When’s the best time to rent a car — before you travel or after you arrive at your destination?

Any travel agent worth his or her salt will always recommend that you book your car hire before you travel, rather than doing it locally — and with good reason! Take price for example: it is a little known fact that car rental prices work along similar principles to published air fares. That is to say that the nearer you get to your pick-up date the more expensive the rental is going to be. It's

Move out of your comfort zone

The world is a big place. We know that we're stating the obvious here but it's worth mentioning if only because we find that most people tend to return to the same places year after year. Nothing wrong with that at all, particularly if those places are ticking all the boxes in terms of cost, convenience, friendliness, value for money, accessibility etc. It's a shame though that more people don't push the proverbial boat out

Queenstown — Day 2

Oh the joys of not having to pack and unpack again! That’s probably the worst part about any itinerary that has you staying just one night at each location. The guest house that we’re staying at in Queenstown has the most extraordinary views over Lake Wakatipu and the Remarkables and the couple who run it are delightful. Indeed, the whole B&B ‘experiment’ has been a resounding success to date as the accommodations chosen have been

Queenstown — Day 1

It’s often difficult when preparing a multi-centre itinerary such as this one to decide on how long to spend in each place. Should it be one night or two? Will there be enough to see and do there to justify the additional night? From the outset, I had decided to overnight in Queenstown for two nights whereas almost every place else on the itinerary was getting just one night. As it turns out, I made

Aoraki — Mt. Cook

When planning my trip to New Zealand, I considered a number of different options — hotels, camper van and bed & breakfasts. In the end, I opted to go down the B&B route. My reasoning was twofold: (1) B&B’s by their very nature, tend to have more character than the relative anonymity of hotels; (2) You’re more likely to get a feel of a country by statying in someone’s home and benefitting from their local

The art of getting a quote that is both competitive in price and relevant to your needs starts with gathering all the right information about what you want to do (or think you want to do!).