Prickly Fern

Most people in the world can't point to New Zealand on a map. Why? Because it's so out of the way.
Hell, most non-critical maps don't even include New Zealand to save space. The thing is, you need to have the whole pacific ocean on the map just to be able to include New Zealand. Not very efficient. But hey, we can't help that can we?

It's not a big secret that New Zealand is far from most countries, especially the ones in Europe and the States. But you don't realize how far it actually is until you travel here.
It's an endless flight from the western world and the air fare costs A LOT. (it takes almost 2 days from Europe)

Being this far from the world contributes a lot of negative aspects to living conditions.

For starters if you are a student or an immigrant, forget about seeing your family back home for a long time. Unless you are made of money, traveling overseas -whenever you please- becomes a luxury option for you.

These high transportation costs make it difficult for importers to bring in goods, too. They can't take too many risks. Therefore you are stuck with a very narrow range of goods. And since New Zealand is not an industrialized country (more on this later) it makes it worse. For example there are only a few ligthing, furniture, appliance chain stores that carry the same styles/models.
I often find myself begging to most Ebay sellers to please allow me to buy their goods!