What is Illuminated Vagabond?

Born out of a passion for travel and new experiences, the Illuminated Vagabond is an artistic look into our travels. We aim to provide useful information in a creative way. Follow our adventures as we reflect on our experiences and capture moments with our cameras. We hope we will inspire you too to become an Illuminated Vagabond!

Current Status:

The bulk of the content of this site was created during 2010-11 as we ventured forth on a working holiday in New Zealand. Since then both of us have attained residency in New Zealand, and are living and working as 'kiwis'. While some of our previous information might be dated, feel free to reach out to us with any questions we might be able to help with. We love to share our experience and knowledge that we've acquired on this near decade long journey.

Currently Paul works at Wintec in Hamilton, and Christina works at a University in Wellington. Funny how we both ended up in academics. :)

Take opportunity as it comes. You never know where you'll end up.

-The Vagabonds

Latest Posts:

Road trip at warp speed

VIDEO: New Zealand Hyperlapse – A road trip at warp speed

This video was part of my experimental works for my masters in visual arts. Inspired by the innovative genius of Teehan+Lax Labs (labs.teehanlax.com) and their Google Street View Hyperlapse (hyperlapse.tllabs.io), I decided to take a warp speed road trip around New Zealand. In some ways this is a reflection of spending my first year traveling […]

The

VIDEO: Vagabond with a Home…

It’s been over a year of radio silence.  The Vagabonds have, unfortunately, become contributing members of society, albeit in two different countries other than their homeland, which is no small task.  I guess reality eventually has to settle in.  Traveling friends go home to work, to study, to marry…  One slowly settles into a daily […]

Hamilton Gardens

VIDEO: “Why Hamilton?”

Among some of the common questions I’m asked such as, “Where are you? When are you coming home? Are you still in New Zealand?”, I’ll add another one “Why Hamilton?” Since moving to Hamilton I’ve wanted to put together a video that gives people a glimpse of where I am and what it’s like here.  […]

A month of images in the Land Down Under

One month in Australia is hardly enough to scratch the surface of this vast and varied continent.  But I knew this going into it, and focused my time on Melbourne, the southern coast (the Great Ocean Road and Kangaroo Island) and the Outback.  I was hoping to fall in with a cool group of people […]

Happy vagabonds

Vagabonds go their separate ways

After spending a spectacular year working and touring New Zealand, the vagabonds have parted ways to continue their travels.  Christina has gotten a working holiday visa for Australia, and is currently setting up shop in Melbourne.  Stay tuned for some great Aussie articles coming from her– right Christina?  I, unfortunately, am too old to get […]

Foals Rock

Laneway music festival Auckland

With some time to kill in Auckland before heading to Australia, I decided to check out the St. Jerome’s Laneway Festival held in the city center. I hadn’t seen any live shows since leaving the US a year ago, so the thought of over a dozen bands, some of which were old favorites (Blonde Redhead) […]