New Zealand Honeymoon on a budget - doable?

danandjens_worldtravels

If you are limited for time, I wouldn't do both Milford and Doubtful, just do one. Milford has day cruises and its at least 2 hours from Te Anau to Milford Sound. A beautiful drive if the weather is right, or consider a flight from Queenstown. More expensive but beautiful, again weather dependent. If you look on bookme.co.nz you will see the options, fly -cruise- coach will save you time and give you a great experience. You have a good budget, so its possible.

Doubtful sound has some overnight cruises (Real Journeys) and is much nearer Te Anau.

Consider driving clockwise around the South Island, Christchurch, Mount Cook, Queenstown, Te Anau, Wanaka, Franz Joseph etc. Then you can be more flexible if you find somewhere you like. Once you've done the glaciers there is not much on the West Coast to be honest, and its a long (again beautiful drive). But you can do it in a big long blast if you have to. I've been through Hokitika a few times, and there's not much there, a quick stop for the pancake rocks perhaps and a toilet break but I'm not wild about it.

If you come anti - clockwise and can miss out Mount Cook, consider flying Queenstown to Auckland, you should be able to pick it up for $79 or even fly to Wellington and add that onto your NI itinery. If the weather is good a flight from Queesntown is an experience and you will probably see Mount Cook from the air - the pilot usually points it out!! If you've been down the West Coast you may have seen it from that side too. (Lake Matheson close to Fox Glacier).

The volcanic stuff around Rotoroa is good, (it does smell) look at Hukka Falls (near Taupo) and the hydro dam opens its gates twice a day, its pretty cool to see the water rise so quickly.

Back to clothes, Icebreaker is a good Kiwi brand (wool), look it up before you come, again not cheap.

dondo

Couple of other things

1) If you do need a phone with you rather than take your own phone and racking up expensive calls/data we took an old phone (unlocked) and bought a Vodafone Travel SIM from Christchurch Airport for $29 (http://www.vodafone.co.nz/travel-sim/) and this lasted us the whole time. Great for phoning home as well as relatives in NZ and motels etc.

2) Not sure if you are in the mood to change banks but I switched to Nationwide Flex Plus earlier this year and whilst it's £10 a month it gives you travel insurance for whole family, mobile insurance for whole family etc. Also they don't charge for taking money out the ATMs there and if you get their Select Credit Card you don't get charged anything extra for the purchases.

pandora205

JMFD wrote: »

Three weeks now Pandora My other half managed to get a bonus week off!

The Tripadvisor thread I have going is full of driving routes already

Oh you are lucky - that's much more doable. You'll have a fab time.