chloedickensonLast Updated on 8th May 2023
Our New Zealand road trip was without a doubt one of the most incredible experiences of my entire life and it’s something that I wish everyone could experience for themselves at least once in their life.
When we first talked about hiring a campervan in New Zealand, I was absolutely sh*tting myself as I’d never done anything like it in my life. The fear of the unknown and the uncertainty of life on the road terrified me but as soon as I’d spent literally one night living in a campervan, my whole outlook changed.
It’s now an experience I’ll look back fondly on forever and teamed with our road trip along the East Coast of Australia, it’s made me appreciate the little things in life even more.
In my attempt to encourage, inspire and gently persuade you to book your own campervan road trip, here are my top tips on how to make the most out of your New Zealand road trip! As always, please feel free to email, Tweet me or leave a comment if there’s anything else you want to know about a New Zealand road trip!
Stock up on snacks
One thing that I mentioned in my ‘ultimate road trip essentials‘ post was that you need to stock up on plenty of snacks when you’re driving in New Zealand.
There are often long stretches of road without anything on them; sometimes you might not even pass another car for two hours! Therefore, it’s important to have your car or campervan fully stocked with plenty of snacks and water to keep you going!
Try and connect with other travellers
Another thing to bear in mind when it comes to making the most out of your New Zealand road trip is that you should try and connect with other travellers as and when you can.
If you’re travelling around the country, this is especially important as you can often get quite bored and lonely and it’s nice to be able to share some of your travelling experiences and mishaps with other people.
There’s plenty of ways to meet other like-minded travellers and if you’re embarking on a road trip across New Zealand, the most likely place you’ll meet people is at campsites.
Whether it’s at paid campsites while you’re all cooking in the camp kitchen, or you’re staying in the middle of nowhere at a free site and need to borrow something from a fellow traveller, meeting new people and forging relationships is not only a great way to share travel tips, but you may even make friends for life!
Making the most of your New Zealand road trip – download Gaspy
One of my top tips for making the most out of your New Zealand road trip is to save money on petrol (or diesel) whenever you can.
Gas prices in New Zealand certainly aren’t cheap and if you’re going to be driving over 6,000km like we did, you’re going to want to save money for travelling whenever possible.
One way to find the cheapest petrol and diesel prices within 20km of where you are is to download an app called Gaspy.
It’s insanely easy to use (although you will need a Wi-Fi or data connection for it to work…) and it shows you the cheapest prices for gas closest to you.
You can also search for places that you’re travelling to, in order to see if you drove another 50km for example, would the petrol be cheaper there? We used the search feature when we were driving to Milford Sound as once you get passed Te Anau, there are no petrol stations apart from the one right next to the ferry port at Milford Sound itself (which was around $3 a litre when we were there!).
Gaspy was one of my most-used travel apps when we were in New Zealand and I’d highly recommend downloading it if you’re going to be travelling around a lot.
Find the best (and cheapest) supermarkets
Another way to make the most out of your New Zealand road trip (and to save money in the process) is to find the best and cheapest supermarkets to stock up on goods.
The best supermarkets that we used and loved for deals and bargains were Pak N Save, Countdown and New World. These places can be found in every city and Countdown is the most popular and wide-spread supermarket throughout New Zealand.
You can also get a free Countdown rewards card that allows you to save money on your shopping as well as on fuel in BP and Caltex petrol stations! There’s also a Countdown app you can download which will show you the current deals and promotions they’re offering!
Be realistic with your expectations at campsites
Making the most of your New Zealand road trip not only involves saving money when you can, but it also means ensuring that you’re having fun and enjoying yourself as much as possible.
One thing you need to be prepared for when road tripping across New Zealand is that there are so many campsites at varying levels of price, cleanliness and overall “enjoyability”.
It’s important before you embark on your road trip to be realistic with your expectations at campsites and remember that the most expensive campsites aren’t always the best!
New Zealand road trip tips – download Campermate
By far my most used app when we were doing our South Island New Zealand road trip was Campermate; an app that’s perfect for managing your expectations about campsites and finding the best ones to stay at.
It’s honestly the most useful and easy-to-use app I’ve probably ever used and it even works offline so you can check where you’ll be staying even if you don’t have an internet connection.
We used this app every single day, dozens of times a day to check the best paid and free campsites (there’s comments, reviews, prices and a list of facilities for each site so it’s incredibly easy to see which ones are the best). We also used it to check the nearest public toilets, petrol stations and there’s also a feature that shows you events and top things to do in the area that you’re in.
If there’s one thing you take from this post, make sure it’s downloading Campermate before you embark on your New Zealand road trip; it’ll make your life infinitely easier!
Top tips for driving in New Zealand
I was going to make this section a whole blog post on its own but I think it’s quite fitting to include it here instead!
- There are numerous highways that run throughout New Zealand but the main one is State Highway 1 which runs all the way from Cape Rēinga in the North Island to Bluff Point at the bottom of the South Island. There’s obviously also lots of little side roads but you’ll largely be driving on State Highways throughout your trip.
- Be wary of speed limits as they fluctuate immensely. You can genuinely go from 100kmph (national speed limit) to a 50kmph zone, to an 80kmph, back down to 70kmph and then up to 100kmph again in the space of a few kilometres. It can be tricky knowing which speed is in which zone but typically, it’ll be 50kmph in small towns and 100kmph for long stretches of highway.
- You also need to be aware of train crossings as throughout most of the country, there’s no barriers at crossings and you simply have to “look out for trains”.
- A fair few roads in New Zealand will also be unpaved which can be really difficult to drive on and can easily knacker up your vehicle so remember to take care when driving on them or avoid them if possible.
- In order to keep traffic flowing nicely, there are many passing lanes and ‘slow vehicle bays’ throughout the country. These are especially common on big hills and mountains (which you’ll inevitably be driving up) in order to let faster vehicles pass by the likes of trucks, lorries and large campervans.
- Another driving tip to bear in mind on your New Zealand road trip is that the speed bumps are crazy bad throughout the country. Even when you drive as slowly as you possibly can, your car is still likely to scrape the bump so just be careful. I know England is notoriously bad for speed bumps but my God, I’ve never known anything like it when it comes to New Zealand’s roads!
Pin for later – making the most out of your New Zealand road trip
Would you like to do a New Zealand road trip one day? Is there anything else you’d like to know about making the most out of your road trip? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter @imjustagirl_16.
This post contains affiliate links. Please see my disclaimer for more.
