Last December, we left the UK and flew to New Zealand. It was the first stop of our 6 month trip and has remained our highlight. I can’t put into words how much I love New Zealand. It really is the most incredible country.
I was lucky enough to visit in 2020, but unfortunately whilst travelling with my gal pal, covid started and we had to cut our trip short. Since we flew home back in April 2020, I have been desperate to go back. Last year, when my boyfriend and I were decided what we wanted to do, I had to suggest going back to New Zealand. I knew he would love it as much as I did, and I felt like the country had so much more to offer than what I had seen a few years ago.
We made plans to include it into our trip schedule and got hunting for a campervan and route itinerary. Previously, I booked everything through RatPack Travel, and they made the whole process seamless when I travelled 2019-2020, so I messaged them and they were able to source a van for us and get that organised for our dates. As we went over the Christmas period (and NZ’s summer) vans were being booked rapidly, so if you’re planning to go, make sure you book well in advance.
CAMPERVAN
Our lovely van, Willy, was a Barefoot Campervan. We arranged for a pick up in Auckland and a drop off in Christchurch. It can sometimes be cheaper to do a Christchurch to Auckland direction, but for us, it wasn’t. Also, if you’re heading to NZ for a longer period of time, such as a working-holiday visa, then I would recommend buying a van on arrival. A lot of people do this, campervans are extremely popular and is definitely the most economical way of doing things as hire can be very pricey.
I will say that whilst I 100% recommend using RatPack Travel, I was slightly disappointed that our van hire per day rate was more expensive than what our friends had paid – they also had a Barefoot Camper booked through RatPack. Understandably, there may be a simple explanation for this, but I would absolutely suggest shopping around as much as you can to get yourself the best deal.
Back to the van! As you can see below, our van was technically a 3 person, but I think it would be incredibly uncomfortable with 3 but it was perfect for two. We had a fridge, sink with running water, 2 gas burners, AC, solar panels, Bluetooth & Aux connection, loads of storage and came with the kitchen basics. I did find the kitchen basics lacking a bit. There were a few things we had to buy, that you would absolutely expect – a kettle being one. We also were only supplied with a tiny frying pan, which made cooking slightly difficult. We didn’t want to buy another, so we made do but it would have been nice to have a better selection of cooking utensils, cutlery and crockery.
When booking a van, always always request that it is self-contained. This will make a huge difference in your experience. If you’re not planning on doing any freedom camping but planning to stay in paid sites only, then this is not an issue. But if you want to stay in freedom camps, low cost sites and Department of Conservation camps, more often than not you will need to be self-contained. If you are not self-contained and choose to stay in a site that is for self-contained vehicles only, you could find yourself with a rather hefty fine. It is around $200 NZD and is given out by the rangers that look after the sites.
The self-contained part is essential because it means that your vehicle does not dump water waste out into the environment. It would be the same as leaving a bag of litter behind – if not worse. The New Zealand ecosystem is extremely fragile and kiwis respect their land, so please, please, please be respectful. Don’t leave litter, don’t empty out dirty water, don’t disturb wildlife and follow the camping rules, they’re there for a reason.
Back to the van itself, it was really easy to drive, we had no issues with the van itself. It cruised along nicely and we had no flat tyres or batteries like I had feared. It did absolutely guzzle the petrol and that did eat into our budget. Last time, our camper was a car with a bed in the back, so it didn’t struggle with being weighed down too much and we didn’t notice a strain on the petrol. However, with a larger van, I really did notice it. With a full water tank, the van was very heavy and as it’s not particularly aerodynamic, this drained the petrol too. If I was going again, I would 100% go for a diesel vehicle. This would have been more economic as diesel was considerably cheaper. All of the vans larger than ours were also diesel, which made sense. I would definitely consider this option when booking too.
FOOD SHOPPING
So to save money, we tried to be as savvy as we could by shopping cheaply and cutting down on meat. We mostly shopped at Pak n Save and bought bulk of pasta, rice, long-life milk, cleaning supplies and porridge. Pak n Save seems to be one of the cheaper supermarkets, but they don’t exist in every town so sometimes we shopped in countdown or the equivalent local supermarket. When we passed a Pak n Save, we did a round of up of what we needed and stocked up – this definitely helped with saving money.
We planned meals in advanced and cooked things like vegetable curries, 3 bean chilli’s and a lot of pasta. Lunches were sandwiches or leftovers from the night before. Breakfast was porridge, cereal bars or eggs if we were feeling extra fancy.
If you’re organised, you can easily keep the meals tasty but cheap. On our first shop we bought some basic spices such as garlic, italian herbs, curry power, chilli powder and salt and pepper. This meant even if we were just having a 3 bean chilli, because we could add some flavour, it made it taste a lot better!
If you are travelling in a much bigger van you may not have such an issue, but in our van, we had a pretty small fridge. This meant we could only buy a limited number of fridges items. Definitely keep this in mind when shopping!
ROUTE PLANNING & CAMPSITES
Planning the route can be overwhelming. The best thing I can recommend is to read some blogs (I’ve linked my most recent ones here, but I also have route’s from 2020) and also research some things you want to see. Print off a map, mark them on it and then work out hows best to fit all in. There’s a few typical places most people will want to visit, so it’ll come together once you have some ideas on what you want to do.
Campsite wise, this is so important – download Campermate and Rankers. This will give you a full list of campsites in your location, as well as WiFi spots, petrol stations, picnic areas, public toilets and more. We wouldn’t have survived without these apps, they really make the whole camping thing possible. We tried to minimise our stays in paid sites but as the completely free sites become fewer, they get busier. Some allow you to stay for more than one night, but not many, so keep these things in mind when organising. Also, if it’s a popular site, people will arrive early – from lunchtime onwards so keep this in mind if you’re arriving later in the day.
A lot of sites that were previously free, are now managed by the Department of Conservation. This is good, they now have drop toilets (the less said about these the better, haha) which are regularly cleaned and most had toilet roll. The sites are monitored more closely, stopping people from abusing the rules and protecting the environment. The price varied between $8-$10 NZDs per adult, and we didn’t begrudge paying this, some of the sites were lovely. But this was something I hadn’t been prepared for and so it was another fee that ate into our budget. Some areas only had DoC sites, such as in Arthurs Pass and Mount Cook National Park, so we had no choice but to pay them. Again, we didn’t begrudge this at all but it is something to consider when working out your budget. I’ll do a better list of all our campsites and link it here, because we really did stay in some amazing places.
There are many more things that I could say, and although I can’t think of them right now, I’ll keep thinking and do my best to update this when I can.
For now, hope this helpful! Any questions, pop me a comment below or drop me a message on my instagram’s – @hannahshildrake or @hans_travels_
lots of love,
Han x
hannahshildrake.co.uk 