I still have them somewhere - a collection of t-shirts from places I've been. Barcelona. Amsterdam. Dublin. Istanbul. Santorini. A few from Japan, a couple from London. I was never after the generic tourist tee - the garish print, the clip art landmark. I wanted something with a bit more subtlety. Something that captured the feeling of a place rather than just slapping its name on a chest. The kind of thing you'd find at a market or an independent shop down a side street, that felt local rather than manufactured for tourists.
And when I couldn't find the right tee, I found something else - a small piece of artwork from a local artist, inexpensive but specific, that summed up exactly how that place made me feel. Not a postcard. Not a snow globe. Something that had a bit of soul to it. If all else failed, an espresso cup. The compulsion to bring something home was real.
But I loved every single one of those things.
Because when you hold something from a place that mattered to you, something happens. You're back there for a second. The light, the smell, the feeling of being somewhere new and a little bit lost and completely alive. A t-shirt is a weird little time machine - small enough to fit in your backpack, cheap enough to buy on a whim, and somehow more powerful than a photo album.
I just didn't know I was going to spend a chunk of my life making them.
I grew up the way a lot of New Zealand kids did - summer holidays at the beach, sleeping in a big canvas tent at a campground, sand in everything, no complaints. Those beaches weren't Instagram destinations back then. They were just where you went.
My dad is a surfer, so our holidays were never really planned in the traditional sense - they were dictated by the swell. Raglan. Gisborne. Taranaki. Matapouri. We went where the waves were meant to be good that season. The same beaches, year after year - until they stopped being just places and started being our places. The ones you return to. The ones that get into you.
That feeling - the specific joy of a place that becomes yours through repetition and love - got into me early. I didn't have a word for it then. Now I call it a happy place.
In my twenties I left. Properly left.
First to Japan, where I taught English, paid off my student loan and lived a pretty crazy life. By day I 
worked several jobs - my main job didn't start til 3pm and often finished at 10pm so I filled in gaps with university tutoring and anything else I could find. A bunch of us ran a dance event company called Mangafrog that we bought off some departing foreigners. This found us once a month or so partying all Saturday night long where I'd get a couple of hours sleep before heading to work Sunday morning. Spare weekends, we traveled around Japan and South East Asia. Worked hard, partied hard, travelled hard - and went home with no student loan and enough money for a house deposit and a bit set aside to get to Europe.
Japan has its own version of the souvenir t-shirt - Hello Kitty keitai straps. Phone charms. And here's the thing: every place in Japan has its own specialty one. So naturally, I collected them. Same instinct, different form - one for every place I went.
So with no student loan I headed to London for nothing but adventure. Picked up a great job in an office and all the money I earned went directly into socialising and traveling. London has one of the best Kiwi expat communities in the world - we'd meet up to watch 8am rugby games, drink expired Speights, and make it to every NZ comedy act or concert we could find. I lived across the road from the Hammersmith Apollo which helped. Traveling was the main goal and I went to so many places - Turkey, Greece, France, Germany, Spain, Egypt, Jordan... I also met my husband there, which was not part of the plan but turned out to be a great thing.
Europe was where I collected most of my tees - Dublin, Barcelona, Amsterdam. When I couldn't find the right one I found art instead, and if all else failed, an espresso cup. The art is still on our walls. The cups are still used and on display.
And through all of it, I held onto my New Zealand tees - the ones I'd been given as leaving gifts from home. Worn in and soft, they felt like something. Like proof of where I was from. When you're far away, wearing a piece of home feels different. It matters more than you'd expect. That feeling of connection - of wearing something that says this is where I'm from, this is where I've been - never left me. It's a big part of why Our Happy Place exists.
When I came back to New Zealand I eventually found my way to Bethells Beach, on Auckland's wild west coast. It's where I live now with my husband and 4 children, and it still surprises me with its dramatic beauty.
I was always the photographer - I just didn't know it was a job yet. Every trip, every holiday, I was the one with the camera. Friends never bothered taking photos because they knew I had it covered. After having kids I needed to reinvent myself, and photography was the most obvious answer in the world. Thirteen years in, still loving it, and lucky enough to have my work recognised at the NZIPP IRIS Awards, including a Silver with Distinction.
These days we focus on travelling NZ - visiting friends and family dotted around the country and making memories here. When the kids grow up and travel the world, they'll already know how awesome home is. We often base ourselves at Kūaotunu on the Coromandel, where we have a 1979 caravan parked up permanently. We still travel the country though - last summer we did a big South Island road trip, and it reminded me all over again why I do what I do.
It's the tee I wanted when I was travelling - not the crappy tourist ones with "New Zealand" splashed across them, but something with a more subtle Kiwi flavour. The kind that NZers would recognise and everyone else would just think looked cool. That's what Our Happy Place is. A tee for the tourist who wants something real, and the local who wants to wear their favourite place without it feeling like a souvenir shop.
It's for the person who wants to wear their favourite beach, not just visit it. For the Kiwi living overseas who wants something that says home without being a fridge magnet. For the family whose happy place is a specific campground on a specific coast, and who wants to carry that with them.
Every location in the collection is somewhere I've personally been and photographed. That's not a policy, it's just how it works. I won't put my name - or my photography - on a place I don't know. Each design uses my own images, embedded into the lettering. Original. Specific. Real.
And here's the thing I want people to understand: you're allowed more than one happy place. In fact, the whole point is that you'll probably have several. The beach from your childhood. The mountain you ski every year. The town where your family gathers. The place you went on your honeymoon. They all count. That's why we keep adding new locations - because someone's happy place is always somewhere we haven't made yet.
When I was young and collecting t-shirts from everywhere I went, I was doing something I couldn't quite explain. I was making a wearable map of my life - of the places that shaped me, the trips that changed me, the moments I wanted to keep.
Our Happy Place is the New Zealand version of that map.
Made here. Printed here. Designed from photographs I took, in places I've stood, that meant something to me.
I hope you find your happy place in the collection. And if it's not there yet - tell me. We'll go find it.
