My trip destination was North Island, New Zealand.
Photo source: <http://www.newzealandsightseeing.co.nz/nzmap.asp>
My trip to North Island was awesome~ It was not only amazing but a brand new experience. It was my very first trip away from home which I am NOT FAMILIAR with and going along with a group of friends. If you are a SHOPAHOLIC and expected to have a lot of shopping around, this may not be the place you want to be. New Zealand is one of the countries that has a lot of scenery. It is suitable for people who are adventurous. You would find a lot of places that give a lot of cheap accommodations and car rental prices. With that, it is obvious that I'm going to share the experience of how my friends and I have prepared ourselves for the trip. In this post, I will include some of the budgeting and pricing and some of the useful websites.
Prior to your trip, you will always need to make bookings for your flight, (which is a definite thing!), place to stay, and transportation during the tour. My friends and I have got a lot of deals from websites that will be posted up later. We have saved up plenty of money~ This is always the best thing to know when it comes to saving up money. Yay~!
First of all, I was in charge of renting a car for our trip. However, it all depends on how you are going to plan for your trip, whether you want to drive by yourself or using public transport. From town to town, there are two different websites that I know would have buses going from one town to another. The two websites are Naked Bus and Intercity Bus. In these two websites, they also offer other deals such as cruises and more for lower price, that is when you booked a bus ticket with them. I bought a Dolphin and Whale cruise, which saved up NZ$30++, as compared to the original price. This trip is not included in the trip with my friends as I were staying longer as compared to my other friends.
Due to amount of people that we have (7 of us), we decided to rent a 7 seata car, which is much more convenient. Another issue that we decided to rent a car is that our timetable was very packed. We need a lift during early morning even before dawn. So there's no other reason not renting a car. We rented our car from Jucy Rental NZ. Google it and you'll find it. =D The reviews with Jucy are pretty good, so we decided to get a car rented from them. Things you'll need to make sure is that always check your credit card account, just in case they mis-charge you for fuel. I got that, but they got back to us pretty fast after my friend called them. Overall, I am satisfied with their customer service although I can't get through every time I called.
Next thing would be Accommodation. My brother recommended these two websites: <http://www.travelbug.co.nz> and <http://www.bbh.org.nz>. Checkout for more options with your budgeted price, and again Google for reviews and photos before you're booking it. That will always be good to check before deciding, otherwise you'll got scam as they get your credit card details etc. However, the most important thing before you're actually placing any booking is that you'll need to have your trip PRE-PLANNED. Otherwise, you won't know where will you be at the time. Last minute prices are always very scary.
I will stop here for the moment. Will continue with the planning of my trip with the itinerary on.
Cheers~
