Camper van hire in New Zealand
Hi,we are heading to New Zealand for the first time around February 2018 and would welcome any tips / suggestions from anyone with experience of the country.At first glance it looks very expensive to hire Moho/camper vans there but I guess the pound has taken a big hit in the last year.Car hire looks very reasonable so any tips for budget hotels without resorting to backpacking would be appreciated.Thanks.
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I am afraid I am out of touch with current prices, but even five years ago Motorhome hire was expensive - and then adding in campsite charges and poor fuel consumption made things even worse.
We opted for a hire car and staying in motels rather than budget hotels - because motels always had a kitchenette to allow us to cut costs by doing some of our own meals. We were outside the peak Christmas/New Year holidays so didn't need to book anything in advance. We just thumbed through Lonely Planet and the Footprint guides and relied on recommendations from there. It wasn't slumming it at all - quality was always high - and much more comfortable and roomy than living in a hired campervan.
But as I said, I don't know whether that is still an economical way of doing things.
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Its about 11 years since we went so can't comment on costs but we had 4 weeks so had car hire on north island and motorhome on south (which is why we came home and bought one!). The motels were very good as eurotravellers says with kitchenettes. Campsites were also very good with camp kitchens.
we flew into auckland and the airline had a deal on so we could then fly from wellington to christchurch. We were able to pick up the motorhome there and eventually fly home from there via auckland.
fabulous place, we were filling up at a tiny petrol station in an out of the way place and chatting to the girl on the pump. It turned out that she came from a small village near us. Small world.
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We were in South Island for two weeks in February. Many swear by Motorhome but we decided to do hotels. The country is certainly well set up for Motorhomes but some of the sites we saw were poor quality and expensive plus the hire costs are very high as you say.
Car hire is reasonable and I suggest you look at AirBnB for overnight accommodation. We stayed at some great places but some hotels we paid £200 per night just for Novotel standard.
If you can avoid Chinese New Year (which we didn't!) it would be good. Apart from the shear numbers they have poor driving skills and their customs are somewhat different (trying to avoid being critical here).
For route planning, go onto Trip Adviser. They have NZ experts in their forums who were extremely helpful to me for driving times etc.
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Hello connie2.
We hired a motorhome in Feb of this year and travelled around both islands. We hired our van from this company https://www.newzealandcampervanhire.co.nz
a family run business. We found them to be very fair, friendly and helpful. I would be happy to rent from them again. I'm sure the club used to promote a discount with one of the bigger NZ rental companies but I can't find the link presently.
Some hopefully useful tips:
I joined the New Zealand Motor Caravan Association under a reciprocal agreement with this club. The savings out weighed the joining fee especially when using the Bluebridge Ferry.
Freedom camping, their equivalent of wild camping is very easy to do.
We found it cheaper to go in February as Xmas time can be very expensive.
If you have a smartphone install campermate or NZCMA equivalent. Extremely useful for locating sites, fuel stations etc.
This site
can save you a lot of money if you enjoying doing tours and sightseeing.
Bye far the best holiday we have ever done and so glad we did it in a motorhome. The roads are a pleasure to drive on
Sorry for the lost post.
Mikebs
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Connie
The other half and myself hired a motorhome from a firm near Auckland airport 3 years ago. All went well. One good bit of advice I can offer is that if you tour South Island (Cross by ferry from Wellington), make sure that you keep an eye on the fuel gauge as the garages are few and far between on South Island - sometimes a hundred miles or so apart so fill up when you can!
Have a great time, it's a beautiful country, especially South Island.
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We were there in March of this year and hired a 4.8 m campervan from Cruzy Campers which was very reasonably priced. They are a small company with old vans and very helpful with a very good rating from reviews. (It's good to do a comparison of ratings and look at reviews before booking) We appreciated the flexibility of not having to book in advance and so decide on the day where we would head for. As weather varies so much from one part of the country to another it also meant we didn't have to put up with rain for too long. We used the Rankers app for finding campsites ( the reviews were very enlightening). We also joined Countdown whilst over there as gave us a discount on fuel and shopping.
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Connie, there is now a thread called "New Zealand" running in the "Overseas Sites and Touring" section asking about hiring a van in NZ.. You may like to look at it. I have posted there about our experience last year with Apollo and also mentioned Jucy Lucy.
"eurotraveller" - sorry for quoting you. I meant to quote Connie's opening post to draw her attention to the new thread but inadvertently clicked on your comment!
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Thanks Dalet21 and dunelm for your responses.
We have decided to forget the Moho and hire a car instead and have booked accommodation through Booking.com,working out pretty good at an average of £50 a night and car hire is a real steal at £550 for 4 weeks.
We will check out the New Zealand thread as well but pretty much got our route planned.We like the idea of the kitchenettes in some of the motels so we won't have to eat out all the time.
We are going to Perth OZ for a wedding after NZ so may hire a Moho there for a week or 2,it's certainly cheaper than NZ prices.Thanks all.
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