Holidays - mostly elsewhere in NZ or overseas?

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snowfly

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#2054987 12-Jul-2018 13:23

We mainly just go to Kinloch, as we have a holiday house there, about a 3.25 hour drive for us, which is about far enough with 2 young kids.

Love the place, quiet, peaceful, and lots to do any time of the year.
Great in summer with the lake, swimming, biking/walking tracks, and central enough to go on many day trips or 2 day trips from there, e.g. into Taupo, Turangi, Rotorua, or not far to get up to Tauranga.

And in winter it is close enough for day trips up to Whakapapa for skiing/snowboarding.

Maybe when the kids are older (over 10?) we may do overseas trips, when they would actually appreciate (or remember) the experience (considering its not cheap).
For now the kids (and us adults) just love going to the 'bach'.

eracode

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#2055014 12-Jul-2018 14:02

I think the answer to the OP's question depends a lot on what age people are and obviously on their other circumstances.

SWMBO and I are mid-late 60's and have been retired for a few years. Three years ago we investigated the concept of 'home exchange' and have never looked back. It can be a long story but short version is: since Jan 2016 we have completed nine exchanges (London, St Albans UK, Normandy FR, Port Macquarie, Calgary, Shropshire UK, Tampa FL, Northern California and Limoges in SW France). We have two more arranged for later this year and next year - Brisbane and The Algave, Portugal.

These have averaged six weeks in duration each - it's not worth going on a N Hemisphere exchange for much shorter than that. The 'foreigners' come here and we go to their place. Quite often we have overlapped with them for a day or two either at our place or theirs at the beginning of the exchange - and we have made some wonderful new friends as a result. You don't have to exchange cars but we always have - 'fair and reasonable' car use is an important part of living in and exploring a new place.

There are many advantages in this concept but the obvious one is the ability to go and live in/experience a place for a decent length of time without incurring accommodation costs - usually the biggest expense in a holiday. Airfares are the only real cost. No money changes hands. Several of the exchanges have been consecutive - we have gone on to a second one without returning home in between.

Some people may feel that there are risks in this - and I guess there are - but all nine times we have arrived back to find our home as good, clean and undamaged as when we left it - if not better. It is very much a trust-based thing and almost all of the people with whom we have exchanged have been of very similar age, circumstances and like-mindedness as us. The only non-similar age was a young Kiwi woman married to a Pom in St Albans who came home to NZ each year to visit family. This was the only exchange where kids were involved - we were a bit reluctant but it was perfectly fine - we had met them before the exchange.

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alasta

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#2055106 12-Jul-2018 14:41

I prefer domestic travel because I like being able to drive to my destination, rather than dealing with airport security, customs, taxis, baggage, rental cars, travel insurance, check-in deadlines, etc.

I do a lot of half marathons, which gives me a good excuse to get to events in Hawkes Bay, Taupo, Queenstown, etc.

I do the odd trip overseas but I find it quite stressful and see it as a personal development exercise rather than a holiday.

Tinkerisk

4224 posts

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#2055470 13-Jul-2018 03:21

Ireland for river cruise, Scotland for Whisky tasting, Finland for log houses and fishing, France in summer to relax in winter for hunting. Currently I don't visit the US again as long as Trump will be there - so friends from the US fled and currently visiting us. ;-)

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Kiwifruta

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#2055481 13-Jul-2018 07:19

Moved to Tauranga last year, and because our new hometown is also a holiday destination we've found ourselves actually staying at home for the holidays but spending all day at the beach snorkelling, swimming, body boarding, fishing etc, these are exactly the same activities we'd do if we went to another place for a holiday. The kids are still young 1, 5 ,7 and 9 so with the 1 year old it was easier to base ourselves from home than put up a tent in a D.O.C. campground or Top 10 holiday park than have her breastfed from a tent bed. Before she was born we would camp at various places in the country like Napier, Northland, New Plymouth, Ohiwa, Taupo etc. Want to take the family down to Nelson in the summer, I'm a mainlander and want to show the kids where I'm from.

I remember as a kid in the 70s or 80s there used to be an advert on telly that had the slogan "Don't leave town 'til you've seen the country", I fully believe in that. Sadly, I've met too many North Islanders who have been overseas but never stepped foot in the South Island.

Our overseas holidays have been to South America as that is where my wife is from, although I'm keen for a trip to one of the Pacific Island nations or revisit Australia within the next 2 or 3 years.

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vexxxboy

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#2055550 13-Jul-2018 09:04

i have never been to the South Island , but have visited around 90 countries. The south island just doesnt appeal to me for the money i have to spend to get there and stay there .I have been to every part of the north island except Taranaki.

Common sense is not as common as you think.

JimmyH

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#2055612 13-Jul-2018 10:28

Mostly overseas. But we haven't been for a while, and our finances are a lot tighter than they user to be so we won't be doing any major holidays (either domestic or foreign) for a couple of more years at least.

Overseas because it's nice to go somewhere warm in winter, and it can actually be cheaper even with flights taken into account - NZ is a pretty expensive holiday destination nowadays.

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kryptonjohn

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#2055647 13-Jul-2018 10:43

vexxxboy:

i have never been to the South Island , but have visited around 90 countries. The south island just doesnt appeal to me for the money i have to spend to get there and stay there .I have been to every part of the north island except Taranaki.

? Not sure where you are in the NI but you can fly to QNE or CHC ex AKL cheaper than you can fly to anywhere outside NZ.

You're missing out. Badly. SI has some amazing places to visit, and people travel there from all corners of the world and love it. You can stay there for a spectrum of prices from SFA through to megabucks.

BTW Taranaki's also well worth ticking off...

jonathan18

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#2055653 13-Jul-2018 10:51

We haven’t been overseas since having kids (over 10 years now), and it’ll no doubt stay that way until we’ve put a bigger dent in our mortgage - we are happy to sacrifice nice-to-haves like o/s trips knowing that to not do so would simply mean more debt for longer.

As such, we are now in the pattern of going on a decent trip within NZ every couple of years (and even those don’t come cheap and require us to save specifically for them), alternating it with a breaks at our union baches in Raumati (also our standard getaway throughout the year).

My wife’s refusal to go camping also doesn’t help! Paying for a campsite comes at a slightly cheaper cost than hotel or motel rooms...

rayonline

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#2055932 13-Jul-2018 18:41

I saw this news article and most people in NZ preferred going overseas. My friends often label NZ as Auckland Queenstown and Australia as Sydney and Melbourne. Then it's all the other international places like Fiji Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, NYC, LAX etc ...

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2018/07/poll-would-you-rather-take-a-holiday-in-new-zealand-or-overseas.html

I enjoyed the West Coast for my photography but those accompanied me didn't like it. They couldn't want to get to Queenstown. They seemed to like modern amenities, crowds, shops, eateries, proper hotels.

Horseychick

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#2056925 16-Jul-2018 10:31

At the end of the winter I want sunshine so hubby and I generally head to the Gold Coast for food, wine, sunshine and shopping for a week.

As we are both immigrants we generally have to do a long overseas trip every other year to UK or USA and sometimes both. Generally after 1 week with my family in the UK we head to Vegas via LA, see his family for a couple of days and then relax for a week in Vegas.

Every year we do a long weekend away in a bach somewhere (Rotorua, Taupo, Waiheke, Matakana etc.) and hubby gets to travel to some lovely places like PNorth, Tauranga, Dunedin, Chch and Hamilton for sports. I've also travelled quite a lot around the NI when looking at horses or horse competitions which was a great way for a Pom to get to see parts of NZ that are not usual tourist centres

We intend to do a cruise at some point, but have yet to decide where or when. Whilst the wrinklies are still around we generally feel we have to spend time visiting them overseas, but one day.......

Edited: Forgot to say that both of us travelled extensively around Europe/USA/Asia before we met and then together before we emigrated so we haven't missed much apart from South America and Africa

MikeAqua

7773 posts

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#2056932 16-Jul-2018 10:43

We do a mixture of domestic and overseas. Most international travel is short haul to Aussie. We usually try and fly direct from Welly.

I do a bit of long-haul for work and get sick of it, so try and avoid altogether for holidays. San Fran, Singapore, Honolulu - no problem. Europe - forget it.

Mike

vexxxboy

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#2056981 16-Jul-2018 11:25

kryptonjohn:

vexxxboy:

i have never been to the South Island , but have visited around 90 countries. The south island just doesnt appeal to me for the money i have to spend to get there and stay there .I have been to every part of the north island except Taranaki.

? Not sure where you are in the NI but you can fly to QNE or CHC ex AKL cheaper than you can fly to anywhere outside NZ.

You're missing out. Badly. SI has some amazing places to visit, and people travel there from all corners of the world and love it. You can stay there for a spectrum of prices from SFA through to megabucks.

BTW Taranaki's also well worth ticking off...

not when i was travelling , a one week Holiday in Queenstown or 6 months overseas were the options , i went overseas everytime. And i tend to go to countries where tourists stay away from, they interest me a lot more .

Common sense is not as common as you think.

Senecio

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#2056994 16-Jul-2018 11:39

It will be mostly Domestic for the wife and I for a while. I'm and Aussie and my wife is a Kiwi. We met and lived in AU for many years before moving to Europe and staying there for 7 years. We traveled extensively through the Northern Hemisphere during that time and have just recently moved back to NZ. We're based in Auckland for work for now but would like to settle outside of Auckland in the next 10yrs or so. We'll be in our mid 50's by then so we'll use our holidays in the meantime exploring this beautiful country before deciding where to spend our sunset years.

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