See the country with family for $5
Five dollars doesn’t buy you much in 2019. A bag of sausages, a medium-size latte or about 30 seconds’ parking in central Auckland. So, could $5 really help tick off a bucket-list dream: driving New Zealand in a luxury campervan.
Normally renting a camper is substantially more expensive – a quick search for a six-berth in October found the cheapest is $170 a day.
Or, you could use a little trick – and do it for a mere $5. And even get a free interisland crossing. So how does it work?
Most campervan tourists who arrive in New Zealand, do so in Auckland. There, they pick up their campers and make their way down country – often ending their trip in Christchurch or Queenstown.
So the camper companies have a problem: they need to get their cars back up to Auckland. That’s where you and I come in.
To save paying a driver to do it, they offer heavily discounted deals – sometimes even free. They’re called relocation rentals, and they often include the ferry crossing and sometimes even a tank of gas.
But there is, of course, a catch. You need to do the entire trip (from Queenstown or Christchurch to Auckland) in four to five days. You can buy extra days, but it’s going to cost you. So, we decided to test out the $5 campervan holiday with four other family members, and here’s how it unfolded.
We arrived at the Christchurch depot where dozens of the shiny-white fun buses where lined up, ready for their next adventure.
Our six-berth Mercedes camper was like a luxury apartment: complete with linen, a shower, toilet, three double beds and two dining tables.
First stop: taking a look around Christchurch. As someone who lived in the city before the quakes, it always breaks my heart how little progress I see each time I visit.
A few hours up the coast in Kaiko¯ ura, we pulled over for lunch. The wildlife there is as good as its reputation: we had three pods of dolphins somersaulting out in front while we chowed down our sandwiches. The seal colony north of the township, along State Highway 1, is also worth a visit.
Now, we’re pretty green when it comes to campervan life. We assumed we’d just park up somewhere nice, and turn everything – like the jug – on for a nice cup of coffee.
Wrong. It needs 240-volt power and, for that, you need to be plugged into the grid. That means a relatively expensive visit to a campervan park, sometimes more than $100 a night for five people.
After the ferry crossing (in our case the vehicle and driver were already paid, we just had to cover the extra passengers) we parked up in the Cuba St caravan park – in Central Wellington – for just $29 a night, including power. There are more hipsters there per square metre than anywhere in the country, and that’s a tourist attraction in itself.
From Wellington, we drove a big stretch to Waikite Thermal Pools campground just outside Rotorua, stopping on the desert road to have lunch overlooking snowcapped Mt Ruapehu. The best part about Waikite is campers get the hot springs to themselves after it shuts to the public.
Next day, exploring the geothermal wonderland that is Rotorua was the highlight – especially having a family challenge on the luge. It’s the most fun you can have on four wheels.
Our final night was out at the beautiful DOC camp at Lake Okaa¯ reka – well, that was the plan until the toilet overflowed. They don’t put emergency trips to a dump station in the brochures. By the time we’d watched video tutorials on how to remove everything, it was so late we just stayed in a parking lot.
A short hop to Auckland next day ended our trip, and we’d managed to tick off a fair few bucketlist items for a member of the family who is new to the country: Kaiko¯ ura, Picton, the Cook Strait crossing, Wellington and Rotorua – all in five days.
While it’s $5 a day to rent, there are extra costs. We spent $165 on diesel, $80 on Road User Charges (calculated when you return the vehicle, and $184 on camping grounds. So total costs, excluding activities, meals and one-way airfares: $454 for five. Imoova and Transfer Car are the two main companies that handle relocations. It’s a little like a lottery – getting the right car and right date – so you need to be flexible. Make sure to book some activities, like hot springs and the luge to break up the drive. Also, reserve extra nights with the camper.
Prices range from $100 to $150 a night, but it really helps to have more days to break up the drive. See: imoova.com or transfercar.co.nz. 8/10. If you’ve always wanted to do a family road trip, and can keep yourself entertained on a long drive, this is a must.
The author paid their own way, although was hosted by The Skyline Luge in Rotorua.