New Zealand - Fly Drive + Hotels

pimento

But we don't want our itinerary pre-planned.

All we want are flights to and from NZ, a car and some hotel vouchers.

Does anyone do this? Or will we have to take a suggested itinerary?

loobs40

Ring up a company like Trailfinders who can organise flights and whose staff have lots of experience with travelling in New Zealand

We travelled there last year for three weeks on a RTW ticket. I hired a car from Christchurch Airport and returned it to Auckland airport three weeks later. Get yourself a nice comfortable car with loads of room for luggage. Driving is so easy and relaxed over there, especially the South Island.

As for accommodation, I booked the first night in Christchurch at a B&B in advance, and then we used our laptop to book accommodation at online sites as went along, usually a day or so in advance. This meant our plans were very flexible. We planned to stay in Queenstown for three days but loved it so much we stayed for seven. Don't think you need to bother with hotel vouchers

pimento

Thanks loobs. I'm trying to plan a trip and I'm daunted. I don't know really where to start.

Is it easy to just arrive at a hotel and find a room?

claire16c

I was in NZ in March. We were on a RTW ticket, but essentially wanted the same as you, in that we didnt want something pre-planned. which worked out really well as we could stay longer in places we liked or leave if we didnt, and our route changed quite a lot as we went along!

So you could book your own flight, and then book your car and hotels seperately. How long are you going for?

We flew into the south Island (queenstown) and left from the north (auckland). This is great because you dont have to back track on yourself - you could just as easily fly into north and leave from South.

You will find that car hire is not cheap once you add on insurance etc, and also not all companies let you take the car from one island to another, and charge more for one way rentals etc. However I found a company which to my memory cost us around £600 for 2 weeks car hire, 1 way rental from queenstown to auckland, booked ferry tickets for us, and charged half the price for the same insurance that all the other large companies like Hertz were charging. Some companies were charging around £1k for this!

In our case we left one car at picton on the south island just before getting the ferry to north island, and then they had a car ready and waiting for us at the ferry depot when we arrived in wellington. You can take the car across with you on the ferry, but it was cheaper to buy 2 ferry tickets, rather than 2 ferry tickets and a ticket for the car. So they let us do that, just depends on their availability when you are booking.

Hotels wise, there are motels EVERYWHERE in NZ, we booked our 1st one in advance on expedia, so we knew what we were doing for the 1st couple of nights, and then after that we worked out a couple of days in advance whereabouts we wanted to be, and then just either went on the internet or rang them up to make a booking. When you get to the airport or car hire place, there are tons of books full of hotel/motel details. Ive never been anywhere with so many in my life. NZ really seems to be just full of people with cars and campervans driving round and round!

There are schemes with hotel vouchers, however i found these to be more restrictive because of course then you can only stay in certain chains, and if they are full in a town you are planning on going to, Im not sure what you would do. I dont think you need to bother with this.

We also went to one place without a booking and just turned up and found somewhere, this can often be good because the owners put signs outside and often have money off if you are arriving on the day so this can also be a good option.

the car company we used was:

http://www.omegarentalcars.com/

They do rent both new and old cars. We paid slightly extra to get a newer model. But if you are on a budget you could rent something older.

claire16c

Oh and dont feel daunted. NZ was the only part of our RTW trip that I literally had not planned anything for until 1 day before we left OZ. I booked car hire and hotel in queenstown the night before and I did feel a bit panicky about not knowing what on earth we were going to do when we got there after that (especially as we were supposed to fly to christchurch but then changed that to queenstown because of the earthquake), but it all worked out really easily once we got there!

loobs40

For B&B in Christchurch I highly recommend this one. http://www.menteith.co.nz/ run by a lovely couple who retired from the travel industry some years ago. Everywhere we went I used tripadvisor to help me find accommodation and booked it online.

For car rental we chose a small company http://www.apexrentals.co.nz/ and hired an older car, a big Toyota Camry for $1690 NZ dollars for three weeks including Picton Ferry

pimento

Thanks Claire, that's brilliant!

I've ordered the Trailfinders brochure and will be having a look at Omega rental cars. I hadn't considered starting at the botoom and working my way up.

Mr. Pimento is actually a Kiwi but hasn't been back since 1978. I bet he'll notice how it's changed. We're going to be meeting family we've never seen before. I'm really excited!

claire16c

Im sure you will have a great time. You'll definitely get the most out of it doing it by yourself, my friend went on one of the buses that take people around the island and she hated being on a schedule all the time.

Wow I bet it will have changed since then. I agree with loobs40 that Queenstown is really nice, wish we could have had longer there. Flying into the airport there is great, the most scenic airport Ive ever been to! Beautiful!

The only places we didn't think all that much of were Wellington and Auckland, just small cities, no different to going round the town centre at home! But the rest of NZ is very picturesque.

Our highlight had to be climbing the Franz Josef glacier. You MUST do that!! And just to say I am not the sort of person who would usually do something as 'active' as that, Id normally be checking out the shops haha but I really enjoyed it.

money_honey

DH and I went travelling around New Zealand for four months. We flew into Christchurch, and out of Auckland. We made a list of the places we wanted to see (after reading through Lonely Planet books, plus I had already been there as a child). We then hired a budget car from a backpacker rentals place (was loads cheaper than the standard rental places) and just booked our accommodation as we went, normally a few days to a week in advance - except for the very touristy places where we booked further in advance to ensure a good room. We used a mix of hostels (double rooms only, lots of more mature travellers!) and budget motels, reading the Lonely Planet and online reviews. It was great to have so much freedom and be able to decide where we were going as we went.

It was the best experience of my life and I'd love to do it again!