Peterson Family

Why?

We are a young family of four – very typical kiwi family – Dad (Ryan) and Mum (Elona) and two kids – As of 2020 Zoe 8 and Jacob 7.

We love living in New Zealand, we at times have thought about moving to other places in the World (pre-COVID-19)  only to find that if we had to choose a place to live it would be right here, where we live – just North of Auckland on the coast.  We love to explore new Places – our honeymoon saw us traps from the bottom of the South Island back to Auckland in a Camper, and we would happily repeat the trip every year.

When our daughter came along it was interesting how traveling took a new spin and we became more aware of K-mart  – oops sorry – we become more aware of playgrounds, skateparks, public toilets, park benches, rubbish bins (yeap in Auckland some playgrounds don’t have a bin), shelter at beaches, parking.. the list goes on but you get the picture – you definitely appreciate all these facilities a whole lot more when you have a family.

Our Media work took us traveling around the country, and with toddlers in tow we found ourselves searching the net more and more for places to stop, and constantly coming to a dead end – we wanted to know details about the Place, what facilities would be there, what was the view like, was it maintained – we wanted the detail, was it suitable for the kids, is it worth stopping.. etc etc.  Google is great but non-specific, street view was one thing, but that doesn’t get you off the track and believe it or not, Google doesn’t know everything!!  I know, hard to believe right!!  We found ourselves wanting a one-stop resource that showed us a bit more about the place before we got there – whether it was a playground, skateparks, a park, or a beach.

NZ has so much to offer and we quickly realized the task at hand, and that there would never be an end, so we thought we would add some more functions, as of course, a project is never complete without some of those ‘wouldn’t it be cool to include’ features – so the Site is now growing to include activities and articles on what to do when you get to these places, it supports full high-resolution photos and videos, and manages them for you, and others to use.

We had both been working in the software/design and media space for some time - a few phone calls were made one in particular to (Richardson) and we started developing the initial site - this was just a hobby project initially, as we all had our 'day jobs'.

It’s now the end of 2020, 6 years on, and it's clear you want more so it's now time to finish the mission we started. We have had a lot of fun getting out there around New Zealand, and have a lot more to sill have, we want others to experience the same. So we're encouraging everyone to follow this mission and have your own adventures and share them along the way contribute your photos and videos and give them a purpose for others to see, learn, and use, as you go around all these places in New Zealand.

Part of the Place's story is to timestamp places visually, with dedicated support and purpose for shooting and collecting media. I’ve personally shot a few hundred thousand photos and I wanted to give them all-purpose, not just the great ones. Here at Places, every photo has some value to someone else, and if not it has value to me.  And that’s something.  So, feel free to contribute any photo, good or bad, as we believe a bad visual reference is better than no reference at all.

We are currently working hard to make a fun place for you to profile yourself, and your skills as part of this mission, also as mentioned it is our mission to show New Zealanders, not just the hot spots, but EVERY SINGLE Place in each topic we cover, and with detail. Yip that's it. Simple right! if only... check out our mission page to read more about where we are going and how you can be involved.

Enjoy. Have fun, and be safe.

The Peterson Family

Ryan, Elona, Jacob, Zoe.

Location

26 Vivian Bay, Kawau Island, Hauraki Gulf Islands

Directions

Gallery