[Werner]

Good day everyone! My husband and I with 3 kids (ages 16,14 and 12) will be in NZ in Sept. We have companies in both Auckland and Christchurch who are interested in interviewing my husband. So we decided to drive through from Auckland to Christchurch. Can anyone give us some ideas? We are not sure whether we should hire a campervan? Buy a cheap second hand campervan (we do intend to do lots of camping when we can!)? Please also give suggestions of places to see, routes to follow, campsites to stay over, places to eat etc. Is it safe to just stop off on the side of the road (if we are not breaking any traffic rules) and sleep there for the night? How good are the roads? Any special rules when it comes to hiring or buying a campervan?

[vixxann]

Hi

we did this on our reccie last year - we hired motorhome in Auckland and dropped off in Christchurch. We only had ten days but fit a lot in.. if you want to see have a look at this..
http://www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=11020
Obviously if you have more time you can see a lot more. I would not hesitate to do same again, we have three kids also and hiring motorhome was great, it allowed us to travel, see a lot and not have to keep packing/unpacking our clothes etc etc.

From what I saw I think there is no such thing a a CHEAP second hand camper - the prices are pretty high. Rental was ok for us we got a good price through this site..
http://www.fetchcampervanhirenewzealand.co.nz/index.php

good luck with the planning
:)

[IanW99]

Good day everyone! My husband and I with 3 kids (ages 16,14 and 12) will be in NZ in Sept. We have companies in both Auckland and Christchurch who are interested in interviewing my husband. So we decided to drive through from Auckland to Christchurch. Can anyone give us some ideas? We are not sure whether we should hire a campervan? Buy a cheap second hand campervan (we do intend to do lots of camping when we can!)? Please also give suggestions of places to see, routes to follow, campsites to stay over, places to eat etc. Is it safe to just stop off on the side of the road (if we are not breaking any traffic rules) and sleep there for the night? How good are the roads? Any special rules when it comes to hiring or buying a campervan?

I'm assuming that you need to go from Auckland to Christchurch, if not then I would definitely consider going the other way around.

Most people travel down NZ, so the rental companies end up with lots of vehicles in Christchurch and no cheap way to send them back. You can get very good deals on taking these rental vehicles back including ferry costs.

Ian

[KerryS]

I agree with Ian - friends of mine got a relocation deal on their campervan, including the ferry costs, by going from Chch to Auckland rather than the other way round. They paid about $1 per day if I remember rightly.
There are loads of deals about, especially at that time of year.

[Billy]

I agree with Ian - friends of mine got a relocation deal on their campervan, including the ferry costs, by going from Chch to Auckland rather than the other way round. They paid about $1 per day if I remember rightly.
There are loads of deals about, especially at that time of year.

Sounds good, do you know who they got that deal with?

[BaldyBeardyBloke]

We did the same two years ago.

We always found the Top Ten campsites to be clean and good quality (they are pretty much everywhere). You can get a Top Ten loyalty cards so you get a discount every so often - can't remember exact details.

We went - roughly - Auckland, Raglan, Waitomo, Taupo, Bay Of Plenty, Napier, Wellington, Interislander, Kaikoura, Hamner Springs, Hokitika, Franz Joseph, Haast, Wanaka, Queenstown, Dunedin, Christchurch.

Worked for us. Took us three weeks, but we stayed in some places multiple nights (Napier, Wellington, Queenstown). We had two night stays in hotels in Auckland and Chch too at each end.

Top Ten webiste

http://www.top10.co.nz/

We used a Britz campervan. It was OK, but not great (we had quite an old one). We were always jealous of the Kea and Pacific Horizon ones that always looked shinier and nicer than ours.

[kanatakiwi]

Sounds good, do you know who they got that deal with?

I posted a message on this a year or so ago, but here are the details: We did used Stand by cars, who operate this service in both NZ and Australia.

http://www.standbyrelocs.com/default.aspx

They always have a list of cars and campervans available for relocation, most are from Christchurch to be returned to Auckland, but for instance right now there is an Auckland to Christchurch deal listed which is $1 a day for a car, with free ferry included.

We have done it both ways, took a 4 berth with shower down to Christchurch and then brought a 2 berth back up a couple of weeks later. We loved it, had plenty of time to stop over , the 2 berth was best for us, as it enabled us to do more "freedom camping" parking on beaches and road side paddocks etc. it was a cheap and brilliant holiday. With the 4 berth we tended to stay more in organised campgrounds like Top 10.

Make sure you have a very good look at the condition of the vehicle because they turn these vehicles around very quickly with little more than a glance at it, we found a hairline crack in the windshield just starting from the bottom that we and they had missed, but we phoned them as soon as we noticed it and they were very good about it.

[swissmissdesigner]

You have always such a great ideas!:clap

I posted a message on this a year or so ago, but here are the details: We did used Stand by cars, who operate this service in both NZ and Australia.

http://www.standbyrelocs.com/default.aspx

They always have a list of cars and campervans available for relocation, most are from Christchurch to be returned to Auckland, but for instance right now there is an Auckland to Christchurch deal listed which is $1 a day for a car, with free ferry included.

We have done it both ways, took a 4 berth with shower down to Christchurch and then brought a 2 berth back up a couple of weeks later. We loved it, had plenty of time to stop over , the 2 berth was best for us, as it enabled us to do more "freedom camping" parking on beaches and road side paddocks etc. it was a cheap and brilliant holiday. With the 4 berth we tended to stay more in organised campgrounds like Top 10.

Make sure you have a very good look at the condition of the vehicle because they turn these vehicles around very quickly with little more than a glance at it, we found a hairline crack in the windshield just starting from the bottom that we and they had missed, but we phoned them as soon as we noticed it and they were very good about it.