[wired8]

NZ lite... more like the inverse. Vancouver and specifically BC has a lot of similarities to NZ yes, including the frequent liquid sunshine.

Having spent approx half my working life in (Wellington/Vancouver) I'd say Vancouver would be a more natural fit for our US cousins.

However that said you can't beat NZ for internal travel, day trips, adventure tourism. Its basically a compact version of British Columbia.

[Taniwha]

Remember than NZ is a long thin country that spans very roughly the same distance north-south as the US West Coast (it's just that you grew up with those maps where the Northern Hemisphere is twice the size of the Southern).

It also spans roughly the same range of climates - Dunedin where I live is Seattle/VancouverBC sort of climate (and the southern West Coast is very Olympic Peninsular subtropical rain forest). On the other hand Auckland/Northland is Californiaish but with more tropical moisture because we're an island and not a continent