active pace | 13 nights | from $4,120 per person
New Zealand Vacation Package: 13 Nights at a Active Pace
Six bases, a car, and a walk on eleven of the thirteen days. The driving is longer than the map suggests and the walks are the reason to go.
What the days ask of you
This trip is filed as active. Everything below is measured, not adjectives.
- Walking on an average day
- four to eight miles on eleven of the thirteen days
- Longest stretch without a seat
- six hours on the alpine day, which is exposed above the treeline for two of them
- What is under your feet
- graded track for most walks, loose rock and stream crossings on three
- Climbing
- one walk climbs three thousand feet. The rest are under a thousand
- Altitude
- sea level to about four thousand feet
- Heat
- not the risk. Weather changing inside an hour is the risk, at any time of year
- Times you move
- none. You drive, and two of the legs are over four hours
- Who this is not for
- if driving four hours and then walking six is not appealing, we will build you fewer bases
What is included
- Thirteen nights across six properties, none of them more than three nights
- Breakfast at four of the six, which is how they are run rather than a choice of ours
- A hire car for the full period, intermediate, automatic, with the standard cover paid
- A written route book with the driving time for each leg, measured rather than estimated
- Eleven day walks described in advance: distance, ascent, surface, and where the track becomes exposed
- One boat trip on a sound, which is the single unmissable thing on the route
What is not included
- International flights, quoted separately
- Nine breakfasts, all lunches and all dinners
- Fuel, which on this route is a real figure and not a rounding
- The excess reduction on the car, which we will explain
- Any guided walk, and two of the eleven should be guided if the weather turns
- Gratuities, which in this country are genuinely not expected
What it costs
from $4,120 per person, on two people sharing.
That is the lowest figure we have actually placed this trip at in the last season. It moves with the month, the room or cabin grade, whether you travel alone and how far ahead you book. Flights are not in it unless this page says they are. The figure is confirmed in writing, with the operator named, before you commit to anything.
When this is worth doing, and when it is not
November to March. December and January are the warmest and the busiest, and accommodation on this island sells out earlier than anywhere else we book. March gives you quieter tracks and shorter days.
Thirteen nights and six bases means you are packing the car every second morning. Some people find that exhausting rather than exciting, and if you are one of them we would rather build you four bases and fewer walks.
What gets settled when you confirm
The direction of the loop, which depends entirely on your flights. Automatic transmission, which we assume and which you should confirm. Whether the boat trip is the morning or the overnight version, because they are different trips at different prices. And the properties, which on this island have to be held very early in the season.