vishalmodi

My wife and I and my 2 year old son will be traveling to New Zealand.

We are coming from California, making a stop for 9 days in Fiji prior to New Zealand.

We are looking for some advice on Itinerary while considering we have a 2 year old son.

We will have a car and and plan on taking the state highway 1 from Auckland> Rotorua> Taupo>Wellington. The 2 stops Rotorua/Taupo we will stay 1 night each.

Any feedback or recommendation would be helpful on any other stops we should take.

Thanks in advance for your help! Cheers!


10/16 : Auckland Afternoon
10/17: Auckland Sky Tower, Hot Water beach
10/18 : Auckland Waiheke Island
10/19: Auckland Kelly Tarlton Sea Life
10/20: Driving to Rotorua in the morning (1 night)
10/21 Driving to Taupo (1 night)
10/22 Driving to Wellington
10/23 Wellington
10/24 Wellington
10/25 Wellington
10/26: Leaving Wellington (2PM Flight)

deSchenke

I would drive further south than Taupo on the 21st. Perhaps a night at Turangi, at the south end of the lake. This will shorten your drive to Wellington. We stayed at Creel Lodge and it was excellent. There's a Trout Center there, which may be interesting to you and the little one.

I also question why so many nights at Auckland and Wellington, with so little time exploring on the drive between. Rotorua really deserves 2 nights.

Also, you do realize that Hot Water Beach is on the Coromandel peninsula and would make an extremely long daytrip from Auckland. Plus, it is tide dependent.

tasmangirl

10/17 is just not doable. Hot Water Beach is miles away over in Coromandel. I think there's an organised day trip from Auckland but it will take all day. And the tide is a major so if that's not a low tide there is no point going there.
The little one will enjoy Kelly Tarlton's and the emperor penguin will probably be as big as he is. If it's a nice day walk around to Mission Bay to the beach and playground.
Agreed Rotorua should have 2 nights. Wellington is great but you don't want to spend all your time there.
And another thumbs up for Turangi and Creel Lodge! Take a walk along the Tongariro river or drive a bit west to the south end of Lake Taupo for a look.

vishalmodi

First of all, thank you so much for your help with this.

My wife and I have never been to New Zealand and so we are just going by what we have researched so far. I agree to remove the Hot water Beach out for 10/17. '

in terms of the time in Auckland. Do you have any other activities or suggetsion on what we can add to to our plan. Maybe something the locals do or check out?

I was thinking of using BookaBach for stay. I am curious to see if anyone has used them and what the been the experience like?

Unless you have any other stay recommendation.

Unfortunatly,we are not made of money lol
So the top notch hotels will not work for us, at least not yet.

If we shorten our stay in Auckland and Wellington, Are there any other stops worth make on the drive, with the limited amount of time we have?


10/16 : Auckland Afternoon (Arrive 4pm)
10/17: Auckland Sky Tower
10/18 : Auckland Waiheke Island
10/19: Auckland Kelly Tarlton Sea Life and the Emperor penguin
10/20: Driving to Rotorua in the morning (1 night)
10/21 Stay Rotorua
10/22 Driving to Turangi (creel Lodge stay)
10/23 Driving to wellington
10/24 Wellington
10/25 Wellington
10/26 Leaving Wellington (2PM Flight)

vishalmodi

We decided to go with this plan, any suggestion or tips would help on if we should make more stops and where...

10/16 : Auckland Afternoon (Arrive 4pm)
10/17: Auckland Sky Tower
10/18 : Auckland Waiheke Island
10/19: Auckland Kelly Tarlton Sea Life and the Emperor penguin
10/20: Driving to Rotorua in the morning (1 night)
10/21 Stay Rotorua
10/22 Driving to Turangi (creel Lodge stay)
10/23 Driving to wellington
10/24 Wellington
10/25 Wellington
10/26 Leaving Wellington (2PM Flight)