New Zealand! Part 10 - What we are glad we did

Things I am glad we did:

We tried out the campervan!  I really wanted to try it.  I don't know if we will do it again, but it was fun.

We used Golden Chain motel vouchers for most of our lodging.  It was a very economical and convenient way to go.  We were told about them by the travel agent who booked our flights; this happens to be the only way to buy them, also.  The one downside, we realized along the way, is that they are not worth as much to the motels as we paid.  For us, they cost $99 per night.  The motel owner gets only about $75 of that.  In most cases, they accepted them just fine.  A couple of times, the proprietors mentioned to us that they weren't super excited to have guests pay this way because they get less money.  I really liked that it was all paid for up front, and there were almost always places to stay where we needed them.  They were individually owned, and most of the time we dealt directly with the owners at the front desk.  We enjoyed that.  And they all had a basic level of quality and cleanliness that we could depend on.  It made it easy to find a place along the way.  The other thing they all had was kitchenettes; I hadn't expected that.  It was nice to be able to eat one or two meals a day on our own.

I am glad we went at this time of year.  The weather wasn't always wonderful, but it was fine most of the time.  It was nice to be traveling when it wasn't their busy season yet.  

I am glad we had a nice mix of things we did: some tours, some just going places on our own.

I am glad we came for 5 weeks, thanks to Trish's advice!  Thank you!  It turned out to be just perfect.

What would we have done differently?

The one thing I would have done differently is wait in line at the Vodafone store at the airport when we came in.  I thought we would just find another place along the way, but it turned out to be more than two weeks later when we finally went to a 2degrees store and got one of our phones set up for internet.  Maybe by the next time, a different solution will be available that we could arrange in advance.  I just hadn't taken the time to try and figure it out better.