A Year With a Suitcase and a Script

I'm Avery Miles (she/her), a drama student from the United States who collects monologues the way other people collect postcards. I grew up rehearsing in living rooms, borrowing scarves for costumes, and daydreaming about scenes set in French cafés. I wanted time to see more than campus and to figure out what kind of stories I can tell. A gap year sounded reckless and perfect.

Why Wellington

I chose Wellington, New Zealand, because it's English-speaking (my mom slept better once I said that), creative, and walkable. The city feels like a pocket-sized stage set—hills, harbor, sudden wind—plus a lot of theater doors I could peer into. It wasn't Europe-long expensive, but it offered a way to work, save, and still be curious. And even though my French is basically mime-level, I could study it while living somewhere friendly to beginners.

Getting Set Up

I rented a small room in Newtown with a window that snapped shut whenever the wind got dramatic. My commute was a brisk walk through Te Aro, past buskers and bakeries that made the whole street smell ambitious. I applied for a working-holiday style visa so I could take short-term jobs, and I promised my mom I'd text whenever I took a bus anywhere unfamiliar.

My first week was mostly practical: buying a secondhand coat, figuring out which hill was actually Mount Victoria, and practicing the art of packing lunch so I didn't talk myself into pastries every day. In the evenings, I caught small performances in converted spaces—rooms with folding chairs and lights clipped to rails—exactly my kind of magic.

Work That Paid the Rent

I landed two reasonable gigs. In the afternoons, I did front-of-house shifts at a small playhouse near Courtenay Place—taking tickets, pointing out restrooms, complimenting the courage of anyone who admitted it was their first time seeing a play. On a couple of mornings each week, I worked a café counter off Cuba Street, pulling shots, washing cups, and learning to read the faces of people who need caffeine the way actors need applause.

The combination worked: evenings in theater, mornings at the espresso machine, downtime in between for rehearsing lines and planning weekend bus trips. The pay wasn't glamorous, but it covered rent, groceries, and an occasional treat like a ferry ride when the harbor glittered.

Learning French, Slowly and Joyfully

To honor that old French daydream, I signed up for a beginner evening class at a community room in Te Aro. We practiced greetings, argued cheerfully about verb endings, and did vocabulary walks where we labeled things in our notebooks—fenêtre for window, tasse for cup. I started a tiny ritual: every morning, one page of my journal in French, even if it sounded like a child describing weather. It turned out that talking to strangers at the café was the perfect warm-up for pronouncing words I used to swallow whole.

French didn't replace English, but it reframed my days. On the bus to Island Bay, I'd whisper sentences to the rhythm of the ride. At the waterfront near Oriental Bay, I'd read a poem aloud, softly enough that the gulls didn't heckle me. It was progress measured in smiles, not grades.

Gentle Adventures (Nothing Too Sporty)

I'm not especially athletic, so I aimed for outings that felt more like scene changes than stunts. I loved the walk to Red Rocks when the weather behaved, the cable car up to the lookouts, and long afternoons in galleries when the wind had opinions. On weekends, I took the bus to Petone for the long flat shoreline and a paper bag of chips on a bench, or to Greytown for old shops and quiet streets. Once, I rode the ferry to Picton and spent a day wandering the marina, collecting overheard lines for characters I haven't met yet.

What I Learned About Money and Myself

  • Pick a base that speaks your language but nudges your curiosity. I could work and ask for help easily, while still learning something new every day.
  • Stack compatible jobs. Evening front-of-house shifts paired perfectly with quiet morning café hours.
  • Share housing and cook most meals. Cafés became treats rather than habits.
  • Travel slowly. Buses, ferries, and long walks showed me more than rushing ever would, and cost less.
  • Study the language you're curious about, even if you're not living where it's spoken. Consistency matters more than location at first.
  • Keep adventures gentle if you're not sporty. There's plenty of wonder in museums, markets, shorelines, and small theaters.

    • Curtain Call

    By the time my year wrapped, I could introduce myself in French without panicking, balance a tray without sacrificing a single saucer, and welcome audiences like they were old friends. Wellington gave me a stage big enough to practice being brave in small ways. If you're dreaming of a gap year and your budget and nerves have their own opinions, consider an English-speaking city with creative bones, add a language class, and give yourself time to build a life out of shifts, bus tickets, and little rituals. It's not a glamorous montage. It's better. It's real.