Self Drive Holiday in New Zealand- any advice?

midlandsfairy

I am trying to research and book a holiday to New Zealand in November 2007, and wondered if anyone had any recommendations for companies/sites that offer self drive holidays? I'm looking at going for somewhere between 14 and 20 nights so I'm pretty flexible.

I've tried all the big 'catalogue' places (virgin etc) but they all seem to be very expensive...does anyone have any recommendations of where I could try? The most reasonable priced, and interesting sounding self drive 'package' so far comes from https://www.travelmood.com but I'd like to look at as many options as possible.

Any help/advice/recommendations would be really much appreciated!

Lucy

puffinmuffin

IMO New Zealand is really well set up for independant travellers. We went last autumn and organised everything ourselves. we hired a car for two weeks and drove round the south island, i booked most of the accommodation ahead but got it when we arrived a couple of times. It was pretty easy.

chalky_bertie

puffinmuffin wrote:

IMO New Zealand is really well set up for independant travellers. We went last autumn and organised everything ourselves. we hired a car for two weeks and drove round the south island, i booked most of the accommodation ahead but got it when we arrived a couple of times. It was pretty easy.

Totally agree. There are plenty of people, including myself, that would love to help you if required.

chalky_bertie

puffinmuffin wrote:

IMO New Zealand is really well set up for independant travellers. We went last autumn and organised everything ourselves. we hired a car for two weeks and drove round the south island, i booked most of the accommodation ahead but got it when we arrived a couple of times. It was pretty easy.

Totally agree. There are plenty of people on here, including myself, that would love to help you if required.

midlandsfairy

Ah thanks puffinmuffin and chalky_bertie.

I've never really done package before, always tended to sort my own accomodation/flights etc but have no experience in new zealand and no idea of how much time it would take to cover nz. Hence why I started looking at self drive packages. I would like to explore south island properly, so plan to just spent the 16 or so nights there rather than try and squish in both. Do you think 16 or so night sounds a fair enough amount of time for south island? I do have a few places on my 'hit list' to visit

The quote from travelmood.com was 18 nights.... including motels (more for hotels) and the car hire and itinery and a ferry crossing (this was a 'whole' new zealand tour but seemed pretty rushed!) was £941 each for two people. It does seem pretty expensive for just car hire and hotels....

Lucy

bring1t

In sixteen days i would stick to the south island. You would be well rushed to squeeze both in, for example i was there very recently fro 28 days and felt rushed doing both islands!!

I sorted my flights through Virgin http://www.thegreatescapade.com/,

We chose the campervan option, i was very impressed with this......let me know if you want the details.

lefty

We travelled to New Zealand last February. Flew via Los Angeles (Stayed 1 night) then flew direct to Christchurch from L.A.
South Island is the only place you will have time to visit and even then in your timescale you will be pushed to see what you would like.
We used Apex Car Hire, situated in Christchurch, and they were excellent and reasonable.
Stayed in Motels but would book in advance because at certain times of the year they can be full, especially near Milford Sound, Queenstown ,Lake Wanaka and the Glaciers. Allow plenty of time between stops as the roads in South Island are not that good certainly not built for speed and the Speed Limit is adhered to, do not park on the wrong side of the road facing the traffic, you will get booked very quickly
Very friendly people in New Zealand always looking to help you and if you do stay in Dunedin go to the Lone Star Restaurant, excellent service and the stack of Ribs.. Well.. and that just a starter.
We used the Budget Motel Group a lot, bring up their Website and they will send you their handbook of motels in Australia and New Zealand.
Beautiful Country you will not forget it.. Enjoy

davidlizard

We did this sort of thing a couple of years back. Flew via Bangkok with Thai (decent legroom - its a heck of a flight, but any flights you do afterwards appear short by comparison), and booked the first couple of nights accommodation up. Certainly would not bother with a package - get out there and go as the mood takes you. A useful website for accommodation, getting around and activities is jasons.co.nz. It does get a bit busy around January time, but we had no problems late February with finding accomodation at short notice. Do consider how you will get to the first hotel from the airport - you may not fancy driving after 30 odd hours on a plane, and its a long time to stay sober !

The NZ AA website had a journey planner on it which has how long it takes to get between places, rather than mileage (theaa.co.nz, but cannot find the exact URL).

There are free books to available (fairly thick) that contain the accomodation listings, so its a case of simply phone up somewhere when you get out there. They had a pile of them at the airport, and also at just about every place we stayed at.

We found internal flights on certain routes can be very cheap (Christchurch to Auckland using Qantas was £20 each).

If you are in Dunedin, check out the worlds steepest residential street (so they say). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldwin_Street,_Dunedin

Also recommend getting up early and going here. To get the photo, theres a 2 minute window between sunrise and the wind getting up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Matheson

Have fun.

hlhassall

I went travelling after uni in 2002 and spent about 3 weeks in New Zealand. Just hired a car at the airport when we arrived and turned up at places as we arrived to find accommodation - admittedly this was in May when I think it's quieter. May be worth trying the youth hostels as some of these have private rooms? Just invest in a good guide book and you'll be fine!

nearlyrich

The only thing we booked in advance was a car as someone told us there are times when it's busy and we didn't want to take a chance.

We went last year (Feb/March) we flew into Auckland and headed south we just stopped where we liked each night, sometimes for two nights if we really liked the place. We spent maybe £30-40 per night on rooms for 2 of us, some of them were lovely, all of them were way above premier lodge quality.

It's a lovely part of the world and I would love to go again,

midlandsfairy

Thanks everyone for all your advice.... sounds like it should be pretty easy to do. I'm a bit of a planner so think I will prob sort out pre booking hotels/motels for the trip ahead of time but will bear everything thats been said in mind. Want to make sure I see a lot of stuff!

Thanks for those links Davidlizard, they'll be going in the NZ favourites folder. Found the AA website as well which looks good.

Am still hoping after everyones responses that I can do South Island in 21 nights or slightly under. no way I'm attempting both though!!

rm-lewis I would be really interested in the details for the virgin campervan option that you mention, thank you

Thanks again everyone for your replies, much appreciated! Have saved all the info to follow up on peoples leads/information.

Lucy