The refuge is large amounts of at least moderately inhabitable land, with minimal militia or violence threat. I used to like NZ as well, but I'm favoring Canada these days, it has an obscenely immense amount of territory to disappear into. Chile, Peru and Argentina are also interesting; while they vary in terms of being basket cases, there's a lot of land, they're far away from all the super powers, are unlikely to get directly nuked, and are not land locked.