I just had a few thoughts to add about my NZ trip and I didn’t want to go back and edit my previous posts so here’s an addendum post where I would add all my miscellaneous thoughts about the trip and other stuff I had learnt about DIY trips and NZ as almost a complete newbie to DIY traveling. And instead of reading through my rambling, I thought it might be beneficial to organise this post in a Q&A format.
Is New Zealand’s customs declaration especially strict? Especially since it has requirements about medication?
I live in Australia so I find New Zealand’s customs declaration pretty much similar to Australia’s in that the primary concern is protection of local flora and fauna so that it guards against soil, plant material and meat produce basically. The only difference is that New Zealand requires you to declare medication over the dosage of 30 days and prescription medicine not in your name. At first, Mum and me went into a bit of fuss about it. She had read heaps of Taiwanese backpacker blog posts about New Zealand that got her worried and she didn’t want to bring this really effective Japanese herbal cure for digestive conditions that I suggested we bring along because we decided we would have plenty of seafood at New Zealand. In the end, she changed her mind. We bought a new bottle of the digestive medication because online it said they wanted medication in original packing and I wasn’t 100% sure that meant an unopened pack but to err on the side of caution we decided to interpret it that way.
The actual experience at customs? It was a breeze (but make sure you go overcautious with declaring, you always want to over-declare as opposed to under). You basically pass through two counters: the first counter to check food and other stuff on the passenger card and then a second one for medication. At the second counter, we just got out all our medications for customs to check. No questions were asked after an eyeball inspection and we were waved through.
How do you look for cheap flights?
I use BudgetAir.com.au to look for flights I’m interested in (in my case it’s not price) and book direct with the airline. I actually booked through BudgetAir.com.au on my first DIY trip to Tasmania and that was okay in the sense of the transaction being smooth but of course they charged me about $10-20 for selecting adjacent seats which would have been an unnecessary expense if I booked direct with Qantas. So basically I’ve used it as a search engine and then booked direct with airlines after that. Apparently that’s the way to go with these websites as I now learnt through Google search.
What are your recommendations in terms of website for booking hotels?
I personally use Booking.com. I’ve used it for two trips so far (Launceston, Tasmania and New Zealand) and haven’t tried other sites because I was happy with it. I’ve found it easy to use- you can set your own custom budget for the highest for one night you are willing to pay. You can also set various filters to trim down on accommodation candidates (although somehow the filters on the mobile version somehow worked better than the PC version where I preferred to finalise my transactions because I never engaged in phone banking). I personally always tick the free cancellation filter and no prepayment if that’s available and also watch out if it says non-refundable before you finalise the reservation in which case I would pick a different hotel. At any rate, I ran a quick Google search on hotel reservation sites and Booking.com does seem to rank high in terms of ease of use/search compared to similar sites.
On the other hand, I suspect Booking.com of a couple of insidious tricks. To be honest, I was wary of it from first contact where on more than one occasion I tried to book a room and then Booking.com would say that was the last on the premise and it was no longer available and I had to get a slightly more expensive one at that hotel instead (that was my first DIY trip and I kept changing my minds. Also, at first I didn’t want the site to save my card details but once I allowed it to save my card details, this trick seemed to have gone away). Also, recently it gave me the impression that accommodations were pretty much fully booked around Rome and Florence towards the end of April next year but just today after I had already decided to change the trip start to May and already booked other accommodation (yes, it made me reserve my accommodation in Italy almost a year in advance!) I checked back into Booking.com and there were heaps of rooms available for this property that I had wanted to book for the end of April. Then there’s one final trick: always book in the local currency. For next year, I’m planning a Italy, Switzerland and France trip. And I accidentally locked in two Italian hotels using Swiss Franc and guess what, Booking.com took $4 Euro off me just for that for one of the hotels (I found out because I booked way in advance and of course that meant my itinerary changed so I shifted the dates I booked the hotels for by one day effectively. Of course, in that process I straightened the kink with currency. That saved me $4 Euro for one hotel and for the other one, I think I had to go with a higher price due to shifting dates but it actually saved me more than $10 Euro via getting rid of Booking.com essentially charging me for currency conversion at who knows what rate). Also, I recently found out that there is actually an option to set currency at “property currency” which means I will never have a repeat of this again.
Also potentially noteworthy is that on both trips I’ve personally verified with the properties that my Booking.com reservation has indeed made it through to their system. On both occasions that has checked out for me but I had read a Booking.com review where someone said it fell through for them at a motel where they didn’t have good Internet connections or something. So satisfactory performance so far and I intend to keep on using it if only because I’m slow to learn website navigation and I’ve already learnt enough to use Booking.com proficiently.
Do you have any recommendations for budget accommodations?
Actually, I do. In Auckland there is Lylo Auckland which offers pod rooms and shared accommodations as well as normal hotel rooms. I think the lowest was something like $50 a night or so it was advertised. Then there is the JUCY Snooze around various cities in New Zealand- while I might not like it for the reasons I cited in the week 2 post, if you are of a more easygoing nature, you might find it a good fit. Again, the price I cited was for a hotel-type room with a private bathroom but there are cheaper rates if you pick more of a YMCA-type of accommodation at the premise. In Christchurch, like I mentioned, there are heaps of motels along Bealy Avenue in the suburb of Merivale located just outside the CBD. For closer proximity to the CBD, pick a 1xx or 2xx Bealy Avenue as opposed to a smaller number, I think Hotel Carlton Mill was a 19 Bealy Avenue or something like that.
Is international roaming an absolutely necessary expense?
From personal experience, not at all. In fact, I skipped out on opening international roaming entirely on the trip. Having free wifi at hotels was entirely sufficient to my needs. While I almost exclusively relied on day trips to get by without a car, all these electronic tickets at Viator and GetYourGuide were completely redundant. Whenever I got picked up from hotels, all they had to do was cross-check that my name was on their pick-up list and I didn’t have to show any other validation.
Do I have to have a detailed itinerary planned before hand for a NZ trip?
Actually, no. I booked most of my day tours through Viator (which I prefer over GetYourGuide) before hand but New Zealand is known for tiki tours- a term they coined for completely unplanned tours. So what you can do instead of using websites to pre-book day tours, you can just take a trip into I-Sites, which have the “big I” icon in front of them (you know, the sign for Information). I think they are basically travel agents that can book tours within a couple days for you. You probably won’t be able to join any small tours like I mostly went on but if you don’t want the hassle of lots of research and trip planning then consider this as an alternative.
What are the tours that you would have done differently?
Firstly, while one would expect that nowadays booking online would have been cheaper, I think the Auckland Explorer bus tour that I booked via Viator turned out to be more expensive than necessary. On the day we went on the tour, there was a group of 3 tourists who bought a 2-day pass on the spot and I think it was $40 per person. In contrast, I bought a 1-day pass for Mum and me that was something like $95AUD (I selected to pay in local currency which I later learnt was a mistake).
I originally booked a combo package for the hop-on hop-off Christchurch tram ride plus Avon river punt but if you read my week 2 post, you knew that was ‘forcefully cancelled’ on me via fog that detoured me to Wellington instead on the day. And to be honest, I was never enthusiastic about the tram ride in the first place because it reminds me of our City Circle trams in Melbourne which is entirely free but being the slacker I am in terms of walking, I envisaged using the trams instead of walking. Then the Avon punt was just one of these ‘must-do’ activities but I already described how I think the walk along the river we ended up taking was much better.
Anything to add or amend about previous posts?
I said SkyCity Hotel Queen beds were shorter than standard issue but now I think that might not have been the case (when we first saw the bed, I thought it was shorter but wider than a standard Queen. Mum said it is definitely shorter but not wider; she suggested the impression of wider was due to it being shorter. But since then she became convinced that our own bed was definitely narrower than that at the SkyCity Hotel. So just want to amend that here. I mean, they did say they were 4 star luxurious and I feel like they are hitting that overall so don’t want to put down a negative point that might not have been true in the first place.
What are some other references you recommend for planning your own DIY New Zealand trip?
10 days in South Island of New Zealand without a car: https://www.mywanderlust.pl/10-days-new-zealand-itinerary/
Specific things to do at various locations near Queenstown: https://myqueenstowndiary.com/
There was another link listing all the tourist attractions in New Zealand that I could not find again but there I found a reference to Lake Matheson which was certainly one of the highlights of our New Zealand trip. At any rate, you all have your own preferences so I would encourage you to Google a list of New Zealand attractions and places to visit at any rate so you can customise your trip to your own taste.
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