I want to go on a vacation to New Zealand...?

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stronglattenosugar

With respect to prices for tickets, you really are best off discussing that with a trusted travel agent.
For hotels, I would suggest looking at something like www.lastminute.co.nz: NZ runs on a fairly standard 'star' system when it comes to accom., so you'll be pretty safe just looking up hotels in whatever regions you decide to visit.

As for places to go, NZ is fantastic wherever you visit. I'm Australian, but have visited many times (it is just over the ditch, after all). It entirely depends on what you're interested in, however. Queenstown (on the south island) is beautiful and well known for the adventure tours. It's close to Milford Sound, which I recommend as a 'must do' on the south island: it's absolutely spectacular. You can get bus tours from Q'town which include a boat trip in the sound. If you're going in winter and enjoy the snow, q'town is excellent for that, too. Christchurch, also on the south island, is a lovely town. Way down south is dunedin, which is almost dead when university is on break, but is still great fun - if you can get there when the rugby is on, get tickets :)

North island: Auckland cops a lot of flak from the locals, but is actually a great city. The bay of islands, way up north, is great for beachy type activities, or just for lounging around. It's also basically where europeans signed an important treaty with the indigenous population (the treaty of waitangi), which has great signifcance.

Wellington has a great museum: it's worth driving up to the lookout over wellington for the view at night. It's windy, though :)

Napier is a small but beautiful town: it was flattened by an earthquake in the thirties, so the whole place was rebuilt at once in the art deco style. If you're into art deco, it's unmissable. Rotorua is a very interesting place, with mud pools, hot springs and geysers. It;s the most popular tourist destination in nz. It's also a base to go on some tours of 'maori villages' which, though very, very touristy, are still quite interesting and worthwhile.

These are probably the places that most tourists visit: while there's many more 'secret' places, if you've only got one visit, most people would choose from these - and just because theyre 'touristy', doesn't mean they're not fabulous :)

holly

Ask the N Zealanders this is Australia a different country.

Mashmellow

I'm from the North Island of New Zealand...So I don't know much about the South Island except that It came 4th in "top places to visit" so Good Choice!!!
search cheaphotels.co.nz in google.,,,

God Bless!!!

jennifer h

A week is not long enough but this is what you could do in that time and see some beautiful Scenery. Fly into Wellington Spend 2 nights there. take a trip up the cable car to get a view over Wellington and the harbour. Get the ferry to Picton [South Island] takes 3 hours and cost about 65 dollars. Pick up a hire car from Picton drive around Queen Charlotte sounds super beautiful drive and on to Nelson out to Kaiteriteri and the Able tasman National park then down the west coast to Christchurch and fly out of Christchurch. Down the West coast you will drive through Franz Joseph and Fox Glacier you can see blow holes seal colonies beautiful mountains lake and bush. Or you can get the trans alpine train from west port to Christchurch. You won't have time to drive further to Queenstown area. but this trip would be great. There are motels all down there and another site for accomodation is wotif.com which does some good deals for a week or 2 prior but they probably don't have the smaller towns on it. Motels have kitchen facilities in them usually.

Picola

1 week is really not very long so it'll be a hectic week.
you'd be best to fly into Christchurch in the south island and start your journey from there.
there are many many recommended places to visit
Kaikoura: a seaside town 2.5 hours (driving) north of Christchurch there you can go swimming with the seals, or dolphins and go whale watching. its a fun place to go wandering just to see seals if thats something you'd be interested in as they lie on the rocks very close to where people can walk.
top of the south island Nelson, Picton and Abel tasman national park are all worth a visit but this would take up another 2 days then you'd be right at the top of the south island (picton/nelson are both another 2.5ish hours past kaikoura).
if you did go right up to nelson etc then it'd be a good idea to come back down the west coast and visit the glaciers (fox and franz joseph) but thats a long drive from nelson. from the glaciers on to wanaka and queenstown the adventure capital of the world where you could go bunji jumping, sky diving, white water rafting and/or just revel in the beauty of the mountains. by this stage your week would probably be up so you could maybe fly out of queenstown airport but then you'd miss milford sound and Te Anau which are futther south of Queenstown.
Dunedin another city is also worth a visit. even if you could stretch it out to 10 days that'd allow for you to fit everything in a bit more comfortably

wizzard

During my last trip I came across a website called http://www.cheaphotel-s.com . It has quite a large variety of hotels. You might wanna give it a try.

waltzsingmatilda

I love to be able to help you,but nz Is thousands of kl from Australia and we are two different countrys.
Try asking a kiwi.

the shy king

I have been to christchurch and I like it , and there are alot of places to go like queenstown , Milford Sound .

anon.

go to auckland city then to th erelaxation of rotarua

Zebra

A week is not very long. To spend all that money on airfare for only a week hardly seems worth it (don't forget about the long flight & jetlag - it could take you a whole week to get over that & get used to the dramatic time difference). Personally if I'm going to the Northern Hemisphere, because of the distance & cost, I don't consider it worthwhile unless I'm going for a month or more. Get a Lonely Planet travel guide, it has a section where if you are here for a month it suggests what to do, if you are here only a week make sure you do these things, etc.

It really depends on what you are after, if you want mountains & lakes or snow then the South Island. If you want beaches then the North of the North Island (Auckland, Northland & The Bay of Islands & the Coromandel). If you like English looking cities then there's Christchurch in the South Island & Dunedin to a lesser extent. For volcanic activity & geysers - Rotorua in the North Island.

Our cheap flights are:

itchyfeet.co.nz
flightcentre.co.nz

February is the best month to visit as the school holidays have finished so accomodation is not full & it's the only truly reliable month for good non rain weather.

Amy

New Zealand is NOT part of australia, no matter how badly the aussies want it

swishdollface

NZ's a hole! Don;t do it!!!
lol naaaaaaaah

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