travel by camper van

Travelling through NZ by camper van is a good and affordable option. There are many camper / caravan parks in all areas throughout both the North and South islands, but do yourself a favour and only stay at the Top 10 resorts (your camper van people should give you a map of all these resorts). Should only cost you between $25 - $32 for a powered site plus 2 people per night. We only stayed in Top 10's, but what we have seen (did look at another one) and heard from other travellers, they are by far superior.

Also get yourself a Top Ten Card on your first night; costs $30 but gives you 10$ discount at each Top Ten resort as well as other attractions in each location. Most importantly the Top Ten Card will also give you 10% discount on the ferry crossing between the islands which can cost anything up to $300. Book your ferry crossing as soon as you can as the price goes up all the time the closer it gets to your date of crossing.

There are lots of camper van providers in NZ. We used Eazy Rentals, but I would not recommend them or use them again. They basically have an ageing fleet of converted Toyota HIACE's, the problem being the ageing. The performance is really bad and as a result the fuel consuption is nowhere near what it should be (or promised), which more than negates the fact that they are the cheapest. Also the bedding provided is nowhere near adequate for the temps in NZ, we would have seriously frozen if we had not also brought along our own good quality sleeping bags (I highly recommend this regardless of who you use).

In addition the service was not very friendly, which is very abnormal for NZ, and we had to push them to meet some conditions they promised on their website and within the contract.