Renting a camper van seems to be the most common way of touring New Zealand. In two months on the road around both islands of New Zealand, we saw hundreds of camper vans. In the more remote parts of the South Island, camper vans make up half the road traffic! We looked at vans in campgrounds and on the road.
Typical Vans
The typical camper van is very like a rental RV in the US. It will have a sink, an electric refrigerator, an LP gas cooktop, and a seating area that makes up into a double bed at night. There is a hot-water heater that also works off the LP-gas bottle. There will be a microwave and a heater that both work off external power, so usable only when set up in a powered campsite. All but the smallest vans have a shower/toilet unit the size of a telephone booth.
The van has a certain amount of storage space scattered around the interior, some less accessible than others. We can speak only of one van layout and its storage was abysmally badly designed. Other vans might have better arrangements. But expect to struggle with finding where to put everything you bring. Bring a few big zip-loc bags to help organize shelves.
A word about the toilet. It's a Porta-Potti, where wastes are stored in a relatively small plastic tank. Unlike the typical US RV, to dump wastes you open a door in the side of the van, slide out the Porta-Potti container, and carry it to the dump station to empty and rinse it. Gray water from the sink and shower collects in a tank under the van and is dumped using a hose provided in the van.
Rental companies
The largest rental outfit is a conglomerate that does business under the separate names of
- Britz,
- Backpacker,
- Maui,
- and ExploreMore.
We booked with Britz and found their service adequate. It left a bit of a sour taste that, although we told them before arrival and during arrival that we were a long-term rental and would appreciate a good van, they still gave us one with 142,000 kilometers on the odometer. (A newer van of the same design would have been little improvement, see our discussion of the Britz "Elite" model.)
Other van companies whose vehicles we saw often on the road were:
- Kea
- Cheapa Campa
- and Jucy
The Kea vans in particular looked new and nice. Jucy aims at a youth demographic by covering their vans with splashy graphics.
Rental Contracts
Be aware that all of the van rental companies have long and very restrictive contracts. You need to read the contract (usually available online if you click around the website enough).
New Zealand auto liability law requires rental companies to take a huge deposit (nz$5,000, yes, five thousand) which is actually charged, over and above the rental fee, to your credit card at delivery. You will pay interest on it of course, unless you pay the credit card off before interest comes due. Be sure your credit limit will allow it, and it's not a bad idea to call your credit card service number and warn them of the large charge to be placed from a foreign country.
If there is any damage whatever to the van when you return it, the van company will insist on treating it as an insurance claim. They hold that $5,000 deposit and will not return it until their insurance company has evaluated the damage and decided how much of it they will cover. That decision, of course, is made in your absence, as you have returned to your home country. Anything not covered by the insurance is deducted from the deposit and the remainder is returned.
All the companies offer "improved" insurance coverage at various levels. This means that they charge you so much per day in a non-refundable fee, and in turn reduce that big deposit. For our long-term rental, the daily fee would have added up to nearly the $5,000 anyway, so we opted to carry the deposit. It's a no-win situation.
Besides the insurance "gotcha" the van company contract will usually require you to pay for windshield damage and repair of tires. We had two flats, costing us nz$70 to fix. The moral here is: refuse to accept a van that doesn't have good, deep tread on its tires (tyres). If the tires look at all worn, insist on a different van. The company will reimburse for mechanical breakdown charges.
All rental companies claim to offer AA road service. The New Zealand Automobile Association is a good organization, but their on-road breakdown assistance is not free to campers. When we wanted a tyre changed on a Sunday morning in the suburbs of Dunedin, we called the 0800 number on the Britz keytag. It rang through to the AA dispatcher, but she would not send out aid until she had successfully charged nz$95 to our credit card. We have no idea what the charge would have been if we'd been in some remote location. These charges are not reimbursed by the van company.
The final "bite" comes only when you turn in the van at the end of your stay. Then the van company calculates a "diesel recovery tax" based on the distance you travelled, and adds it to your bill. Don't look so startled, it is right there in that 10,000-word contract you signed. Hey, it's just another couple of hundred nz$ at the end of your stay...
Do we sound a bit sour? Well, yes: the final dealings with the van company did leave a rather sour taste at the end our otherwise excellent vacation. You can have a very good holiday in a rental camper, but you need to be aware of the many charges and restrictive clauses in the rental contract.
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