Accompanied or unaccompanied?
We are thinking of doing New Zealand in a rented motorhome.
Has anyone done either of the trips where either
a) a route is planned for you and you go off on your own or
b) a guide goes with you and several others?
Good or bad reviews please?
Comments
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Well, it's a personality thing, isn't it. Do you feel you want company, do you feel you want someone to hold your hand and show you the way, or are you an independent old cuss like me? I even rejected the Motorhome idea, hired a car, and found my own accommodation. Great country and great people over there. Have a good trip.
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You might get some ideas from the CT story section, here's one NZ trip which might be of help.
Travels on a very tight budget.
This is by Tabby and one of her travel photos is at the top of the latest activity page.
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I was getting really confused wondering why my reply had vanished...…then realised I had just replied to identical post on C&CC
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Not done it in a MH, we hired a car and stayed in the many very good 'homestays' / B&Bs there. But as far as driving is concerned it's a lot less stressful than driving on the Continent. Think rural UK for the most part. They even have belisha beacons !
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I suppose there are a couple of ways to look at it. If you have a guide they will know of all the places that you might want to visit. The downside will be the extra cost and sometimes escorted tours, depending on the amount of freedom to do your own thing, can be exhausting.
If you don't mind doing your own research you could come up with a tour that suits you in both terms of what you see and how much time you spend seeing it.
David
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We've also thought about this - though not got very far yet for various reasons.
Our plan was to study tour brochures for the big companies to see what common ground there was as far as highlight attractions were concerned and then put a trip together ourselves. Because everything appears to be so familiar with home conditions, I think we'd want to do this one independently.
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My sister has been to NZ a couple of times, one trip was for work, the other visit she and her husband did a guided walking holiday with some independent time included (to visit family.) I think a visit depends on how much time you have, if you want to see the sights in a limited time something guided might be better.
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For what you get motorhome hire is a relatively expensive way of doing it, you have to particularily want to tour in a motorhome. We spent a month on an escorted tour, top class hotels, breakfasts and many other meals included and a Singapore stopover.
Appreciate above may not be what you are looking for but worth having a browse, you will soon see the route around is fairly standard for all tour companies and will help plan yours I would suggest. New Zealand is a really nice place to visit with plenty for the tourist. The South Island particularily on the west coast and further south you go is very quiet but also the most scenic.
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I don't know if this will help as it doesn't fit in with either of the ideas about which you enquired.
In October 2016 we spent 32 nights in an Apollo hi-top camper touring both North and South Islands. The van was 3 years old and was small without a loo but it suited us and meant that it was a more affordable way of touring.
To hire the van cost about what it would have been to hire a one year old medium sized car. All sites on which we stayed had camp kitchens, most of which were of a fine standard. All sites apart from the two motorcamps on which we stayed had good sanitary blocks.
It is possible to hire a small van with on board loo which would give you the option to stay on the free campgrounds. (To use them the van must be labelled as "self-contained".)
As a caravanner you may find the small camper vans to be too small. Larger panel vans and coach built vans are much more expensive.
We enjoy travelling independently. Before leaving home we identified some "must see" places and sights and also some that we would like to see if possible. Apart from a guide book we bought a very good road atlas. Touring was very easy.
The only campsite we booked before leaving home was the first one as we wished to definitely have somewhere not too far from Auckland following an afternoon arrival. As it was, we needn't have booked as there were numerous pitches (or sites as Kiwis call them).
On our last night on North Island we asked the campsite manager if he could book us on a site in Picton (South Island ferry port) as it was the beginning of a "Long Weekend" (Public Holiday). He did although the site was less busy than we thought it would be.
Not having booked anywhere else meant that we could be flexible if we wanted to stay somewhere slightly longer or change the order in which we visited places. Hire companies provide a booklet for a chain of campsites. Those sites were generally of a very good standard. We also had information about other campsites in various magazines which we obtained at Tourist Information offices.
All in all it was an easy, very enjoyable and stress free experience . We had no problem in visiting all our "must see" sights and took in almost all of the others we thought of as "possibles" whilst also discovering and visiting some of which we had previously not known.
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We went in 2012. Picked up car at Christchurch airport toured a bit. Swapped car for camper in queens town then toured ending back at Auckland airport. Fantastic country and people. Very good campsites too. Our camper was long wheel base transit van perfectly adequate. At the time we were caravaners but this experience led us to switch to motor home.
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We hired a car and did hotels for two weeks which we pre-booked when we discovered that South Island would be full of Chinese in January as it is their New Year. Motorhomes are extremely popular and excellent facilities - parking near towns etc. Not particularly cheap though (at least as much as hotels we thought). We looked at some sites and weren’t particularly impressed but there are some good ones I hear. Nothing like Club standard though.
There are various places where you can just roll up and park in a woodland clearing for example and you buy a ticket from the machine but be aware that the facilities can be appalling so you will have to rely on your own water and wc and still pay as much as some UK CLs.
Stunning scenery but watch out for the aforementioned foreigners who are truly terrible drivers.
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As I stated in my post, it is possible with a self-contained campervan/motorhome to stay in some free camping spots. We saw some which were very pleasant.
(I'm not sure where "hitchglitch" got his "information".)
Also his last comment is a huge generalisation and very scathing. Is he saying that all Chinese are "truly terrible drivers"?
Moderators - Is his last comment classed as being racist?
In NZ he also would be a "foreigner"
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Bazzeruk, We toured NZ a few years ago on our own. I booked on Hotel in Aukland on our 1st night so we had somewhere to lay our head and thereafter at about midday would use our map and work out where we would be at about 5 pm and then booked up a "Quality Hotel" from our QH chain booklet. THE QH's operate a bit like the Premier's here but are better! We never had a bad Hotel and always ate well. They are not expensive,
We toured both North Island and South Island and had a fantastic time. For us South Island was much the better although both were good. The only place we would not return to was Rotorua which was over full with Japanese tourists and smelled awful. (Not the Japanese)
South Island was spectacular every where we went. Only trouble was that we tried to do too much in too short a time. 3 Weeks not enough!
TF
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Haven't done NZ, but have done Australia. We looked at escorted trips and decided that the escorted trips would be too tiring. So we bought a good travel book, asked questions on Trip Advisor, used google map, hired a motorhome and toured from Adelaide to Sidney.
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