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The Itinerary of New Zealand’s Biggest Gap Year

© NZPocketGuide.com

-44 Days on the Road

A 12-month Roadie!

Have you ever thought: “Screw this, I’m going backpacking for a year”? By simply being on this website right now, we guess you have and you’ll probably want to stick around!

A year of travel or a “gap year” isn’t exactly a new concept, but our New Zealand’s Biggest Gap Year is. That’s where we come in, Robin and Laura, NZPocketGuide.com’s travel writers. For 12 months, we’ll be bringing you coverage of the adrenaline-pumping awe-inspiring New Zealand with photography, videos, virtual reality and some good old literature in the form of daily blog posts – all of this out of the back of a campervan.

Where Are We Going?

Like most backpackers travelling through New Zealand, our journey will begin and end in New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland in the North Island. But we’ll be capturing everything in between Cape Reinga in the north to Bluff in the south. (And Stewart Island further south, we hope. Watch this space).

Take a look at the New Zealand map below showing our whole road trip itinerary. This is the route we are going to be taking for the year – a huge and slightly disfigured figure of eight. Each dot indicates an overnight stop between 1-10 days. This gives us enough time to explore the surrounding area, try out a few activities, meet a few people, and work on the website.

We are approaching this trip as we would recommend to anyone planning a trip in New Zealand: to have a rough plan but don’t over-plan. Over-planning kills magic.

Why Are We Doing This?

If it has not become obvious yet, you are currently gracing New Zealand’s biggest travel guide with your presence. (Thank you, by the way. It’s nice of you to stop by). NZPocketGuide.com is an up-to-date budget travel guide dedicated to New Zealand. Simply put, it’s better than your dusty old guidebook.

What is more up-to-date than posting daily location guides, travel tips and awesome activities that we find throughout New Zealand? Other than making NZPocketGuide.com bigger and better, we want to bring a more personal touch to the travel guide by blogging our journey. We’ll also give you some behind-the-scenes about what it’s like to write, shoot and photograph for a travel guide. From the most epic locations and travel advice to our downright failures, it’s all going to be here.

So What’s in it for You?

As much as this trip is going to be an adventure for ourselves, it is to help you on your own New Zealand adventure! We’ll be bringing you:

  • More articles on NZPocketGuide.com
  • Daily blog posts (which you can get a weekly summary of in our newsletter, so sign up!)
  • Virtual reality 360 pictures, aerial shots, and more
  • A web series starting next year!

So let’s get this thing started! All great trips start with some preparation. (You can plan yours by checking out these articles to prepare your trip). Our preparation begins with buying a campervan that we can live, work and travel in for a year. So stay tuned for our next blog post to see how that works out.

For now, we’ll leave you with this 360 image of Robin planning with his good old-fashioned map and Laura keeping with the times. Which do you prefer: paper maps or Google Maps?

Trip Planning at its Best

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Want More?

Check out our articles on the main website to help you plan your own trip to New Zealand. Perhaps some travel tips will help you out? Or how about some New Zealand location guides? We even have heaps of advice on finding work in New Zealand.

In other news, we will be updating this very blog every day. Have you checked out some other blog posts yet, like our rushed but expected journey to the Bay of Islands? You can also get some insights into New Zealand life on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Kia ora!

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