Because one of the kids has been wanting for years to experience a motorhome adventure, we decided to do this for their 12th birthday.
The campervan experience seemed like something everyone does in New Zealand, and a new adventure to us, so we decided to go for it. The infrastructure is very developed in NZ for campervan rentals and they make things smooth and easy. Because it’s winter in NZ, renting the RV was no issue at all, plenty of availability. I can see in their summer it must get very busy, the infrastructure is definitely set up to handle a heck of a lot more people than what we ran into in the middle of winter.
I was daunted by being in such an enormous vehicle. On the wrong side of the road. But I didn’t have to drive, luckily, Jem enjoys driving and likes driving new types of vehicles.
Because it was winter, it was cold-ish and rainy-ish, in so far as we stuck to Northland (north part of north island). Thankfully most of New Zealand is temperate. The North Island rarely gets below 40. Most days it was 50s for the high, with one or two days reaching 60! Nice enough with a sweater. The South Island has some ski/snow destinations. We stayed way away from those.
By the time we got to the Bay of Islands, it was almost warm. Certainly beautiful.
Travel tip: buy full “stress free plus” insurance coverage. Normally we decline all the insurance offered by car rentals but with such limited experience with RVs, I thought, I did not want to worry about accidentally hitting the roof, or something in a blind spot, so I decided to just pay it. And thank goodness. We had a rock hit the windshield, and chip it, and it was all covered.
Super easy. Credit card rental car insurance doesn’t cover RV rentals and a million things can go wrong with such an enormous car; having the coverage was worth every dime.
So, besides the enormity of the vehicle, and driving on the wrong side, and the wind storms, and the chipped windshield, and the unexpected road that becomes unpaved midway through the curvy mountains on the way to the campground, was the fact that I never knew what to call this vehicle. Campervan is the main term, but they also refer to them as RVs (more common in the US) but motorhome is used too. One thing we did learn — it is not a caravan. A caravan means a trailer camper/fifth wheel being pulled by a car. We had seen one campground saying “not suitable for caravans.” But then said perfect for campervans. So, I figured, those had to be different. I finally learned the difference at one of the campgrounds when a New Zealander asked me at the campground if we were in a caravan. Thinking he meant campervan, I said yes. Then he said, “oh that is nice. You have a car you can detach and drive around.” Ah. No, it’s not a caravan.
Overall, we really liked the van life and now are considering doing this back home too!
