From Peru to Austria, the UK to Australia, Herald on Sunday editor Alanah Eriksen and a group of friends from Rotorua who now live around the world created a group chat at the beginning of the pandemic.
They shared memes, advice and ranted about everything from the mundane thing one of the kids did to the deadly disease upending their lives.
Over the two years, five of the seven got pregnant, family members died, jobs were lost and new relationships blossomed.
And one by one, they all got Covid-19 - but each experience couldn't be more different. Here are some of their stories.
Paracas, Peru
Restaurant owner Stephanie Haveman, 35, lives with her partner Iuri.
I've been living in Peru for 10 years now, but hands down, my time here during Covid has been the toughest. We heard about it on the news. China and Italy are so far away, we never imagined it was going to arrive. Next minute, without even one case in Peru we were totally in lockdown.
I had to immediately shut down my pizza restaurant I'd been running for 10 years, leaving 15 staff out of work.
I'd met my lovely Italian boyfriend Iuri a month earlier and we had to quickly decide whether to isolate together or face being apart for god knows how long.
A friend had gone back to Australia to quarantine with her family so Iuri and I and a couple of friends moved into her lovely big house inside a condominium, to do lockdown together.
Without a clue of what lockdown actually meant, we all grabbed our gear and went kitesurfing, only to find ourselves about an hour later arrested. Luckily in a fisherman village of 4000 people the police are quite relaxed and we were let go.
Over the next few months, things started getting scarier. Hospitals were full with apparently a donation of US$50,000 (NZ$78,000) needed if you wanted a bed in ICU.
I got Covid but was lucky enough not to have any symptoms. I'd decided to test as everyone in our condominium was getting it.
In a culture where saying hi is with a kiss, you now couldn't get closer than five metres without people freaking out.
What finally made me decide to vaccinate (a year after it became available) was seeing all the photos of the doctors who had died from Covid on the front of a beachfront building - it was daunting.
But in a third-world country things can't just stop, people need to work. If they don't, they die of hunger, so Covid started taking a back seat. Everyone knew someone who had had it by now and fear started to calm. The colectivos (small vans with nine seats that would fit 15) would fill up again with a sign at the stops saying "high contagious rate", and it started to feel like generally people just didn't care any more. I'd speak with friends back home still concerned about it and us in Peru were adapted to "normal life" with a face mask.
My restaurant was closed for three months. I lost about four staff members because they went back to Venezuala or to countries that supposedly weren't so strict, like Argentina.
Then I bought some of the staff back and we started doing deliveries and spent the rest of the time renovating, mainly so I could give them enough work to earn a living. I had almost no income during that time and I lost quite a bit of money but was happy to have been able to keep most of my staff and get a totally new restaurant out of it.
Luckily, I'd seen my family during a holiday in Japan just before the pandemic but I haven't seen them since.
At the beginning, we all thought the government was insane to put us in lockdown so fast. But in hindsight, it was probably the best decision. The medical system just could not have handled it any other way. Although many, many people passed away, Peru is coming back and handling the situation the best they can.
London, UK
Customer success manager Rachael Helsby, 35, lived in London for 16 years but has recently moved to Indianapolis with her fiance Joe and their 1-year-old baby Chester.
I feel like I experienced several lifetimes during the period of Covid.
A life of DIY, video calls and virtual drinking games, exploring places like Venice without the crowds, the loss of a job, the loss of a brother, the birth of my first child, an engagement and a three-night stay in hospital because my 8-week-old caught Covid.
All with the same running theme behind them - the lack of a hug from my mum and dad or an embrace from my siblings to celebrate the highs and comfort the lows.
When did the realisation of a global pandemic really hit me? I would say it was March 16, 2020. I was stood at Gatwick Airport ready to board a flight to Gdansk, Poland. Out of nowhere there was an announcement - Poland would be shutting its borders for land and air travel tomorrow at midnight. If we choose to board this plane, Wizzair would not guarantee our flight home in a few days' time. So we canned the trip.
More and more countries started shutting down, including the UK. We were given the order to work from home and eventually the country went into its first full lockdown.
It had been years since I'd remained in the UK for four weeks straight. In 2019 I took 47 flights. When the restrictions started easing in July, we purchased a convertible and headed out to Europe for a three-week road trip.
As the restrictions started coming back in, it was a race against the clock to get back into the UK before we were forced into home isolation.
Everything happens in threes and it was all fun and games really until three life-changing things happened all in the space of a few weeks in August 2020: losing my job, losing my brother and finding out I was pregnant. This is when it truly dawned on me that I couldn't come home, that I was locked out of my home country. It took 18 months before I could come home again.
We were forced to watch my brother's funeral via a live stream at 1am.
We were overjoyed when our baby boy Chester was born in June 2021, but I didn't have my supportive super mum, who had had five children of her own, by my side, guiding me through those first few chaotic weeks.
And then the three of us got Covid when Chester was 8 weeks and he ended up in hospital for three nights, with doctors worried about his rising temperatures.
When New Zealand announced for the second time it was opening its borders to citizens this year, I was onboard the first flight I could book, landing 49 hours and 55 minutes after the border opened. I brought my fiance, our 10-month-old and the many tears I had been waiting to shed.
Melbourne, Australia
Beauty therapist and new mum Helene Kuchler, 35, lives with her boyfriend Giuseppe Simone and their 2-month-old son Riccardo.
After nabbing one of the first MIQ-free flights back to New Zealand in July last year - escaping lockdown after lockdown in Melbourne - I was finally firmly back in my home country with my family who I hadn't seen for two years.
I quit my job as a beauty therapist (I'd barely been able to work over the past few months anyway because of the lockdowns) and planned to have a relaxing six-week holiday before returning to Oz and reuniting with my partner Giuseppe, who was going home to Italy to see his own family.
Five days later, I discovered I was pregnant. Days after that, New Zealand was plunged back into level 4 lockdown and borders closed. It would be three and a half months before I could get back to Australia.
It meant Giuseppe missed out on that precious first trimester and some of the second. We couldn't hug after the two lines showed up to reveal our little bundle was on his way, he missed out on the first scans and early midwife appointments and it was hard to start planning for the future. We'll never get that time back, I was so emotional.
And he got stuck in Italy, his return flight cancelled and MIQ-free travel back in Oz not an option. Luckily he was able to work remotely.
Not knowing how long I'd be stuck, I needed to try and find work in Rotorua. We were still paying bills back in Melbourne, I was running out of the holiday money I'd set aside and we suddenly had a new human to pay for.
I wasn't completely truthful with some interviews, knowing that I probably wouldn't get the job if I told them I was pregnant and actually lived in another country. But I needed to help my partner pay the bills. I eventually got some temporary work at a local salon and the lovely owner knew I was pregnant and was really understanding.
Borders finally opened and I booked the first available flight out of there.
Reuniting with Giuseppe, with our new passenger onboard, was everything. We cried at the airport and I already had a bump to show him.
And we waited until we got back to find out the sex of the baby so we could share in that together.
When I was six months' pregnant, I got Covid. Luckily I'd had two vaccinations by then, the doctors had told me it wouldn't affect the baby. But I was worried. Everything went through my mind - how is it going to affect my baby?
It started with a sore throat, then turned into flu-like symptoms - achey body, headache, tired. I lost my sense of smell - which took a month to return. And weirdly, my partner never got it.
But little Riccardo William Simone was born happy and healthy. He's just perfect and we are so happy and so in love.
We are now planning a trip to Italy to introduce him to his Italian family. We can't wait to explore the world with our little son and one day tell him about his entrance into the world.
Lofer, Austria
Teacher Cherie Millinger, 35, lives with her husband Marcus and their son Jake, 6. She is pregnant with their second child.
Most people here were like the rest of the world and didn't really think the virus was going to affect us, that it was Italy's problem because they had a bad healthcare system.
The border closure between Austria and Germany was the biggest wake-up call. This was something that hadn't happened since World War II, so people were in a bit of shock. As we live close to the border and my husband had to cross through Germany to get to work, he ended up having to take a detour of over two hours until working from home became a thing.
Being a self-employed English teacher in the first lockdown, I unfortunately lost all my work. I went about three months without any income and my husband's wage was reduced a little.
Tourism is pretty much all Lofer has got, but I think people really noticed it the second year, during winter. There were no international ski guests but locals made the most of the quiet slopes. Austria was one of the only European countries that kept their ski lifts running throughout the lockdowns. Skiing is way too important for them and no pandemic was going to take that away.
In the early stages, if you wanted to go to different parts of Austria, you would have to carry a negative test result with you as military were controlling regional borders.
It was required to show a negative test to get into most places: restaurants, cinemas, hairdressers, gyms etc. As time went on, many seemed to disregard the rules as they felt Austria was too strict compared with many other European countries.
It took a very long time to get vaccination rates up, which meant the government ended up having to implement mandatory vaccination but some were more willing to pay the fine of €3600 (NZ$6000) for being unvaccinated. And many businesses didn't bother checking people's vaccine passes.
Covid finally got our family very late in the pandemic - in March, two weeks before we were due to fly back to New Zealand for the first time in four years. What are the chances?
At the beginning, I was a bit stressed because it meant I had to cancel some appointments and things I wanted to get done before our big trip. But once my Covid kicked in, I ended up feeling so bad and all I wanted to do was rest. After three days my husband and son felt fine again. But with me being in the early stage of pregnancy it seemed to affect me heavily. My nausea doubled, I had bad headaches and felt extremely weak for at least 10 days. But I never once felt worried about the pregnancy, as I had been reassured by my doctor that so many of his pregnant patients had had Covid and all been fine.
Words can't really describe how amazing it felt as the plane touched down on NZ soil. Walking through arrivals at Auckland Airport I had tears in my eyes. There were times throughout the pandemic where it felt as though I may never return to NZ and it broke my heart as my son is growing up so fast and missing out on getting to know Kiwi friends and family.
Cambridge, New Zealand
Insurance adviser Shannon Felton, 35, lives with her husband Tristan and their daughters Estelle, 11, Ivy, 6, and Kennedy, nine months.
In the early days of Covid it was quite strange in Cambridge because we were in lockdown but there were no cases. Now, most people you talk to have had it.
My mum and stepdad were shouting us a trip to Rarotonga in May after years of being grounded so we were pretty keen to avoid getting it.
We had thought we'd get it when Estelle picked it up about three weeks prior to flying out. We thought it was best we get it with her so we would all be fine to travel.
We didn't change anything, in fact Ivy slept in Estelle's bed for three nights but still didn't get it. And somehow the rest of us avoided it at that point.
In the week leading up to the trip we only did things we had to. I missed a close friend's baby shower because it was only three days out from testing.
That's what life seems to be like at the moment, we've lost the ability to look forward to things. We are forced to prioritise events in our life we deem more important than others and avoid loved ones so we can get to those single events.
Knowing we had to test on the Monday prior to going, Ivy woke up unwell so being paranoid I tested her and sure enough she was positive. We knew at that point we would have to make a new travel plan given there was no way she was going to test negative in two days or that we would not get it by then ourselves. The rest of us got it soon after.
Estelle still got to go to Raro with her grandparents and we got to two weeks later, with a bit of extra money forked out for new accommodation.
We were lucky not to have struggled like so many other families. We do have someone who is immune-compromised in our wider family so it has taught us that it needs to be taken seriously and my children are aware they need to do the right thing by others who may need that extra step of protection against Covid.
Our baby Kennedy won't remember any of this and I hope she doesn't grow up with people wearing masks and accept it as the norm because you lose so much of people's facial expressions. Hopefully we will be able to just tell her that there was a time where we had to wear masks everywhere to protect ourselves and others.
