Motorhome in New Zealand
My wife and I are thinking about visiting NZ for a motorhome holiday. Does anybody have any experiences they wish to share? Has anybody used the CAMC organised tour?
Many thanks, Paul
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Hello and welcome 😁.
Our daughter lives in NZ and we are frequent visitors! We've done all sorts including motorhoming. Motorhome hire is costly these days, and depending on your requirement for comfort you can start with a sleeping car, exactly that no loo on board right through to every comfort. Campsites have camp kitchens and BBQ generally as standard as well as picnic tables. They can also provide cabin type stays for a night or more - these don't generally provide sheets and pillows but can be purchased in arrival in NZ Of course there are also homestays, farmstays, B&B and hotels and you can hire a car, generally cheaper off the airport! They provide pick up and drop off also almost 24 hours depending in time of year.
When our daughter married, 4.5 years ago, we hired 2 berth MH and our son and partner a car and hotels. We went for same period of time and toured independently surprisingly theirs was a hundred or so pounds cheaper than ours! I would expect that to be greater these days.
Quite a lot of anti foreigners motorhoming in the press which is picking up.
Personally I think the organised tours are very expensive, you make your own way to destinations so your own route planning and stop points. Generally everyone is very friendly and folks greet you as you pass wherever you are!
More than happy to help. As there is no pm facility on this forum ask Rowena to pass your details to me and we can discuss more, or pop your questions on here and I'll do my best to help.
It's a much bigger place than you'd think, think Scotland! Roads are quieter but few 'fast' roads are constant dual carriageway. Speed limit is 100k but on many roads bends have speed advice down to 15k - they are sharp and tight 😮😮. The longer you can give yourself the better. Even with the flights the fastest stopover time it's a 2 day journey 😂😂 allowing for time zones. 36 hour day on the way home!
I hope the above is of assistance to you and others, I'm happy for contact via Rowena about this.
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My daughter and husband ( early fifties) were there for a month before Christmas, going up and down both islands, but still had to miss many places - after a couple of days recovery in Auckland they rented an old Nissan car with 150,000km on the clock (a New Zealand staple) and used AirBnb, RentaBach and the occasional motel, hostel and campsite cabin for accommodation - mostly arranged a day ahead.
That way they met all sorts of wonderful hospitable Kiwis whom they would not have met had they lived and slept alone in a campervan or Motorhome. I'm afraid I can't put you in touch with tnem right now- they are doing the same thing in Slovenia at the moment, but I know she would say Forget the boring old idea of Motorhome hire, but do go.
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We thought long and hard about hiring a motorhome for our recent two week visit to South Island. The country is certainly geared up for it with some good sites and good parking near towns. In the end we opted for hotels, B&B and AirBnB and don’t regret it. Perhaps if we had stayed longer we might have done differently.
There are many pluses and it is extremely popular but to provide some balance, here are the disadvantages. It is very expensive, possibly more than B&B. At popular times like January/February the country is packed with Chinese visitors so it is essential to pre-book the best sites and the pitches are quite small, more like some motorhome Aires in Europe. There are many not so good sites in not so good locations. Then you have the obvious disadvantages - mobility and the fact that it is not your vehicle so not your bed, not your equipment.
Whatever you do you will enjoy. It’s a beautiful country.
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did this a couple of years ago. Hired our campervan and travelled independently. Stayed for a month two weeks on each Island. Should have gone for longer, month is not enough.
As long as you have a campervan that is self contained for waste water and toilet waste you are permitted to free camp in NZ. There are plenty of dump stations. There are also Department of Conservation sites which are low cost. We only stayed on formal sites when we needed to do laundry. Do your research on line. There are a lot of price diffeences in renting your campervan.
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Many thanks to you all. It is always interesting to hear fellow members’ views.
Has anybody done the organised CAMC tour?
Paul
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Sorry no. £10,000 for two of us on the escorted tour was way above our budget.
We had been reading too many of Lee Childs novels about Jack Reacher touring USA and staying in motels, so we travelled New Zealand that way too - and very good they were .
Whatever you do I'm sure you will love it.
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Been there twice for extended holidays and looked very carefully into hiring a MH, but in both case chose to B&B.
A big negative is that for what we wanted to do, walk remoter coastal bits, requires a great deal of use of "grit" roads.
Our enquiries lead to understanding the use on these is prohibited by the hire companies we checked on. Though, in fact even on the remotest most difficult places we found hired MHs had got there via these roads.
We still felt that even if it is common practice to ignore the T&Cs, should we have the misfortune to smash one up, way off a metalled road, I was not confident we would get away without a very expensive bill.
We were there through New Year, Jans and Febs, and found adequate availability of B&Bs, though were seeking these in the more remote areas, not honeypots.
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Sorry I omitted this. There are stories but not escorted tours. Full 30 day trip on, as described, a very tight budget. It's done by day so there's plenty to read. I've posted a link to the stories page for the early days and you can follow through all the trip via this. More food for thought if nothing else!
Yes be very careful with hired vehicles and unsealed roads, there are several 😉 don't take on the beaches either. It is possible in lots of places to hire a wreck, those hirers aren't so fussy! Vehicle insurance isn't a legal requirement over there, so be aware if you're thinking of hiring a wreck 🙂
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We picked our motorhome up in Christchurch and dropped it off in Auckland. We had 17 days so we didn't try to cover huge distances and were selective about our route. Motorhome hire is expensive but it is an amazing way to discover this lovely country. The two islands are very contrasting and if possible it is nice to see both. Remember in the south island to put your watch back - fifty years!
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We are Kiwi motorhomers currently in Croatia on a 9 month long trip in Europe. NZ is a fantastic place to motorhome, however as others have noted, rental of a van is not cheap. There are a couple of companies who manage the hire of privately owned motorhomes ... you'll have to hunt them out via the internet ... not sure if they will be cheaper but worth a try. I've also seen a site that arranges swaps of motorhomes (ie: you swap your UK van with an NZ family) but again you'll hav eth search for it. A few comments about NZ vanning:
- The Cooks Straight ferry (between Nth and Sth Islands) is expensive. If you are going to both islands its worth looking at the costs of hiring a van in each and flying between.
- Whilst I'm a North Islander, most of the tourist sights in the Nth island are in the upper half from Taupo north ... geysers, hot pools and boiling mud around Rotorua, Glow Worms and Kiwis at Waitomo, Beaches on the Coromandel and in Northland.
- The South island is much quieter than the North with great lakes and mountains (Queenstown) and some stunning beaches and national park walks around Nelson
- Driving wise, distances are not great, but NZ roads are a bit slower than the UK ... think smaller A roads. Motorways in/out of the main cities (Auckland/Hamilton/Wellington/Christchurch/Dunedin) but slower in between. NZ does have some "metal" roads (gravel) but these are getting rarer and you are unlikely to come across many on toursit routes. There are only a couple of roads I can think of that are banned to rentals (Skippers Canyon is one) ... these are not bad roads, but are "metal" are quite narrow. You are probably also banned from driving on beaches as every year we loose several cars that get bogged in the sand ... and then the tide comes in!
- Camping grounds are generally pretty good, however many that used to be at beaches are now being converted to holiday homes as costal land becomes too valuable. The Dept of Conservation runs several rustic camp sites ... generally a basic toilet and running water with few other facilities, but in some fantastic locations and very low cost ... note that many will be on "metal" roads. Freedom camping has earned a bad reputation in NZ recently due to the number of campers with just a van and a mattress ... no toilet or waste water on board. They've become know as "poo tours" and many local authorities have reacted (overreacted) by banning all motorhomes. To be fair, used toilet paper and feaces around parking lots is not a great sight.
- The NZ camping and motorhome clubs are a great source of info and I'd recommend you email them for advice.
Good luck and enjoy NZ!
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