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New Zealand
I typically am a lurker on the knot and nest - because I love to travel and have found lots of GREAT travel advice and read about so many great trips on these sites.
Now my husband and I are planning the trip of our lives. My ultimate dream trip. We will be spending 40 days in New Zealand traveling between the North and South islands. We are going to be traveling in a campervan - mostly because we need transportation and to have the flexibility of where we stay. We do plan on staying in hotels/lodges, too. We both are professionals who work in the school system - so we are only able to travel once school is out for our summer break - therefore we will be in New Zealand during their winter. Bummer - but not letting that spoil our wonderful trip.
If anyone has traveled to New Zealand and has any travel advice - I would greatly appreciate any information you have on must see places to go, sites to see, activities to do, great places to stay, eat and drink, etc...
Thanks for your help!
Re: New Zealand
We went for part of our honeymoon and we're going again in a few weeks for our 10 year anniversary. I don't really have much advice for you since we really only spent time in Queenstown on our HM and the goal of this trip is to hike the Milford Track (so we're actually going a few months ahead of our anniversary to get better weather), but I can just say that it's beautiful and you'll have a great time.
If you want to add in some warmth to your trip, we're spending the tail end of our anniversary trip in Fiji, which is a pretty quick flight from Auckland, and there are some backpacker places there so it doesn't have to break your budget. We also went to the Cook Islands a few years ago--another quick flight, gorgeous, and a lot of fun. I have a review of the Cooks trip in my blog if you'd like to take a look.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
Mark Twain
My Travel Blog
We just got back from nearly two months in New Zealand, and it was fantastic! I can give you some stuff off the top of my head, but if you check our blog (link in siggy) in the next month then I'll be putting up some posts with more info.
Most info centers in the major cities have the Dep. of Conservation campsite booklets that give you all the DOC managed sites. Some are free, most are $6 per person. In addition, there are sometimes local campsites, usually also $6. If you are getting a self-contained camper (like with a toilet) then there are lots of places to 'free camp' where you are allowed to park the campervan for free for a night or two.
BBH is one of the major hostel clubs, it's $45 per person to join and that fee gets you like $3-5 off (per person) the cost of BBH hostel rooms. We didn't join because it didn't seem worth it for such a short time.
I'm not really sure what to tell you for activities because we were there in the summer, and winter there is probably much different. I know you can ski, which probably means you can snowshoe as well? You may still be able to take a boat trip (anywhere from an hour and a half to two days) on the Milford or Doubtful Sound, highly recommended.
Check out the wine in Nelson and Blenheim on the S. Island.
If it's not too cold, kayak in the Marlborough Sounds on the S. Island.
Winter would be the perfect time to soak in the many free hot springs around Rotarua on the N Island.
Eat green-lipped mussels! Havelock on the S Island is the green-lipped growing center of the world, but you can get them super cheap at grocery stores all over the country
If you are a member of AAA in the States, you can get a reciprocal agreement with the AA there, which is mostly great because you can get all kinds of free maps.
We really liked the Coramandel on the N Island. Very beachy, might be warmer than other places in the winter.
We had the Rough Guide to New Zealand and found it FAR superior to Lonely Planet.
Definitely do a glacier walk on either the Fox, or the Franz Joseph Glacier on the S Island, or go heli-skiing! A huge budget buster, but great if you want a splurge.
We loved the town of Wanaka, near Queenstown. It's beautiful, smaller, slower-paced. Queenstown was like being in Vail. Full of tourists. The setting is fabulous though. Arrowtown is also cute.
Hope that helps
**Check out our travel blog**
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Great info subdola! I will for sure be checking out your blog for more info! So excited to be doing our trip and definitely jealous that you have already been there!