New Zealand travel tips

When planning your holiday to New Zealand consider the following:

How much time is needed to see New Zealand?  
For a short city break 2 - 3 day's is sufficient.  For a reasonably quick look around the country 10-14 day's will be just enough to whiz around the highlights. Ideally around 3 - 4 weeks would enable you to see much of the country and spend some time in each area.

The most common client feedback we see is 'I wish I had more time'.  It is an unfortunate situation but 99% of visitors totally underestimate how much time is needed to tour New Zealand.

What are the roads like?
Our roads are well maintained but the mountainous terrain that is prevalent throughout New Zealand means that the roads are narrow, winding and hilly.   For the most part roads are single lane with occasional passing lanes so it is common to be stuck in a line of slow moving traffic.  Many of the country roads are unsealed.

How long does it take to travel around?
The open road speed limit is 100kmh/60mph but on most day's your average travel speed is likely to be closer to 80kmh/50mph.  So a journey of say 250km's, 155 miles will take just over 3 hours non-stop.  On top of this you need bathroom and meal breaks, photo stops and sightseeing visits.  As a result a day's journey of just 250km's normally ends up taking about 8 hours to complete.  

Don't try and do it all in one go.
You need to consider carefully what  your top priorities are and don't think you have to do absolutely everything in one trip.  All you will end up doing is rushing around, spending most of your day's on the road, returning home to say 'I wish I had more time'.

Don't sweat it if you have to miss things.
My one piece of advice often given is that at the end of the day no itinerary you come up with is wrong, New Zealand is such a lovely country you can't really make any mistakes.  So don't sweat it when trying to cram everything in.  Anything you do and anywhere you go in New Zealand will be a rewarding experience.

Remember this is a holiday.
Don't try to do so much that you need a holiday to recover from your holiday. 

Enjoy the planning.
Half the enjoyment of a vacation is planning so talk to fellow travellers, read loads of books, find a good travel agent and enjoy the time spent putting your travel plans together.