December 28, 2023 – February 6, 2024

Continuing with our conclusion we’ll look at the other cost categories we compiled.

Food

I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of the types of cuisine we would find in both countries and I would say that if there were any dominant categories, it would be the heavy influence of Asian flavors (makes sense given the proximity of that part of the globe) and the wide range of types of meat we would find (beef, not much pork, chicken, lamb, kangaroo, and seafood).  As not everyone in our party was an adventurous eater, we tended to stick with what I would refer to as more of your meat and potato choices, limiting our exposure to Asian and Middle Eastern cuisines. 

Upon our arrival in New Zealand, as first I was concerned with how high the prices in restaurants seemed but over time completely revised my opinion because of three factors.  The first was the exchange rate, that is anything costing a dollar NZ translated to about sixty cents U.S.  The second would be that like in Europe, rarely does one tip here and when one does, its often just five percent or so.  Finally, there wasn’t any sales tax and so a $20 check here at home would become $26 total after adding the tip and sales tax.  A 26NZ item would translate to roughly $17 when you take the exchange rate into consideration.  So, all in all our food budget didn’t suffer. 

I’d say my only complaints were, one, that it was hard to find much of substance for under 10NZ except for something we rarely see here but abounded in New Zealand and that was the ubiquitous hand pie.  Full of different meats or veggies, you could easily get one for what would amount to $5 here and they were universally satisfying.  And second, and this isn’t much of a complaint, drip coffee was unheard of in restaurants and coffee shops.  So, we always ordered a latte, usually for not much more than a cup of coffee would cost us here. 

Finally, I don’t believe we had one bad meal as all the food was generally excellent with few rare mediocre exceptions.  Our dining experiences in New Zealand were a bit better than in Australia, but that is because we had more nice meals out in the former than the latter due to nothing more than the timing of each day and the longer day trips we took in Australia. 

Culture

This was a big expense category for us on this trip.  In fact, of all of them it was the one we spent the most money on, at nearly $100 per day per person.  For us this was a lot compared to trips of the past to foreign countries, but we were younger than and had the physical stamina and energy to use self-guided tours and other means of visiting cultural sights on the cheap.  Our decision early on to use guided tours, particularly many full day experiences meant we were provided with way more information than we could have obtained on our own, had the transportation provided for us, and in the end, got to pack in much more each time than we could have managed ourselves. 

We are big proponents of Trip Advisor when it comes to figuring out which hotels and restaurants to utilize and we used their subsidiary, Viator (acquired in 2014) for the bulk of our tour and activity bookings.  We found them to be reliable, fairly easy to communicate with given that they are intermediaries for activity providers and do not run activities themselves.  The couple of customer service or booking issues we encountered were handled to our satisfaction within a satisfactory period of time. 

We also used Get Your Guide a few times for tours and activities as well as just doing a search in a city for a specific thing to do, such as taking a bike tour or some other specific local experience.  As we think about the trips we will be taking the in the future, I believe this newer model of relying on guided tours will begin to play a larger role in our experiences both here at home and abroad. 

Costs

In breaking down the costs of this trip, one must remember that there were five of us traveling together and a one-to-one comparison to our usual cost structure will not always be accurate, or relevant.  The bottom line is that not including airfare to and from the States, our six weeks ran us a total of $12,277 or $299 a day for the two of us, that it is $150 per person.  New Zealand was a bit cheaper than Australia at $285NZ ($142) per day compared to $321Aus ($162).  Let’s look at each category per country to see where the money went.

Cost Per Country In New Zealand Dollars and Australian Dollars						(at ~64%)
Category	New Zealand	Australia	Total	% of Total	Avg. Per Day	Total $’s	Avg $ per Day
Lodging	2,742	2,056	4,798	25	117	3,081	74
Food	2,997	1,565	4,562	24	111	2,929	71
Culture	3,829	2,234	6,062	31	148	3,767	94
Miscellaneous	575	53	628	3	15	407	10
Transportation	1,177	2,080	3,257	17	79	2,093	50
Total	11,320	7,988	19,307	100	470	12,277	299

Generally, the exchange rate for both currencies ranged from a low of .60 to a high of .70 with the average for the trip at .62 for New Zealand, .65 for Australia and .64 overall.  That is, a New Zealand or Australian dollar cost us roughly 64-cents on average.  As for the total per day, it is certainly more than other trips we’ve taken abroad, and yet compared to the daily cost of our guided tour of Peru with Intrepid Tours which ran us $14,100 in total for fourteen days (not including airfare), or $500 a day per person, our total for this trip seems reasonable in comparison

Conclusion

Because of Covid and various physical issues, we had all pushed this trip back at least two years.  The good news was that it now aligned with Bev’s retirement and much like our long trip in 2014, enabled her to start it with a bang.  As Joanna and I did the bulk of the logistical planning, I can report that after roughing out an itinerary, it took us about three months to book the transportation and all of the lodging. 

Early on we knew we would be starting in Auckland and jumping to Melbourne mid-trip in time to catch a day of the Australian Open tennis tournament, so those were the first two places we arranged for.  And then one by one we began knocking down each city, getting to and from and securing the lodging.  It was a bit of work but thoroughly enjoyable as it helps one invest in the trip. 

As it has been primarily my voice throughout all the posts about the trip, I asked the others to share with our readers their highlights.  Here they are:

• Beverly – Sydney. The Opera house, the bridge, taking the ferries. I was impressed with the whole city!!
• Joanna – The penguin parade, the Twelve apostles and snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef
• Marty – the Australian Open, the natural wonders of New Zealand topped by Milford Sound and the Gippsland region in Australia around Melbourne and the Penguin
• Kim – Hard choices!  So many good memories. As I am thinking back, one comes to mind right away.  Although we have snorkeled many beautiful reefs and islands, none has wowed me as much as the Great Barrier Reef!  As you remember, we struggled into those silly jelly fish suits and swam out to the first stop. It was beautiful, but I remember thinking it was much like places we viewed in Hawaii and the Caribbean. After our lunch, I almost passed on the second stop not wanting to struggle into the cold, wet suit again.  However, deciding we would not likely be back, I gamely wriggled back into the protective suit and jumped in.  I swam out a few yards and almost bumped into the most amazing underwater view I could imagine. Bright colors, huge coral and fish swarming everywhere. It seemed as if the view went on forever!  I will never forget that sight!  So glad I took the second plunge.

And for me Jerry, it would be Hobbiton, the view from our Airbnb in Queenstown, the bike ride Bev, Marty and I took there, and trailing a bit, that first glimpse of Milford Sound.  But those are places and things and honestly, what really stood out for me were the times we spent with Beppie and Ian in Tauranga and the Quigley’s in Whanganui.  And even more so, the time the five of us got to spend together, deepening our already close relationships.  When you travel as much as we do, you become a little jaded as you get exposed to so much physical beauty and so many monumental structures.  But for this trip, the memories of time shared with friends, both old and new, are the ones I’ll never forget. 

Links

Viator: https://www.viator.com/

Get Your Guide: https://www.getyourguide.com/