Anyone travelled Around Nz in a camper?

[ladybirdm]

Hello, wondered if anyone can advise?

I’m looking for advice in style of campervan for 4, or company they recommend. Leaving from Queenstown...

Any other advice about camping around Nz would be very welcome 😁

Clare :)

Britz. Be prepared to be flexible to follow the weather, especially around Taupo and Taranaki. Rotorua is nice when it is raining (most of the time). Check out camping spots near hot springs.

We did this, but 7 years ago now (still my favourite trip/place ever though!). Went from Auckland to Queenstown in 3 weeks.

What time of year are you going? Can make a massive difference in terms of hours of daylight for driving and for road conditions. May also influence whether you want heating/AC in the vehicle.

Do you want to wild camp at any point or are you happy to stay in holiday parks? Will guide you as to what facilities you need in the vehicle.

Are you thinking of doing both islands? As a one way trip or a round trip - will need to think about when and where you are going to return the vehicle.

We used Discover NZ for our vehicle rental (a 2 berth, converted Mercedes sprinter). They were really friendly and easy to deal with, and happy to help if we had any issues during our trip.

General advice would be don’t try to fit too much into each day - there’s so much to see and do that it’s useful to have some flexibility. Likewise plan as many 2+ night stays in your itinerary as you can, as it gets tiring moving around all the time (but at least you don’t have the hassle of packing/unpacking).

Once you’re there, the iSites (tourist info centres) are fabulous for finding and booking places to stay/activities to do. But I would recommend at least having your first couple of nights booked so you don’t need to worry about finding somewhere. We then usually booked the next place whilst at each location so we knew where we heading.

Hope that helps. Happy to help with any further questions.

no - saw plenty who did trying miserably to get into full hostels! it is now nearly mid summer in NZ and it has been pissing it down. That's what can happen.

NZ 'backpackers' are excellent as long as you avoid the big ones with bars (if the Kiwi experience go there, go somewhere else). You get double rooms, full kitchens and socialising assuming people can put down their phones.

Also theft from vehicles is a big NZ issue which makes a van a constant worry. Hire a car instead.

i-sites are good for paid activites, you want Department of Conservation (DoC) visitor centres for walks which is what it is all about. Plus a rough guide not a lonely planet.

'freedom' campers are restricted due to the mess left by the gap year brigade.

and yes, don't spend all your time driving. Assume max 60km/h when route planning.

Yes - we went with wilderness campervans who I would recommend. Great customer service and really took time to show us our van thoroughly which apparently not all companies do.

We did Christchurch down to QT and back up in under a week and it did feel rushed. The driving is easy though, I just wished we could have had longer in each place. I think regarding the weather, in such a big van it really isn’t an issue - we camped in snow in Queenstown and felt toasty inside with the heater on!

Camping didn’t work out as cheap as we expected - even DOC (dept of conservation) sites weren’t super cheap. Don’t think we did any freedom camping as I had small kids and wanted to know where we were heading each day. If you can be flexible and keep driving if your expected stop is full that is not such an issue though.

Despite these things, I still loved it and it was fab with the kids to have all their things to hand and not be constantly unpacking and packing again for hostels/hotels.

Thank you so much for this info. It’s really helpful. Things I’d not thought of.

Has anyone got an itinerary. Going for 20 days and both islands x

@ladybirdm I had an entire spreadsheet I put together for our trip!!

Here’s a screenshot of our actual itinerary including the various activities we did each day.

Note: our flight out left the UK on 16th and arrived in NZ on 18th, so the 19th was our first full day.

Oh My, this is amazing. Thank you! :D We’re coming from Queenstown up... did you just do loads and loads of research? Did you stick to the plan?

Xxx

Also noticed you didn’t go to kaikoura? I’m think of missing there too... why didn’t you go? Xx

The itinerary I posted before is what we actually did. There were some small variations from my planning but my approach was always to do lots and lots of research so we could then make informed decisions as we went along. It meant we didn’t miss anything that we thought of as a must do (e.g. hot water beach, hobbiton, geothermals, kayaking, glaciers) but still had flexibility over when and where we were headed each day.

Attached is my planned itinerary in case it helps to compare. There were also about four other versions but this is the one I came up with that included the must see things for me and my DH and didn’t involve ridiculous amounts of driving.

We were forced into some variations just due to weather conditions etc. so Tongariro national park was closed due to recent volcanic eruptions, and no tours were running to Milford Sound because the road was dangerous.

We missed out Kaikoura simply because I couldn’t find a way to fit it into our trip and still get to do everything else we wanted as well. I’ve promised myself I’ll go back again so hope to do it then (and the rest of the South Island we didn’t see. And Napier. And the Bay of Islands... might need more than one trip!).

I would definitely recommend doing plenty of research so you can figure out what are the bits you definitely want to include then build a plan based on that. As well as the usual guidebooks, I found the TripAdvisor travel forum for NZ was invaluable for advice. You can also see plenty of other people’s proposed itineraries and the feedback on how feasible they are.

Thank you so much for spending the time to give me all this information. The Trip advisor travel forum is a revelation. Thank you so much :) xxx

Download the Campermate app - it has all the campsites on it with details of what's there (toilets/shower/power point) and also reviews - people say if they felt safe or not, etc! You can also book a space in the campsites on the app if I recall correctly :)