ABSTRACT
Every year, for over six decades, thousands of young New Zealanders have departed on the travel and working holiday experience popularly known as the Overseas Experience (“OE”). The “classic OE” is a two-three year experience during which proponents live and work in the United Kingdom and travel extensively (Wilson, 2006). The OE began as a response to New Zealand’s geographical and cultural isolation and developed into a travel phenomenon in its own right-so that “doing an OE” became the goal (Wilson, 2014). A noteworthy characteristic of the OE’s early decades was a disproportionate number of female travelers taking this “opportunity to escape.” The development of the OE and the establishment of a “travel template”—followed by thousands of other New Zealanders over subsequent decades-can be described through these women’s travel experiences.
