My Dream of Visiting New Zealand

I know that this post (or the posts that will follow in this category) have nothing to do with the initial purpose of my blog. But travelling is something I’m passionate about, even if I don’t get to do it often, and I really wanted to share my experience of fulfilling my dream travel and hope you’ll still enjoy reading about this,

I blame it on the Lord of the Rings movies, Tolkien, Jackson this is all your fault! But since I was a teen I dreamt of visiting New Zealand. I use to spend hours looking at places to visit and pictures of all those stunning sceneries, and it always brought tears to my eyes. I know it sounds dramatic but it is true…

So after more than a decade daydreaming of going there and 2 years of hard saving (and a little Christmas help from my amazing mum) in June we (me and my other half) finally booked our tickets to New Zealand and informed our jobs that we will be away for 3 weeks in March 2020 (this was a scary conversation!). And since then we’ve been thoroughly planning our trip.

The itinerary has changed a couple of times (which place we want to go, how long we want to stay etc.) but we finally have our final plan. We have booked all our hotels and most of the activities we want to do.

So here’s our plan.

7/3 Fight from London

It’s a late flight so it gives us plenty of time to get ready.

9/3 Arrive in Auckland

Yes, it is a 26-something hours flight with a 3 hours stop in Dubai. I hate flying and I don’t know how I’m gonna survive this but I will!
As soon as we arrive we’ll drive3 hours north to a town called Whangarei.

10/3-13/03 Whangarei

The first day will probably be us trying to recover from the trip. Then we have booked a dive at the Poor Knights Islands and we have one more day to discover the northern part of the country.

13/03-18/03 Rotorua

On the 13th we’ll drive a little south to Rotorua. There we obviously have booked to see the Hobbiton movie set (duh!) and a tour where you get to swim with dolphins. I also want to book some Maori cultural evening experience since I’ve heard that Rotorua is the best place for that.

18/03-23/03 Te Anau

On the 18th we drive back to Auckland and take a flight to Queenstown on the South Island. There we rent a car and drive to a small town called Te Anau. We currently have 2 activities planned. One is a kayak tour in the Doubtful Sound and the other is a dive in Milford Sound. This gives us two free days to explore the area. I know there is another place where some LOTR scenes where film so we probably going to take a look at those too.

23/03-27/03 Queenstown

On the 23rd we drive back to Queenstown. There, for now, we have just book one activity which is a half-day canyoning. That leaves us with another 2.5 days to try to rest a little and explore the region. Queenstown is also another place where scenes of the LORT and Logan, apparently, were filmed so this will be something we will be checking of course.

27/03-28/03 Auckland

On the 27th we fly back to Auckland if we are not too exhausted we might have some energy left to visit the town.

28/03 The end

On the 28th we take our flight back to London. That’s going to be a sad day…

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When I look at our planning I’m very happy about it. We’ll get to see many places and do many things and create amazing memories. The sad thing is that even if it looks like a lot it also feels like barely scratching the surface of all the things there is to see and do in New Zealand. Every time I open my guide of search site for things to do I keep finding new places to see and the fact that we don’t have enough time (or money in a matter of facts) makes so sad.

But let’s not be ungrateful. I get to do my dream trip to my dream country and I’m so excited about it. I’m planning on blogging my whole experience where. Please let me know if this is something that you are interested in reading about. Also if you have visited New Zealand or live there and have some recommendations please, please, please leave me a comment.