New Zealand - travel company or go it alone?

[Rainbowhermit]

I am planning to take my penguin-obsessed autistic daughter (adult) to the South Island next march. Thinking of flying into Christchurch and driving from there. Not sure whether to go with a travel company to hire a car, book accommodation and tours etc or to book flights etc ourselves. Any suggestions/advice?

Definitely travel agent. It’s a lot of money and it’s reassuring to have someone organise it for you. They can also get much better deals and organise the smaller details for you. I select the flights I want when travelling to Aus and an agent can normally get the same flights for £300 less and a lot cheaper car hire.

Go via Melbourne and go to Philip island. The penguin parade is awesome.

NZ penguins come in two types: the little blue which are little and blue and come out only at dusk so however organised the experience you can't see them. What you want are the yellow ones which are larger and yellow and keep more sociable hours.

you will NOT get close up.

Dunedin is the place, as are the Catlins. Most travel agents will not know about these. They may be able to get you cheaper flights and car hire. Do NOT drive for two days after a long haul, the road death rate in NZ is bad enough without tired tourists adding to it.

tours don't normally do stuff you can't do alone, just charge more and make you do it in a big noisy crowd. Get a rough guide from the library and go from there.

Why not price up both your own tour and that if a travel agent, then you’ll know if you want to use the agent

I would think gets some advice from here, check out tours online for ideas. Cost out the buts yourself

It’s pretty easy to book accommodation now and hire cars, enjoy the planning