Places to visit in New Zealand

The green paradise

New Zealand has been on my dream destination since a long time. I had been to a 3-month trip in Europe and had heard New Zealand has similar landscapes as the beautiful Austria. We were debating Australia vs. New Zealand, decided with New Zealand for this time for the landscape

New Zealand has a bit of everything, miniature version of Geysers similar to Iceland, fjords like Norway, glaciers like Switzerland and adventure sports probably like no other!

The cities are well connected by road, but there is not much public transport infrastructure. You can find coach tours by companies like Grand Pacific Tours and AAT Kings. They are not very customizable though

Since we couldn’t drive, we went with Veena World. This was our first experience with them and we were fully satisfied, going onto more tours with them later

The itinerary was perfect with all the places we wanted to see, so we were ok to not have customizations. If we were on our own, we would have liked adding Waitamo Glow worm caves which are larger than Te Anau, Yellow eyed penguin reserve in Dunedin which was included earlier but swapped with Larnach Castle for no specified reason later

Veena World tours are truly all-inclusive covering hotels, transport, Indian food where available, all entry fees, visa and insurance. All their tour guides are excellent- We had Prathamesh Patki with us. Some of the coordination before travel for visa could have been better, but that was a small thing compared to overall tour experience. Expect minor changes in itinerary without notice to accommodate closures/ order changes of places you visit

They have a good tech platform to track all your tours and documents

Although the target segment for Veena World tours is dominated by senior citizens, we had many youngsters on the tour which made it balanced and fun

Best time to visit

With summers and winters swapped in the southern hemisphere, going in spring, autumn is typically best. Summers are also not bad. Avoid cold winters during June- August. We went during autumn to see colorful foliage

Visa

Veena world managed the visa process for us. We didn’t have to visit the consulate but had to send passport to them. We filled the application form online. The process took about 10 days including courier time

Getting In

We were booked on Singapore Airlines from Mumbai to Auckland via Singapore, and Christchurch to Mumbai on the way back. Domestic flight from Auckland to Christchurch was on New Zealand airways. All flights had vegetarian meals included. The domestic New Zealand flight had coffee and small cookie included

Currency

We took 200 NZD from Veena World forex which we didn’t end up using. You can make most of the purchases on card. Washrooms are free, you don’t need any small change

Getting around

Ours was all through Veena World. You can find coach tours by companies like Grand Pacific Tours and AAT Kings

You can check out coach tours from Discover New Zealand and New Zealand coach tours