Near every town and almost every major tourist attraction in New Zealand you will find a "holiday park," what in the US we call "RV parks." Often there are two or three. (One noteworthy exception: the nearest holiday park to Mt. Cook is 60km away.) We stayed in many of these parks and they were all similar and almost all good. The nearest comparison to a holiday park would be a KOA, but the typical KOA is not as nice or as clean as the typical holiday park.
Holiday parks always have powered and un-powered sites. Powered sites offer an electrical connection and, usually, a water tap. Every powered site in the country uses the identical heavy-duty grounded 220V socket, and every rental van comes with an extension cord to fit that socket. You back into the site, get out your cord from the van's utility box, and plug in. Immediately your in-van microwave and heater work and your auxiliary battery begins to charge.
Unpowered sites are typically used by tent campers. These are almost always grass sites. Powered sites are sometimes grass, sometimes gravel, rarely asphalt. For powered sites we paid from nz$24 to nz$37 per night. Unpowered sites are less.
In the middle of every holiday park is an "ablution block" (they really call it that), a building with toilet and shower rooms for men and for women. With only one exception that we saw, these were always perfectly maintained and kept almost surgically clean. No leaky taps, no empty soap or paper dispensers, no overflowing waste cans or blocked toilets. Even in a cheap and rather forbidding camp in the farthest west coast, the ablution block was spotlessly maintained. They are usually heated, and often have piped music. At one quite old camp there was visible rust on pipes, but the facility was still clean.
Near, or sometimes combined with, the ablution block building is a kitchen with multiple sinks and stoves and refrigerators. Many campers cook here rather than in their vans. The kitchens also are kept spotless.
Many camps have an elaborate children's play area, often with a trampoline and other equipment. There is often a TV lounge. Some campgrounds offer a separate barbecue facility for campers to use. Some parks have an "internet kiosk," either stand-alone or as part of the TV lounge, where you can rent time on a PC to check email.
Every park has a trailer dump station. Many of these are better-designed and maintained than in a U.S. campground. In the nicer parks the dump station is in a little kiosk and there is a basin with soap dispenser right next to it so you can wash your hands.
The NZ equivalent of the KOA chain is the Top Ten Holiday Parks. Early on we were very pleased with a Top Ten park and bought their $30 membership card, getting a 10% discount at all Top Ten parks. The same card is supposed to be good for 10% off the inter-island ferry toll, and that would be a substantial saving, but you must book your ferry ride by telephone to claim it. (Not knowing this, we booked online and didn't get the discount.) We recommend the Top Ten chain; all their parks that we tried were immaculate. The Kiwi chain is another chain of affiliated parks. Our experiences with them were mixed: the Kiwi park in Christchurch was the best-managed and nicest park of our trip, while another was small and noisy and shabby (but still clean).
Using Wi-Fi
Many parks have wireless internet. In all cases internet access cost from nz$4 to nz$8 per hour. We used wi-fi wherever it was available. (Where it wasn't, we went into town looking for an internet cafe.) There are several different internet providers and each has its own style of annoying and intrusive sign-up page. The least convenient force you to purchase a 1-hour or 3-hour chit from the park office, and enter an 8-character userid and 8-character password to log-on. Of course you want to log on and off quickly so as to use your time efficiently, and this method is awkward and irritating. Other providers allow you to purchase time online using a credit card, so at least you can buy more time after the office has closed. But how secure is their purchase page?
The absolute best wi-fi provider is ZenBU.net, who do not charge by the minute but by the megabyte of data transferred. This works out cheaper, but mainly it is so much more pleasant not to have to rush to get things done in a limited time. Unfortunately we found ZenBU only in motels, not in parks.
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