ABOUT ZEALANDING
New Zealand, told through the people who live it.
Zealanding is an independent editorial publication exploring New Zealand through its people, ideas, culture, society, food and places.
We are not trying to cover everything that happens or compete with large newsrooms for speed. We are interested in stories worth finding, perspectives worth hearing and conversations that help us understand the country a little better.
WHAT WE BELIEVE
Stories before noise.
Journalism, essays, interviews, photography, cultural criticism, travel writing, food stories and opinion can all belong in Zealanding when there is something worth saying behind them.
The goal is not to fill pages. It is to publish work worth reading, remembering and sharing.
This reflects the founding idea that Zealanding should discover stories often left outside the usual conversation rather than trying to reproduce everything already covered elsewhere.
ONE COUNTRY, TWO LANGUAGES
English / Español
Zealanding publishes in English and Spanish, but the two spaces are not intended to mirror each other.
Some stories may appear in both languages. Others will belong only to one side of the publication.
The English and Spanish editions should develop naturally according to the stories, contributors and audiences they attract.
The Spanish side can become a window into New Zealand for people across Latin America, Spain and the wider Spanish-speaking world, while also giving Spanish speakers already living in New Zealand a place within the broader national conversation.
WHAT WE COVER
Arts & Culture
Writers, artists, music, film, photography and the ideas shaping New Zealand culture.
Society
Politics, identity, migration, communities and the changes shaping everyday life.
Food
The people, kitchens, growers, producers and tables telling the story of how New Zealand eats.
Travel
Places worth travelling for — and the people and stories that make them worth knowing.
THE PEOPLE BEHIND ZEALANDING
Founded in New Zealand. Looking across it.
Cesar Carvajal
Co-Founder & Editor
Cesar Carvajal is a Colombian-born writer and editor based in Queenstown, Aotearoa New Zealand. Trained as a lawyer, his path has also taken him through kitchens, hospitality, migration and independent publishing, experiences that now shape the way he writes about people, place, identity and change.
He is the author of The Older Brother: A Memoir of Migration, Reinvention, and Freedom and the editor of Queenstowning, where he writes about local life, food, community and the questions shaping Queenstown.
As co-founder of Zealanding, he is interested in exploring New Zealand through lived experience: the people, places, contradictions and everyday details that reveal what a country feels like from the inside.
Santiago Bonhomme
Co-Founder & Writer / JOURNALIST
Santiago Bonhomme is a Chilean writer and journalist based in Aotearoa New Zealand. His work moves between poetry, essays, literary journalism and reporting, with a particular interest in people, places and the stories that reveal something about the ways we inhabit a country.
His work has appeared in a range of New Zealand publications, and his poetry has received several awards and recognitions.
As co-founder of Zealanding, he is interested in telling New Zealand through what often remains outside the usual narrative: the lives, ideas and places where a country ultimately reveals itself.
THE NEXT CHAPTER
Zealanding is still becoming.
The publication will grow through the stories we find, the people who contribute and the conversations that develop around them.