Tips and Tricks for New Zealand (As of 2011)

North Island:

Getting There – Well, unless you’re taking the ferry from the South Island you’ve pretty much got one option and that’s to fly…I guess unless you can swim really, REALLY far!
Jetstar has some good deals from Asia if you book early enough.

Staying – For us renting a campervan was the only way to go instead of having to take the tourist bus and stay in hostels, trailer parks, and B&B’s. We decided on ExploreMore and got a van with a kitchen, fold down bed and fridge, and the one thing we were the happiest about honestly, the raised up roof so we could actually STAND inside of the van. Especially this time of year when it’s rainy and nasty outside, the last thing we wanted to do was be standing outside in the back of the van with the rear hatch popped up in order to cook.

Make sure to check out the DOC sites, most are out of the way but are quiet, clean and best of all they cost between $6-$12.

Eating – We really can’t say much about restaurants here since we couldn’t afford to eat out. For us, all we would do was cook every day for every meal. By the way, the instant soups were back in full effect!

Getting Around – Our own! Prices are obviously going to vary depending on when you’re here and what model you get, but we were really glad we had our own wheels! Just plan to spend a fortune on petrol!

South Island:

Information – There is no need to buy a guide book. Pick up free maps and brochures from any i-site location. You will get an overview of the highlights of each area as well. As usual we did NO research before arriving and managed just fine. You may need to pick up a small atlas though, it was worth its weight in gold. You can also find the best tourist attractions by following the brown signs along the road. They normally point you to something neat.

Staying – You have a few options, DOC site which are cheap and basic cost is normally $6-$12, motor parks which have facilities run from $20-$50. We stayed at DOC sites 3-4 nights in a row before needing a proper shower and laundry. That helped us save a significant amount of money. In total we spent close to $250 USD on campsites.

Eating – We didn’t eat out once while in NZ, Jessie cooked all our meals. Minus the cost of wine we spent about $450 USD on food. Keep in mind, we didn’t eat pasta all at (more rice and curry). We tried to eat as healthy as possible and we ate vegetarian. Meat was soooo expensive!

Getting Around – Our camper ran us around $60 per day. Petrol killed us, we spent around $1400 USD on gas alone. Our van was manual but we drove 3000 miles or (4600 Km).