If you’re planning a holiday to New Zealand, it can be easy to forget about the practicalities. With exciting destinations such as Fiordland and the beautiful Bay of Islands, there’s a lot to get distracted by. However, when it comes to packing your bags for your trip to New Zealand, there are a few things you shouldn't forget. VroomVroomVroom asked some of our travel blogger friends to share their must-have road trip items.
Contributed by: Bailey and Dan of Destinationless Travel
New Zealand is all about the great outdoors. Therefore, when planning a road trip, you need to be ready for camping, hiking, and beaches! That said, our top travel must-have for New Zealand would be a good pair of hiking shoes. There are thousands of trails to explore in New Zealand, and on a road trip, you’ll easily be able to stop at many of them. Oh, and an extra must-have item (especially for hiking) is my little battery pack for charging my phone. It really comes in handy when hiking and camping, saving my phone from running out of battery.
Contributed by: Katie Bell of The World on My Necklace
As a native New Zealander who loves a good road trip, I have done a lot of road tripping around my beautiful home country. There are a few items that I consider must-haves for a New Zealand road trip, but top of my list is sunscreen. The sun in New Zealand is particularly harsh, and you will need at least a 50+ sunscreen to protect your skin, especially when spending a lot of time outdoors. Seriously, don’t muck around when it comes to the Kiwi sun!
Contributed by: Marta Kulesza of In A Faraway Land
There’s a little dark secret about New Zealand that hardly anyone talks about. It’s called a sandfly. These little black creatures can turn your visit to certain areas in New Zealand into a nightmare. Their entire life depends on your blood, so as you can imagine, they try quite hard to get it out of you. Its bite, though painless, can cause terrible itching. But fear not. There are a few natural ways to make yourself less attractive to sandflies. One involves dancing like nobody’s watching. The sandflies are way too slow to catch up on your moves. Second is to avoid dark clothing, because apparently, they are attracted to it. Third is to rub orange or lemon skin onto your body. Rumour has it, they find the smell of citrus appalling. Still, you may want to pack a good bug repellent, especially if your holiday falls in the spring, summer, and early autumn months.
Our travel essential for any road trip around New Zealand is an extra large hoodie. Being comfortable during road trips is so important for us because it can get tiring to just sit and drive for hours. We usually wear an extra large organic cotton hoodie, which regulates our temperature as it never gets too hot or too cold when we wear it. It’s also great for times when we need to explore our surroundings and leave the car. A jacket is usually too hot, so a hoodie is perfect for comfort and warmth. A hoodie is multi-functional as well, and nowadays, you can purchase lots of stylish hoodies which look great in photos.
