Traveling to one of the world’s most expensive destinations on a budget

Roy’s Peak in Wanaka, NZ

Two Weeks in New Zealand

During the time that we’ve lived down under in Sydney, a bucket list trip of ours was to take a road trip around New Zealand. Rolling green hills, impressive mountain peaks, incredible scenery and an endless amount of outdoor activities meant this place was one of our most anticipated trips. So before we leave Australia later this year, we went on a 16-day adventure in March where we flew to Auckland on the North Island of New Zealand, and drive our way down to Queenstown on the South Island (with a boat trip in between of course). We typically only spent 1-2 nights in each destination before heading onto the next one, but the scenery during each drive was incredible and made it much easier to have to spend a few hours in the car every few days.

where we started (north island) and finished (south island)

Along the way, we saw incredible sites, went on some unreal (and exhausting) hikes and even dabbled in some of the adventure activities that New Zealand is known for. I’m a big Lord of the Rings fan, and we even got to see many of the sets and scenery that were featured in the movies. It was an adventurous and tiring 16 days, but I wouldn’t have done it any other way.

Here’s a list of a few of my favorite things we did on our trip:

• Visit the Hobbiton movie set from Lord of the Rings
• Hike the Tongariro Alpine Crossing (Aka Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings). The peak was too windy for us to complete the whole crossing, but we were able to hike the backside of the mountain and still experience the active volcano.
• Spent a day hiking in Abel Tasman National Park
• Hiked up to Roys Peak in Wanaka
• Bungy jumping in Queenstown!

We had heard ahead of time and learned from our planning that New Zealand is an expensive place to visit, but only after the trip was over did we realize how much we would spend. I kept a careful budget and tracked our spending in order to get a better idea where our money was going, and also to provide some insight into the best ways to be budget conscious during this trip.

On the Lord of the Rings movie set in Hobbiton

Luckily, since New Zealand is so expensive but also a desirable destination for many different types of travellers, there are a lot of different options in terms of how you can travel. The types of accommodation you can stay in, transportation, food and even tours/activities all cater to travellers from different financial levels. So don’t think that because you can’t travel in luxury that you can’t visit New Zealand, because that actually couldn’t be further from the truth.

Our Style of Travel

Throughout this trip, our goal was to maximize the value and enjoyment of everything we did. That meant that sometimes we spent a bit more money so that we could enjoy an experience more, but then other times we cut costs in order to get more value and save a few bucks even if it meant sacrificing comfort a bit or not getting to “fully experience” a destination. One example of this is when we chose to hike up to view the front of the famous Franz Josef Glacier instead of taking the highly recommended helicopter flight for $300.

Enjoying the view of Mt. Cook at Lake Matheson

In my opinion, if you always choose the cheapest option when travelling, whether it be for flights, accommodation or restaurants then you will probably get what you pay for. You will get to travel to your destination, but there is a good chance that your experience will be ruined by a dirty bed, gross food or battling large crowds, just so that you could save a few dollars. It’s probably not worth it….

On the other hand, if you insist on only travelling in luxury, then you will likely be paying way too much just to enjoy some trivial comforts. You also will likely miss out on half the fun of travel, which is interacting with the local culture and getting to understand a different way of living, instead of just hanging out at the local Marriott. Also not advisable….

There is a delicate balance between the two, which I do my best to find wherever I go.

So for this trip to New Zealand, here were a few things we did differently in order to fully experience New Zealand while also being budget conscious:

• We stayed in backpacker or shared airbnb accommodation every night. We either had a private room in a backpacker hostel, or we rented a room in someone’s house through AirBnb. Hotels would cost $100-200 a night for a basic motel, but we got our rooms for $40-80 per night. We had some incredible hosts and met some very interesting people in the hostels. If you want to know more, ask me about the Latvian coffee lady….
• We drove a tiny compact car instead of a larger sedan or SUV. New Zealand has very good roads despite the rural and mountainous conditions. During the warmer months, it’s completely unnecessary to have a larger car if you don’t need the extra space.
• For food, we shopped at local grocery stores and farmers markets and stocked up on snacks and meals that could travel with us in the car. Think beef jerky, hard boiled eggs, fresh fruits and vegetables, peanut butter, etc. For dinner, we would find a casual restaurant, but during the day we stuck with store bought food. This was also a much healthier option than stopping for fast food, which I refuse to do while travelling.
• We also took advantage of free activities. Nature is (almost) always free, and given that almost everything to see in New Zealand is outside we took advantage of that and spent most of our days going on hikes or walked around exploring the new towns we stayed in.

Kayaking Milford Sound. One of the few activities we paid for.

How Much We Spent

So let’s get to how much it actually costs to travel through New Zealand for 16 days. These figures are the costs for 2 people and are in USD:

• Flights – $375/each. These are pretty cheap because we only had a 3.5 hour flight from Sydney. Coming from any other country will undoubtedly be more expensive.

• Accommodation – $675 for 16 nights. This is actually cheaper than our rent in Sydney….

• Activities – $750 for bungy jumping, Hobbiton movie set tour, Milford Sound kayaking, boat taxi into Abel Tasman National Park and interislander ferry (north to south island). Though we mostly stuck to free activities, we gave ourselves a budget to do a few of the AWESOME paid activities there are. Each one of these was completely worth the cost.

• Transportation – $800 for rental car and $275 for gas. We did go with Budget Rental Car instead of a cheaper offering, however, we were spending a lot of time in the car and had to change cars between islands, and I didn’t want to risk bad service or roadside assistance with a cheaper service.

• Food – About $1,000 between grocery stores and going out to eat. This is a bit of a rough estimate since there were so many transactions to add up. But it really wasn’t too bad considering we went out to dinner every night. We also skipped breakfast, and stuck with our store bought food during the day.

Lauren bungy jumping in Queenstown. I did the same jump but didn’t get the overpriced photos since it was my third time 😉