area, I am surrounded by giant native kauri trees and five minutes from the beautiful black sand beaches.

Originally from Brussels, after my studies in marketing I wanted to travel and discover "something different"! I didn’t have any actual plans and I admit that I chose New Zealand purely by chance (in fact, this was the first visa I received and I instantly booked a flight).

As luck would have it, I had such a wonderful year in New Zealand, made up of so many encounters, anecdotes and adventures, that I decided to do it again on a bigger continent, Australia.

There, it was the same principle, I bought a van and I travelled on the road for a year. Between odd jobs and fun, these were two fantastic years that gave me the opportunity to experience Oceania. In fact I’d recommend it to anyone, it's a great life experience!

After these two wonderful years, I returned to Belgium to work in finance but I knew that I would return to New Zealand. This is a very difficult country to leave, one quickly falls in love with it.

So I naturally decided to make the leap to the other side of the world and to return to the country that has given me so much, Aotearoa. I travelled around by campervan for a few weeks and then moved to Auckland.
First I worked in telecommunications but I quickly turned to tourism because I wanted to share my life experience and my passion for this beautiful country.

In the City of Sails, I met Stephane and we quickly realised that we were both in love with New Zealand and shared the same passion for campervan travel and adventure. We decided to launch DetourNZ to share our passion and knowledge with the many travellers visiting Oceania.

When you come to Auckland, don’t hesitate to venture out of the city to visit the Waitakere Ranges, especially Piha and Karekare beaches, you won’t be disappointed!