Did you use usual thrifty etc...

Or is there a better method these days?

http://www.autotrader.co.nz/View/Used/MITSUBISHI-LANCER-1990/416603.aspx


drive it into the ocean when youre done

i cant remember who we used, but we had a voucher for them and saved quite a bit;

got a camry for cruising around cairns;

http://www.ezy.co.nz/

I used them in '04 - no problems, no hassles.

wicked campers ooooh yeah! nothing like driving around a foreign country in a piece of s*** van with asinine paintings all over it.

rrrocket, from memory there is one of those "wotif" style sites for rent-a-cars so you can do side-by-side comparisons. We did this the last time we went to NZ and we at least felt like we got a really good deal. Depending on how much you want to spend and where you're heading, keep in mind that if you are going into snow territory, you won't have to put chains on your tyres if you hire a 4WD. I'll try to find the site a bit later.

Be prepared to pay about $2.50NZ in some places. I think the average around the country would be about $2.20.

As for insurance, the last time we went we just paid whatever extra so we were fully covered just for peace of mind. The insurance we paid for last time meant that our liabel excess changed from $5k to about $400 (again from memory). Did we really need to? Well, probably not, but two years ago we got a stone chucked up from a truck that cracked the winshield. Only $80 of damage, but we were then told that we didn't opt for "windscreen insurance". It's worth calling your travel insurer and get the specific details of what your general travel insurance covers - a lot of travel insurance will cover some aspects of rented cars, but you'll need to be careful about what exactly that means in case of accidents.

That reminds me of a more general note - NZ, like Australia, has free healthcare cover, so you don't need a fancy travel insurance plan to cover health stuff. For example, r_mazing dislocated his shoulder - had to get ambo'ed off the mountain, x-ray, drugs, etc. The only thing he had to pay for was the X-ray, I guess because it's "optional", and his travel insurance did reimburse him for that. I'll try to get him to post to double check the details here.

As for "a better method", if you were to travel from, say Christchurch to QT, you could catch a plane for about the same cost (or a bit less) of the car hire. But, usually the times of planes and the reliability of QT airport being open make any monetary savings worthless. Driving around the south island is great because you can go from top to bottom in about a day, the roads are mostly flat and straight (except for a lot of areas where they have insta-death-corners), and the scenery is f***ing tops.

I'll post a pretty picture from one of our drives as soon as Facebook loads at uni.

Thanks Billy I look forward to it.

I'm doing exactly the same thing in NZ this Xmas holidays.

Thanks for the tips Billy.

A couple of driving photos (photos don't really do it justice - the scenery is fkn tops):
http://photos-f.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v272/199/33/526225759/n526225759_949117_6197.jpg
http://photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v272/199/33/526225759/n526225759_949118_6498.jpg
Despite my objections, taking a photo while driving ~120 in the wet:
http://photos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v272/199/33/526225759/n526225759_948206_8906.jpg

last edited by BillyHardball at 10:07:50 19/Jun/09

He was driving under 100 billy, stop being a skirt :P

rrrocket, I just went and searched for NZ and went through each one individually.

Cheapest I found was Go Rentals - gorentals.co.nz got a 2008 rav 4 for just over a week with chains and extra insurance for around $660NZ