NEW ZEALAND
13-Days Itinerary - South Island
General Info
This section will answer the most frequently asked questions:
- When is the best period to travel to New Zealand?
- Is New Zealand worth going?
- Should I use cash or credit card?
- Will i be able to see the Southern Lights?
- Skydiving vs Bungy Jumping, which is scarier?
1. When is the best period to travel to New Zealand?
As always, the answer to this question is, it depends on what you want to experience. New Zealand has a diverse landscape, so depending on which city/town you are at, the weather varies a bit.
We travelled there during the last 2 weeks of April, which is the autumn season (March-May). The average temperature is 14°C in the day and around 4°C at night, sunrises at 7.30am and sunsets at 6pm, so there is ample daylight to travel around.
If you travel during summer (Dec-Feb), it will be the peak period, usually accommodation and car rental will be expensive.
On the other hand, if you travel during winter (June to Aug), snow activities will be available and the snowcapped mountains are more impressive.
We have to highlight that on the South Island, along the Western coast (from Jackson Bay to Westport), it has the highest precipitation throughout the year. As such, some of our activities got cancelled due to the wet and windy weather.
3. Is New Zealand worth going?
Short answer: Definitely!
We’ve travelled to Iceland and Switzerland, and we find that New Zealand is like the combination of both. In Iceland, you get to experience the raw power of nature, vast lands and grandiose waterfalls. In Switzerland, you see majestic snowcapped mountains, beautiful lakes and ski resorts. You get to experience all these in New Zealand. If Iceland and Switzerland are on both ends of the spectrum, New Zealand is right in the middle.
3. Should I use cash or credit card?
We understand that many still feel more secure with cash on hand, but most stores in NZ accept credit cards. So we would suggest having 30% of your travel expense in cash and the rest just charge to credit card.
You just have to check that your credit card does not have additional charges on top of the usual 2-3% oversea usage charge.
With that in mind, we highly recommend this Multi-currency travel card called Youtrip which charge around 0.1% vs average of 3% for normal credit card. I did the comparison and Youtrip card charge very close to the interbank exchange rate, this will actually help you save alot of money. You can download the app and track your spending on real time basis. You can also redraw cash from ATM machines. Use this link to apply for the card. Here is an interesting article on Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC).
4. Will i be able to see the Southern Lights?
Aurora occurs when the sun’s solar flare collides with earth’s magnetic shield. This shield is generated at the polar regions of earth (66° latitude), sometimes refer to as Arctic Circle (North) and Antarctica Circle (South).
Northern Lights is more popular than Southern Lights because there are more countries within the Arctic circle compared to the Antarctica Circle. Hence, the much higher probability to see Aurora in the North. If you take a look at the world map, even at the most southern part of New Zealand, Stewart Island, you are still quite a distance from the Antarctica Circle.
Hence you need a fairly strong solar flare to occur for you to witness the Southern Lights. So unless you are travelling just to hunt for the Southern Lights, we won’t go out of the way and try and look for it.
5. Sky Diving vs Bungy Jumping, which is scarier?
We have to admit that before trying both, we thought that bungy jumping will be way scarier. Reason being that for bungy, you need to take the leap of faith and jump by yourself but for skydiving there is an instructor doing it for you.
After doing both, each have different adrenaline rush factor. For sky diving, all is fine until you jump off the plane. The first 3 seconds of free fall is no joke, you can literally feel your heart dropping out. This is before they deploy the first mini chute to regulate the descend. After the instructor deploys the mini chute, that’s when you feel more in control, you can spread your arms at this moment. Thereafter, is when the actual parachute is deployed, and you will just glide all the way to land.
As for bungy jumping, the mental preparation before the jump is where the fear element lies. We couldn’t even look down the platform because the fear was building up. Up to the point when they are tying your legs, the adrenaline rush is constantly there. When you take the jump, the free fall isn’t as bad as you might think it is. And before you know it, you are being recoil back by the rope. At that moment, you know the worse is over and you actually start to enjoy the scenery.