Hey nostr:npub1wmr34t36fy03m8hvgl96zl3znndyzyaqhwmwdtshwmtkg03fetaqhjg240 I‘d like to visit New Zealand around Christmas with my family for 6 week. Where to stay? How to travel? Could you hook me up to someone?
Discussion
The best way to explore Aotearoa New Zealand is via campervan, or in your case with an RV if you’ve got kids along. 6 weeks is enough to see a lot of the country. Usually folks go from auckland and head south or Christchurch/Queenstown and go north. Rentals are sometimes cheaper if you start south and end in Auckland. Be sure to go south of Queenstown and north of Auckland too.
Hotels and restaurants are expensive here plus you need a vehicle to get to most places, and with a few exceptions you can sleep in your vehicle anywhere or at free / nearly free in city centres.
Also the hiking trails are amazing. There are 1000 government run huts along the trails where you can stay. They’re great, but you need to make reservations in advance for the great walks, which are worth it. There are also great cycle routes, you can usually rent bikes and get pickup/drop off. They’re worth doing, especially the lake dunston trail.
Thank you very much! Our idea was to stay a week at the beach somewhere and then travel around.
Flight prices seem best if we go from and to the same destination (either Auckland or Christchurch).
I‘m undecided whether the southern beaches are „bathable“.
I think about searching a house here: https://www.holidayhouses.co.nz/
RVs seem quite expensive. What‘s a reasonable price? How to find a good deal? Do you know a platform?
The hikes you mention are probably too long for my 6 and 3.5 year old. But I know that you‘ve got a lot of very small beautiful ones, like in the Kauri forests, or in the Abel Tasman national park.
Something I toyed with was traveling the southern west coast, but people discouraged it because of bad weather and missing infrastructure. How bad is it really?
When I came here initially in 2005, I rented a Britz camper van and focused really hard on staying on the left side of the road (which was easier than I imagined it would be, and totally natural in no time at all). Then I drove up into Northland, turned around somewhere and went all the way to Southland, and then back to Auckland where I bought a Subaru and made my way back to Wellington to find a place to live. Quite the adventure. Based on that research, I thought the best place to live was a horticulture lot in Blenheim (maybe a winery, maybe fruit trees), but things didn't turn out that way.
Then the next year my family came down and we drove all over New Zealand again in my subaru.
I came to give a talk in Wellington in 2016 and did a loop of the south island in a Jucy camper van, then came back a year later to do some similar exploring of the north island. It took a few more years to move.
My buddy came down in December from Canada planning on staying a few weeks and going mountain biking. He keeps renewing his visa and is still here.
After spending some time exploring the country it’s pretty common to ask yourself “should I move here?”
I first came in 2003 for a Contiki thing. Fell in love with the place.
