Visiting New Zealand Without Travel Agency.

How is it possible to claim to be an expert of New Zealand without having set a foot in the country for years, or never? Which customer is going to choose a stay in a paper catalog in the era of the Internet?

With travel agencies, travelers seem condemned to reproduce itineraries that thousands of people have followed before them.

Today, the work of a travel agent is often limited to bookings of hotel rooms. A task that every traveler can do cheaply and all alone, by booking directly online!

This is probably why so many travel agents are shutting down their agency, one after another.

The decision to organize your trip to New Zealand by yourself brings many benefits. The savings are considerable, with a budget lowered from 15 to 30% if not more.

The money saved can stay on your bank account or be used wisely to add original activities to your itinerary, travel in first class or even extend the duration of your stay in New Zealand.

But the main benefit is not financial, and concerns the very essence of travel. If you plan your itinerary by following the advice of Kiwipal, you will realize a tailor-made trip, a truly off-track experience, far superior to any travel agency's deal.

Kiwipal is a group of experts passionate about New Zealand. We are not here to sell you anything or to promote destinations that we do not know. We are New Zealand First!

We have conceived a hundred guides exclusively dedicated to New Zealand that focus on all the practical aspects of a stay, while presenting the absolute must-do of the country.

Kiwipal is recognized “100% Pure New Zealand Specialist” by the Office of Tourism of New Zealand.

Our mission is to help you to book your trip without intermediary, to spare yourself the travel agency fees and allow you to discover the country we love the most in the world.

And because Kiwipal is not a travel agency, we only provide free services and we are fully independent. Our advices are not meant to please everyone, we can say what we truly think of any kind of activity in New Zealand.

In addition to providing practical guides and detailed itineraries, we are close to the community of Working Holiday travelers whom we support on our Facebook and Twitter pages.

If you become your own travel agent, you can save a great deal of money, but you can also adjust your route to the last minute if you change your mind. This last argument all alone should be enough to motivate you.

Booking a stay in New Zealand is similar to the booking of any ordinary weekend abroad, even if you must book more hotel rooms or a motorhome. But in the Internet era, it no longer presents any difficulties.

To begin, you must first consider our itineraries and read our practical guidesto define what you want to visit. Kiwipal presents all the essential steps of a stay in New Zealand, but you are not obliged to follow our suggestions to the letter.

Feel free to add or remove the itinerary steps according to your desires, and ask us questions if you need help. Take your time and your trip will be far superior to the old-school ones' from the travel agencies.

Booking a stay of several weeks is the matter of a few evenings or a good weekend. But this is neither a sprint or a chore, and you can take your time if you don't wait until the last minute to organize yourself.

Seems like a long to-do list at first sight, but everything can be done very fast because you can book the entire stay by the Internet without passing a single phone-call.

Read this guide and our advice, and you'll be ready to organize your stay without a travel agency and you'll save money. You do not even need to buy a paper guide as formerly because Kiwipal covers any topics for free.

If you have questions about the procedure, please contact Kiwipal. Because even if we are not here to book the trip at your place, we can give you useful suggestions.

The latitude of New Zealand might let you fear a glacial climate, but this is actually a temperate and even subtropical climate that awaits you in the country. Winters are mild and summers are pleasant without heat waves.

To help you choose your dates of stay, here is a correspondence table of the seasons in Europe and New Zealand.

Kiwipal provides two complete guides devoted to the seasons and the very special climate of New Zealand. Considering that the choice of activities is strongly tied to the weather, I also suggest you read our article about the activities in New Zealand.

Then comes the question of the length of stay! We do not all have the means to visit New Zealand as long as we would like.

This is a question you should discuss with your family and with your potential employer, because it is not always easy to take several weeks of vacation without interruption.

If you live in New Caledonia, you might consider a short stay of a single week, dedicated to exploring one island of New Zealand.

But if you live in Europe or elsewhere in the world, we recommend at least two weeks to discover the country, even if three or four weeks would be preferable.

Nevertheless, whatever the length of stay, you will be enchanted by the beautiful scenery. You must accept the idea that it is impossible to see everything in only one visit, and if you fall in love with the country, a second trip is possible.

New Zealand has an excellent road network, but the relief carved by volcanoes and mountains do not facilitate the conception of itineraries. This why Kiwipal provides great itinerary that you can easily customize.

Our itineraries by car or motorhome are calibrated to an average of 200 km of driving per day. They allow to visit the country at a reasonable pace, but nothing prevents you to extend or reduce a particular step.

The itinerary is not carved in stone (especially if you travel with a camper van), and you can change your mind later, and even on location in certain extent. Once travel dates set, you can immediately start to book the different services. Far from being tedious, this part of the organization of the stay is quite fun.

Kiwipal places at your disposal a comparator for plane tickets without any advertising which and based on Google Flight. You will easily find the cheapest price without having to search for dozens of air companies' websites.

If you book several months in advance, a round-trip flight to New Zealand costs between $1850 and $2300 per passenger, with a reduction of $150 on average per child.

Buying your plane tickets at the last minute would expose you to pay more, but especially not to find seats for the best flights like those from Singapore Airlines.

The booking in itself takes only a few minutes, but you will probably spend more time comparing the schedules and the possible stopovers before making your final choice.

There are many airlines offering flights to New Zealand with different quality of services, but we have compared all of them in a dedicated airlines guide on Kiwipal.

Before starting the transaction on the website of the airline of your choice, make sure that the payment limit of your credit card is high enough!

If it is not the case, just make a phone call to your bank (the counselors are generally available in the evening) to temporarily raise the ceiling of your credit card.

Once your plane tickets booked, you can pass to the next step and rent a vehicle for your trip in New Zealand.

The major rental companies like Europcar, Avis or Hertz monopolize the top positions in Google search results. However, one must be aware that there are many local companies in New Zealand which are excellent and even cheaper!

To allow you to more easily find an affordable deal without sacrificing comfort and safety, Kiwipal gives you access to a free comparator which lists almost every quality vehicle that you can rent in New Zealand.

This search engine offered in partnership with Online Republic is usually used by companies (including Air New Zealand), but we made it accessible to individuals like you. You can book a vehicle with the guarantee of the lowest market price. You retain the ability to cancel without charge most bookings and you can join a hotline service by email or phone.

Your trip will be radically different depending on whether you opt for a self-drive tour by car with hotel nights or a stay in a camper van with stops in campsites of national parks. Once you have found the vehicle model appropriate, it takes a few minutes to complete the reservation by the internet.

With Kiwipal you book directly with a New Zealander company that will take care of the rental from the beginning to the end.

Kiwipal does not intervene during the booking process and our team is not aware of your bank information (we will never know your credit card number for example), which ensures a maximum safety. Even if you have never rented a vehicle in your life, you realize real savings because you book directly with a rental company in New Zealand!

If traveling by car, you have the ability to change rental from one island to another, but I advise you to embark your vehicle on the ferry to save time and simplify the organization of your trip. And if you are traveling by camping car, the question does not need to be asked, and your vehicle will cross the Cook Strait with you.

Booking the Interislander ferry on the Internet is as easy as a train booking.

For your convenience, our rental comparator gives you the opportunity to book the ferry while booking the vehicle, but you are free to book separately if you find a promotion on the Internet.

To go from one island to another, save time or just go back to your starting point before returning to your country, you can take a domestic flight. Air New Zealand, the national airline provides an excellent service, but the “low cost” company Jetstar will do just fine for half the price! anyway, the trips are too short for you to suffer from a potential lack of comfort.

Booking a domestic flight is similar to the booking you made to come to New Zealand. You just need to visit the airline site of your choice to fill in dates and select the flight you want to book. You can find an estimate of prices, and more information about domestic flights in our airlines guide on Kiwipal.

A self-drive tour by car is usually associated with the booking of hotels, motels and beds and breakfasts, while the campervan is to be parked on free or paid campgrounds to plug the vehicle to a power supply or to use a dump station.

If there is one domain where you should book without a travel agency, this is the hotel booking for sure. It is better to rely on the rating given by a reservation website like booking.com which lists the verified opinions of thousands of travelers!

The number of bookings may seem important at first sight, but you will often stay two consecutive nights at the same place. The whole booking process can be done in few evenings when you give yourselves the time to compare the hotel rooms. When you book an hotel by yourself, the result is, of course, far better than when a complete stranger does it for you.

If you-have already booked a hotel room on the Internet, you already know the procedure is strictly qui identiques for New Zealand.

Kiwipal recommends booking with his partner booking.com to gain advantages that most travel agencies cannot offer.

In fact, booking.com offers free cancellation for most bookings up to 24 hours in advance. This allows you to change your route without charge in New Zealand if the weather turns bad. You just have to book another room before cancelling the previous booking and you will escape the rain.

It takes only few minutes to book without advancing any money because you will pay only at the hotel. No need to wait for a refund if you cancel because your account was not debited in the vast majority of cases! For more informations, I recommend reading our practical guide about hotel booking which details the process on booking.com and gives some tips to pay even less.

Those who have never rented a motorhome often believe that they can park the vehicle wherever they want in the country. Unfortunately, parking is regulated in New Zealand and you must only use authorized camp grounds under penalty of fine.

Fortunately, all campsites in New Zealand are not charged, and you can park in the free campsites of Department of Conservation (DOC) which manages the National parks. However, the paying campsites which are essential to recharge your vehicle batteries (and enjoy hot showers) should be booked in advance if you plan to travel during the high season.

Our camping search engine allows you to book specific locations or to purchase coupons valid in a vast network of campsites scattered throughout the country.

You should also be aware that other original solutions exist. It is possible for example to park your camper van in farms or vineyards. You will spend the night in a relaxing environment while tasting regional products.

If you don't ask for help to a travel agent to book museum tickets, why should you pay someone to book your Sky Tower's visit in Auckland? It only takes two minutes to book online, why should anyone pay more for something so easy to do all alone?

There also are many free activities in the country, like thegreat hikes. Travel agents tend to only recommend paying activities to earn money in commission. If you don't book by yourself, you may miss the promotions and you will lose money.

Because there are websites like the famous bookme.co.nz that list the rebates and special offers! Sometimes it is even better not to book early to be able to get the last-minute discounts.

I will not dwell on the subject, but be aware that Kiwipal offers a comprehensive guide full of advice to get promotions on many activities in New Zealand. And to get more information, we also offer twenty guides dedicated to any kind of activity.

Hiking, biking, diving, paragliding, bungee jumping ... everything is possible in New Zealand as long as you have a good travel insurance to cover yourself in case of accident.

You can purchase travel insurance until the day before your departure to New Zealand. However, the cancellation options must always be subscribed within 48 hours after the purchase of your stay. That's why I recommended purchasing the insurance immediately after finalizing the booking of the trip.

To help you choose, Kiwipal offers a full guide about travel insurances.

Presented without jargon, it clearly explains the risks and tells you why your credit card's insurance is unfortunately insufficient for a stay in New Zealand.

In practice, the purchase of an online insurance like Chapka is the matter of a few minutes. However, I advise you to pay attention to the conditions of sales to ensure they fit your needs and your profile.

Travel agents often charge the time they spent to organize a trip for you. However, you have everything to gain by no longer using their services, especially if you want to make a tailor-made trip to New Zealand.

The reservation steps are not complicated, and by sharing tasks between your spouse or your friends, you can book an entire trip in a week-end. In reality, the more you get involved in your trip, the more it will be successful.

Because if you want to save money, extend your stay in New Zealand, or make it simply possible, there is no secret! You must remove an intermediary who weighs too much in the balance, and book directly with cheaper local companies.

Kiwipal helps thousands of travelers each year. If you need help, you can contact our friend Ben the Kiwi whose section below is very useful. If you still want to use the service of an agency after reading this article, I suggest you contact us to talk about your trip, and we will help you to find the most appropriate help. Good trip in New Zealand!