How to Plan a New Zealand Adventure

Traveling to New Zealand is more challenging than most places because the points of interest are very far apart. This requires a lot of driving and lodging in different places, which creates a complex itinerary. In this article we’re going to help you plan the New Zealand adventure of your dreams.

If you’re young and unhygienic it is easy to rent a campervan and wander about, crashing in the nearest parking lot and showering only when necessary. For the rest of us, frequent movement is less than ideal.

So we plan. First we plan to figure out what we want (and if we can have it), and then we plan to minimize frustration and maximize adventure. This is surprisingly difficult when it comes to New Zealand — it is the most challenging vacation I’ve planned to date.

We booked our motorhome 15 months before we took the trip, which gave me over a year to figure it out. The final rendition of the itinerary was complete a month before we left.

New Zealand is complex and it’s worth repeating: It’s big, there are a lot of places to see, and those places are really far apart.

This article is a combination of our lengthy roadtrip preparation and what we learned by the end of the holiday. We’ve attempted to focus key considerations into a series of questions that make the challenges clear so you can plan the greatest New Zealand adventure possible.

We hope you enjoy!

Related Article: 35 Amazing Things to Do in New Zealand.

1. To Motorhome or Not to Motorhome

New Zealand is God’s own road trip. Like California or Japan, it is a long, narrow nation with highlights hundreds, even thousands of miles apart.

When it comes your lodging, you will either spend your nights in hotels and Airbnb’s or you’ll rent a motorhome.

Our recommendation is the motorhome for several reasons: 1. You’ll be mobile. 2. You can sleep most anywhere as New Zealand has an abundance of campgrounds and overnight parking lots. 3. You won’t have to pack and unpack every couple days.

If you choose the motorhome the question then becomes, can you handle the stress of driving one? We think you can, but it’s worth considering. The last thing you want is to become a statistic in New Zealand — far too many people die at the hands of a tourist behind the wheel of an RV.

2. Do You Have Enough Time for Both Islands?

How much time do you have? Two weeks? Three weeks? More? This is an especially important question in New Zealand because of the hours that separate all the amazing things to see and do.

It is our opinion that if you have two weeks or less you should pick one island or the other and stay there. Most folks choose the South Island, for what it’s worth.

Unless you are the sort of traveler that just wants to see everything, relaxation and comfort be damned, then you’ll run out of time if you try to cover too much land.

We had five weeks in our motorhome, not counting three days in a hotel in Queenstown at the beginning of the trip. Even with this much time we didn’t head south of Te Anau or north of Auckland. And we didn’t spend any time in Auckland.

3. How Much Are You Willing to Spend?

Our motorhome rental for 35 nights was a little bit over $5K USD in the shoulder season (we got a steal — plan on $2K more than that). We used airline miles for the flights (that one hurt), and hotel points in Queenstown. Including all spending money for excursions and trinkets, food, gas, etc., our 39 day New Zealand adventure cost $14K. And for the record we’re bargain hunters.

The question here is, can you afford to do New Zealand properly? Hopefully you can, but the daily cost of travel per person is one of the more expensive in the world.

Gas is expensive. Food is expensive. Hotels are expensive.

If you’re coming here for two weeks and living rustic in a camper van, eating cheaply, then you can accomplish most anything. If you’re dragging your children and renting the largest motorhome in the country, you’re going to pony up some green. And if you’re staying in hotels, congratulations on all of your disposable income.

4. What’s Your Pace? Slow, Medium, or Fast?

Most of the folks we met on our New Zealand travels were moving at very fast speeds. They were doing both North and South Island in 12 days or thereabouts, never staying in one place for more than a night. This isn’t our method of travel, but may it is yours? Clearly it is a popular style.

We are not fans of the steady movement technique. We try to determine the best central locations and stay in them as long as it makes sense. When in doubt we’ll add an extra day to rest, which we believe makes the vacation feel less like work.

Related Article: How to Create the Perfect Travel Itinerary. This short article outlines our entire itinerary creating process. We think it’s helpful — Maybe you will, too!

Moving at a slower pace — not a slug pace, mind you — allows you to soak up each location and settle into your lodging a little better. This creates a more relaxing experience and makes each excursion a little more meaningful. It also prevents you from seeing as much.

The question we’ve learned to ask ourselves is, Why are we on this vacation? Is it to check all the boxes and prove we did the things? Is it to catch a glimpse of as many things as possible? Or is it to simultaneously adventure and relax in exciting, new environments?

New Zealand will give you plenty of opportunities to see beautiful things, but even if you’re sprinting for five straight weeks you won’t see everything. We recommend you find what sounds the absolute best to you and then find a nice, medium pace to experience those places.

5. What Time of Year Are You Traveling?

The New Zealand summer is December thru February. If you want to get mired in the crowds and pay top dollar for lodging this is when you arrive. You’ll get the best weather, obviously, but it comes with downside.

RV rental rates are much higher in the summer!

March and November are your shoulder season sweet-spot travel targets. The perks of shoulder season are everything is a bit less expensive and crowds are greatly reduced. We arrived in late February and wrapped up in early April. The kids were back in school which dramatically affects crowding.

The temperatures drop pretty fast in April, and the place doesn’t heat up until November, so if warm, sunny travel is what you want you have a tight window in New Zealand.

We started on the South Island and worked our way north, so by April we were moving toward the last of the warm weather. It worked out very well for us — temperatures were in the 65-72 degree range the entire vacation.

If you love to travel, we have something we would like to give you. It is our professionally designed e-book and it is FREE of charge. We think it’s pretty great, and we’re hopeful you’ll like it, too. It’s called, “Cultivating a Lifetime of Travel”. Click HERE. and we’ll send it on over!

6. How Do You Feel About Crowds?

This is New Zealand. There’s going to be crowds even if you come in shoulder season. Perhaps if you arrive in June or September you’ll get some decent weather and avoid other people, but you’re most likely sacrificing warm, sunny days.

So assuming you’re coming here between mid-October and mid-April, there will be crowds because everyone on earth wants to see the immaculate beauty of New Zealand.

Parking will be tough to find. Bakery lines will be long. Restrooms on popular trails will have flocks of leg-crossing hikers piled in the dirt outside. Even stones to sit upon might be in short supply at the very best places at the wrong time of day.

This question is mostly for our own mental preparation. Are we willing to get up early enough to avoid the deep and patient single-file crowd? Or do we even care?

7. Can You Handle All the Driving?

Queenstown to Milford Sound is 4 hours. Milford Sound to Wanaka is 5 hours. Mt. Cook to Hokitika is 5 hours. Hokitika to Wharariki Beach is 6 hours. Abel Tasman N.P. to Christchurch is 5.5 hours.

Wellington to Tongariro is 4 hours. Waitomo to Coromandel is 3 hours. And on it goes…

There are dozens of hours between all the amazing places. If you are “going for it” and trying to see as much of this incredible country as you can with your allotted time, you will drive 1-2 thousand miles.

The only way out of this situation is to limit the range of your activities. And the only place you can really do this and still see the best of what New Zealand has to offer is the southern half of South Island.

If you focus on Queenstown, Milford Sound, Wanaka, and Mt. Cook, you can spend a two-week vacation in bliss and not drive all over creation.

But if you try to include Hokitika, Abel Tasman, Christchurch, Dunedin, and anything on North Island, you’re driving a lot. Which is fine for us, just maybe not for everyone.

8. What Are the Time Zones and Travel Times?

New Zealand is 19 hours ahead of Pacific Coast Time in the U.S. For example: When it is 12:00 PM (noon) on a Monday in Los Angeles (PCT), it is 7:00 AM on Tuesday in New Zealand. 

Direct flights from LAX (Los Angeles) to Auckland NZ usually take between 13-14 hours. With the time change this can be very disorienting upon arrival. We made it a point to stay up until about 03:00 PCT before going to sleep on the plane in order to mimic an typical sleep hour in New Zealand time.

We flew into Auckland and then to Queenstown, NZ, landing at 4 pm NZT, which was 11 pm according to our bodies. Then we forced ourselves to stay up until 9 pm and got a fantastic night’s sleep.

Fun Fact: You know what kind of music they listen to in New Zealand? American 80’s and 90’s pop and rock greatest hits. Everywhere you go you’ll hear it.

9. What Will You Prioritize?

This is the eternal question. Allow us to give you a few ideas.

South Island Places you absolutely don’t want to miss: Queenstown; Milford Sound; Mt. Cook.

South Island Places you should prioritize otherwise: Wanaka; Abel Tasman National Park

Other Places to Consider on South Island: Hokitika; Franz Josef; Arthur’s Pass National Park; Christchurch; Wharariki/Cape Farewell; Dunedin.

North Island Places you don’t want to miss: Hobbiton; Waitomo Glowworm Caves; Coromandel Peninsula; Tongariro National Park.

North Island Places you should prioritize otherwise: Mount Maunganui; Wellington; Bay of Islands.

Other Places to Consider on North Island: Rotorua; Cape Reinga; Hawke Bay; Piha Beach; Raglan; Hamilton; Mt. Taranaki; Lake Taupo; Auckland.

10. How Do You Feel About Food?

This one hurts to type. We were not impressed with the food in New Zealand. We ate out a dozen times and I can’t say any of the meals were noteworthy. Some were good… more like pretty good. We tell you this so you don’t get all excited about the well-reviewed restaurants that’ll get you all jazzed about mealtime in New Zealand.

On the internet you’ll find many articles dedicated to all the things to eat in New Zealand. We read them. We ordered some of the things. True story. We ate the things to eat. Honestly, you’re not coming here for the food.

The food in the grocery stores is pricey, but the exchange rate helps. A 2 lb. block of cheese might cost 16-18 NZD, but in USD it’s about ten bucks. Some things are cheaper, but most cost more than what you’re used to in the states. Add maybe fifty dollars to a weekly grocery run.

If you’re renting a campervan or RV, we would suggest that you plan on cooking most of your food. You aren’t missing much in the restaurants. Save the money for t-shirts and key chains.

An Honest Conclusion for How to Plan a New Zealand Adventure

You probably cannot screw up a New Zealand adventure. But you can do better or worse.

To do better, we think a @h!tt@n of research is the solution. Here are a few articles to help you do better:

20 Tips for Driving a Motorhome in New Zealand

A Perfect New Zealand South Island Itinerary

Our Top 10 New Zealand Excursions

15 New Zealand Surprises

11 New Zealand Disappointments

13 Beautiful Beaches in New Zealand

If you have any questions about building your itinerary, we are happy to help. Email me @ hofftoseetheworld@gmail.com and we can chat. Ryan

Thank you for stopping by our website! We are the Hoffmann family, a full-time RV family that has split residence in Seattle, Washington and San Antonio, Texas. We have special needs children that we homeschool, and work travel assignments for the Veteran Affairs Hospital. If you would like to learn more about us, check out our Start Here and Biography pages. In the meantime, God bless and travel happy!

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