Are you looking to create your perfect NZ travel adventure? To help make your New Zealand trip planning easier and your travel perfectly suited to your needs and lifestyle, we have asked for advice from a local expert.
Looking at it on a map, New Zealand, a tiny speck in the South Pacific, looks like an easy place to plan a trip to. Nothing could be further from the truth! This island nation packs an incredible amount of diversity, both natural and cultural, in such little space.
From lush rainforest to soaring alpine peaks, you’ll discover a country packed with vibrant urban centres, fascinating indigenous culture, unlimited options for outdoor adventure, and world-class sites and accommodations catering to every taste and travel style.
With so much to see and do, New Zealand trip planning can be incredibly exciting. It can also be seriously overwhelming.
Because of the distance that many travellers have to cover to get here and the associated cost, a New Zealand trip really is often once in a lifetime. So, you’d better get it right!
New Zealand trip planning
While there are countless travel planning resources out there to help you navigate your way, it’s hard to know how good the information is or if you can really trust it. Moreover, what worked for someone else might not be the right fit for you.
Guidebooks are dated practically the minute they’re printed. Travel agents based thousands of miles away don’t specialize in or really know New Zealand.
So, to make sure your New Zealand adventure is one of a kind and perfectly tailored to you, what can you do? Go Ask A Local!
Meet your New Zealand trip planning expert
Veronika is a Taupo-based trip designer. She previously spent over a decade exploring every corner of New Zealand as a countrywide guide. She’s now spent the last ten years running a small, boutique travel agency that specializes in guided tours and self-drive trips that hit the highlights while making time for local secrets and off-the-beaten-path places.
She focuses on helping travellers plan trips that balance time on the road, opportunities to get out into New Zealand’s pristine wilderness, immersive cultural experiences, and downtime for leisure and relaxation.
Get expert advice and pro tips from the people who know their country best
Go Ask A Local is a new travel platform that connects travellers with in-destination local experts around the world for one-on-one trip planning sessions.
When we want the best advice on what to see and do in a new place, who do we ask? The locals! Even better if that local is a 20-year veteran tour guide and travel planner.
And lucky for you, that’s exactly who you’ll meet when you connect with Veronika. She’s Go Ask A Local’s local expert for New Zealand.
Your New Zealand trip planning session
During a trip planning session with Veronika, you’ll sit down with her to spend an hour:
- Tapping into her hyper-local expertise and getting expert advice on your plan.
- She’ll review your itinerary in detail, making revisions and sharing tips and tricks to improve it.
- She’ll answer all your travel questions.
- And she will share local secrets and recommendations on everything from the best tour operators and activities to truly unique experiences and hidden gems.
Before your session
At Go Ask A Local we know that every traveller is unique, and every trip should be too. To ensure that the experience is as personalized as possible, you’ll first complete a detailed travel questionnaire that digs into you and your interests, the type of trip you’re looking for, your travel style, your budget, and much more.
Prior to your session, Veronika will read through your questionnaire and prepare information and advice that is tailor-made for you.
More on a New Zealand trip planning session
Maybe you’ve got 12 days in New Zealand and are wondering how long to spend on the North Island and how many days on the South. Should you stay in Queenstown or is there somewhere else that’s more your vibe?
It’s peak season, and you want to get away from the crowds and have an authentic experience: where to go?
How about travelling with kids and trying to figure out a plan that will be right for the whole family? And with so much to see and so few days, how the heck do you maximize your time? Well, ask Veronika!
Final thoughts …
In a travel landscape where it feels like every service is trying to upsell you and push you to buy, we do things differently. Veronika is never selling anything. You can trust that her advice is unbiased and honest because she’ll never make a profit off of anything that you decide to do or book.
She doesn’t make bookings for you; rather, she’ll give you all the information you need to arrange everything independently and confidently on your own. No sales pitches, no commissions, and no hidden fees – just honest info from your local expert.
At the end of the day, our goal is simple: help you plan a better trip that’s better for the place you’re going.
Book your session with Veronika here
Save on your NZ trip with these resources
These are our go-to companies when we travel. We believe this list to be the best in each category. You can’t go wrong using them on your trip too.
- Flights: we use Expedia for the best and cheapest flight options.
- Accommodations: we use Booking.com (hotels), Bookabach (self-contained in NZ), or Hostelworld (budget). See all our personal favourite NZ hotels here.
- Cars (gas or electric): we use RentalCars to search for deals and dealer ratings.
- Motorcycles: we have heard good things about BikesBooking.
- Campervans: Our readers prefer Jucy, and we get consistently great feedback.
- Activity discounts: we check Bookme.com for discounts of up to 70% on activities.
- Private guides: we do have a go-to when we hire a private guide from Viator.
- Travel Insurance: while not required, we always opt for travel insurance and start at InsureMyTrip to compare coverage plans.
Check out our travel resources page for more companies that we use when you travel. And don’t forget to download our free New Zealand packing list when you sign up for our newsletter.
Save for later
If you enjoyed this article, please share it on social media and save it for later on Pinterest.
Are you ready to go ask a local to assist with your New Zealand trip planning?
For more on New Zealand, start here: New Zealand Road Trips: Itineraries for North or South Island Adventures, or you might like …
Photo Credits:
All photos on this page are either shot by our team and watermarked as such or stock images from Depositphotos.
About the author
Hey there! We’re Abe and Manny, two brothers originally from the United States. We started Go Ask A Local because we wanted to help travellers get away from the mass tourism model that sends us all to the same places and treats us like we all want the same things.
With an emphasis on sustainable travel, we want to help people better experience the places they’re going, while contributing in a more meaningful way to the local people and places who make our trips so special. Go Ask A Local is our attempt to do that.
Mongolian
This place is truly amazing, as you can see in the photos. I would love to go there on vacation, and walk in such beautiful nature.
Rosey
Some trips are a lot easier than others. It’s good to know this one requires careful planning. The pictures are beautiful.
Renata Feyen
Looks like a wonderful place to visit – except for the fact that it’s so far away from Belgium
Alex+J.+Cavanaugh
And be aware everything you would see in the United States is found on two small islands. Except maybe the deserts. Do you have deserts?
Rhonda Albom
Not the deserts like in Arizona, but we have the dry desert near National Park. New Zealand also has rainforests 🙂