When I was anticipating my trip to Melbourne, I decided to search what city was the furthest possible place I could go from Boston. The furthest I possibly could have traveled to was to Perth, Australia, but Melbourne came in close as the fourth furthest. This is certainly not a weekend trip destination if you are coming from Boston. With the distance and cost of the trip in mind, I thought it would be wise to take advantages of being in this part of the world and take some time before my school started to travel. I ended up coming to Melbourne about a month before my classes started to travel to New Zealand. This is a very popular destination, and you will find millions of websites and videos with recommendations. If you are planning a trip, research beyond this what I have written, but I hope this gives you a good starting point!
Knowing the Kiwi Terminology
During my trip, I traveled with two friends for about two weeks and then three others joined us for the last bit. While talking to one of them on the first day of our trip, she said: “I cannot wait to go kiwi picking, tasting the kiwis, and really seeing why New Zealand is the kiwi country.” I raised an eyebrow at and felt confused by what she was saying. She thought that the national symbol of NZ, the kiwi, was in reference to the fruit when in fact it is because of a flightless bird found and treasured in the country. With the being said, you will often hear some say “kiwi people,” which refers to people from NZ and “kiwi fruit,” which refers to the actual fruit. While traveling there, I did get to try a golden kiwi fruit for the first time and it was a delicious, sweeter version of a green kiwi. With all three of these kiwi terminologies it can get a bit confusing, but just make sure that before you go to NZ, you know what kind of kiwi the nation is caringly named after.
Driving on the Left-Side of the Road
New Zealand has some of the most amazing landscapes I have ever seen, and in a short two-hour drive you can experience a wide range of views from tropical mountains, to beaches, to glaciers, and even to wintery-looking forests. This visual diversity is fascinating and makes for incredibly enjoyable drives around the country. With that being said, the windy, mostly single-lane highways can also be quite frustrating because there are only a few routes throughout the country. At one point, my friends and I were in the Franz Josef Glacier and wanted to go to Mount Cook, which, on a map, appears to be extremely close. Indeed, the two are only about 30 kilometers away from each other, but due to the lack of multiples highways throughout the country, it ended up being a five and a half hour drive and more than 400 kilometers. It is essential that when you plan your trip you actually calculate how long the drives will be. This, of course, is only a concern if you are planning on driving yourself. I was apprehensive to do so prior to my trip since I had never driven on the left side of the road but found it easy to pick up. We chose to rent a car, but lots of people rent campervans and some, who stay for longer, even purchase a van and sell it at the end of their trip. This option worked super well for us because it gave us ample flexibility. With that being said, if you do not drive, if you are going alone, or if you simply want a different experience, there are bus services like Kiwi Experience, Stray, and InterCity. The first two options are super convenient because they plan the route for you, book you hostels, and schedules activities in each stop the bus makes. From what I have heard, it is a great way to meet people and a constant party. Your choice has to come from what type of trip you want to do.
Where to Recharge
My friends and I decided to camp for the majority of the trip in order to save money, but staying in hostels is also an option. What saved us was an app called CamperMate, where you can see campsites and hostels throughout New Zealand based on prices, reviews, etc. The app is also helpful when looking for public showers and bathrooms, grocery stores, ATMs, WiFi spots, and much more. What is amazing about this app is that it is completely free and it can be downloaded for offline access, something critical since NZ has terrible WiFi and mobile service. I also recommend downloading offline maps from Google Maps because it allows you to navigate anywhere as well as search for gas stations and grocery stores, something that you have to be aware of. Many nights we were able to find free campsites on CamperMate, and we would have been absolutely lost without it.
Meal Prepping and Eating Out
As hinted at above, if you are going to buy your meals at the grocery store, you have to plan your shopping days around the time that you will pass one of the big supermarkets: New World or Countdown. These are generally bigger and cheaper than the Four Square supermarket, which is throughout most of the country. Since we were on a student budget, we bought food at the supermarket for a couple of days at a time. We ended up eating lots of fruits, vegetables, and canned food because we did not have a cooler to store food or a burner to cook things. Whenever we were at a campsite with a kitchen, we took advantage of that to have a warm meal. Although it is great to save money, we also ate out a couple of days to treat ourselves and to try the divine culinary experience that NZ provides. Every restaurant we ate at was incredible, and if you like lamb, be sure to try it while traveling in New Zealand because that is what they are known for.
North vs South Island
People say that if you only have time to go to one of the two islands in the land of the kiwi people, then the South Island is the place to go. Personally, I loved both but was pleasantly surprised by the North Island. I think a reason as to why I might have liked the North Island a bit more is because the weather was perfect while we were there, whereas in the South Island we had a lot of cold and rainy days, which even impeded us from doing some activities we had planned like a helicopter glacier hike and skydiving. I went in February, which is summertime in NZ, but still faced some very cold days. With that being said, anywhere you go will be incredible. One of the things that stood out to me throughout the trip is that no matter the day, the time, or the location, we always ate with a view. I cannot remember a single day where we were not sitting by an amazing landscape while enjoying our food.
Check out the rough map of the route I did with my friends, starting out in Auckland. The spot in the south of the North Island (not Wellington) is not a common tourist destination but we went there to visit my family friends. While I headed to Christchurch to come back to Melbourne, my friends headed further south to the visit Milford and Doubtful Sounds. If you are ever even remotely close to New Zealand, it is completely worth it to stop by for a visit to the land of the kiwis.
