Do you want to go on a campervan trip to New Zealand? Or are you simply looking at your possibilities for a fantastic New Zealand Road trip? Touring New Zealand in a campervan is a genuinely unique experience that everyone should do at least once in their lifetime!
Here are the top 5 tips to make your New Zealand campervan trip a success.
Research New Zealand campervan options
The world of campervan touring is like a rabbit warren; there are lots of options to explore when you are planning your first New Zealand campervan trip. This makes it really easy to spend money on things that you don’t really need but is also easy to do the opposite and miss out on opportunities to save money. The best thing to do is to do some research and ask your campervan touring buddies for their recommendations.
A lot of people start their campervan trips planning a year or two in advance, but we have found that the most successful and most enjoyable experiences are often the ones that are planned for just a few weeks in advance.
Know your Budget and Have a Plan
There are two ways to handle money when you are doing a New Zealand campervan trip. You can save money and do lots of camping but that will be very slow going. The alternative is to do a lot of tourist activities where you spend money while you are there.
You can visit beautiful places in New Zealand like the Milford Sound, explore wine regions like Marlborough and Queenstown, see the wildlife in the Fiordland National Park, see the best of the South Island and a lot more.
The key is to budget well for your trip and then to have a plan of how you are going to use your money. If you are planning a trip of a couple of weeks in length, you will have a lot more options for where you want to visit. If you are planning a trip of a month or two, you need to start thinking about what you are looking for. Will it be wildlife viewing in a national park or will it be wine tasting in Marlborough? Will it be a coastal road trip in Northland? Will it be a city break in Queenstown?
There are lots of online resources for planning your campervan trip, including TripAdvisor and TripTicker. TripAdvisor has a comprehensive guide to where to visit while on a campervan holiday.
Choose the Right Campervan
Campervans come in different shapes and sizes, and you need to do some research to find out which one is right for you. Do you want something that looks more like a van or something more like a recreational vehicle? Do you want something that is compact or does you want a bigger one?
One size doesn’t always fit all when it comes to campervans and the bigger the campervan, the more stuff you can take. The advantage of smaller campervans is that they are easier to drive and camp in, but they don’t have the space that a bigger campervan has.
Find a Good Campervan Hire Company
If you want to experience New Zealand campervan touring in the best possible way, then you should hire your campervan from a reliable campervan rental company like Wilderness Motorhomes. The advantages of hiring your campervan from a campervan rental company include:
- They have an extensive fleet of campervans that you can choose from at any time and in any configuration
- They will provide you with a full insurance policy for the campervan and you
- They will give you support before you go and while you are on your trip.
- They will look after any mechanical issues for you during your trip.
- You will always know exactly how much your trip will cost and they will tell you how much money you need to pay on the spot to get started
The best way to go about choosing a campervan hire company is to do your research. Do a web search for the name of the campervan rental company you want to hire and then use the reviews of customers to guide you.
Think about Where to Go in New Zealand
Finally, you might have an idea about where you want to go, but you need to be flexible about your options because New Zealand is a huge place!
You are looking at a country of more than three million square kilometres. If you are planning a one-week trip from Christchurch to Wanaka, then that is one half of New Zealand. If you want to go on a three-week campervan trip in the South Island, that is an extra three weeks of driving in New Zealand that you will need to budget for.
If you are planning a road trip, then there are a number of things that you can do with your campervan while you are away from the cities and towns. You can explore the coast, visit national parks, see the best of the South Island and more.
A good campervan rental company can provide you with a lot of resources to help you with your road trip planning.
Have an enjoyable trip.