Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet New Zealand

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

If you're going to New Zealand - and want to enjoy the country to the fullest - DO NOT LEAVE WITHOUT THE LONELY PLANET GUIDE! I embarked on a 6-week long trip with 'Lonely Planet New Zealand' and fate as my only guides. I was impressed to the max! The only other guide I needed was a road atlas I picked up at the airport in Auckland (and since I was touring some of the Lord of the Rings film locations, Ian Brodie's lovely 'Lord of the Rings: Location Guidebook'). I do recommend renting a vehicle - as someone under 25 years old, Budget was a good bet for rental. Just remember, "Left, left left." It's a cinch! With the US dollar exchange rate favorable, we cheaply rented a top notch 4WD SUV for the entire time based on the recommendation of this book. I love the Lonely Planet series for the sheer fact that it gives you pointers on fantastic locations that may be slightly off the beaten path while at the same time informing you of the best of the best in those tourist meccas. It's a lovely balance. My only regret is that 6-weeks is far too short a time to see everything there is to see in New Zealand!
The top 5 places you shouldn't miss on the North and South Islands:

North Island
1) Take the short ferry ride from Auckland to Rangitoto Island and hike to the summit - otherwordly!
2) Do a touristy bus tour to Cape Reinga out of Paihia - on the bus to Cape Reinga you'll get to: learn a lot about the Maori culture, hug a Kauri tree, stop and surf down sand dunes, wonder in awe at the northern most point of the North Island where untouched white beaches are visible as the Tasman and Pacific Ocean meet and clash (an amazing scene), and to top it all off you'll cruise down 90-mile beach as waves lap the wheels of the bus (yeah, the beach is actually a registered roadway).
3) Drive around the gorgeous Coromandel Peninsula - leave the Thames area just before sunrise and the landscape will just take your breath away! You will come to understand the meaning of Aotearoa/New Zealand: land of the long white cloud.
4) Wander the volcantic parks of Rotorua - Wai-ti-pau was a highlight! Don't forget to sign-up for a traditional Maori concert and haka at the Tamaki Maori Village for a cool cultural experience!
5) Cruise Cuba Street in Wellington for food and shops, and don't forget to visit Te Papa - the national museum of Wellington.

South Island
1) Plan a kayaking trip out of Motueka: the Tonga Island wildlife option is cool - we saw wild Orca and New Zealand Fur Seals up close and personal and then lunched on a secluded beach reached only by kayak!
2) Take a helicopter ride up to Fox Glacier and do an afternoon hike - see where semi-tropical rainforest meets glacier meets the Tasman Sea.
3) Go white water rafting on the Shotover River in Queenstown (be sure you get an option with the Oxenbridge Tunnel)! Then go jet boating, then bungy jumping, you name, it they do it there! Don't miss Deer Park Heights either - say hello to the free roaming buffalo for me!
4) Head to the beautiful city of Kaikoura for whale watching and a dolphin swim.
5) If you love wildlife - head to Dunedin and take a tour out to the Otago Peninsula (you'll see albatross, fur seals, sea lions, yellow-eyed penguins and a variety of bird life up close and personal - by up close I mean walking on the beach less than 10 feet away from a Hooker Seal Lion twice your size). While in Dunedin, visit Baldwin Street, the steepest street in the world, and don't miss the Cadbury Factory! It's well worth the admission price!

There is so much more to see and do that I haven't listed - and this guide helped me find it all and point me in the right direction every step of the way. The only thing the guide failed to mention was the abundance of rainbows in this enchanted country - I don't know about you, but where I come from rainbows are a special once in a great while occurance. In New Zealand you see them on a daily basis. I guarantee that with the help of this guide you will leave New Zealand with enough fantastic memories to last a lifetime. Kia ora.

I have used over 50 Lonely Planet guidebooks since 1988, and I still usually take one with me wherever I travel. However, I found the New Zealand book (Sept, 2004 edition) to be a large step below Rough Guide New Zealand. LP has improved its graphics through the years, and the Highlights map and photo section are excellent. The city maps are also the best of any guidebook, and the layout is well-organized and easy to follow.

The major shortcoming is the brevity of descriptions in comparison to Rough Guide. During a 1500-mile road trip I was constantly referring to RG & LP as my wife drove, so in effect I was constantly comparing the two books' descriptions for the southern half of South Island. There was absolutely no question which guidebook did a better job....Rough Guide. We would have missed several places if we had relied on Lonely Planet alone, and I felt like we gained much more insight about places from RG.

Lonely Planet NZ is about 300 pages shorter than Rough Guide NZ, so it is a little easier to carry if you have only one guidebook. Personally, I think Rough Guide New Zealand and DK New Zealand are the best pair of guidebooks to travel with in NZ. Add Lonely Planet Tramping in New Zealand (a very impressive LP work) if you're keen on hiking.

We just got back from weeks in New Zealand! God it was great when the sun was shining, but the South was a bit wet. Anyhow, we bought a Lonely Planet, were given a Rough Guide, and when we got to Auckland we bought an Nz Frenzy. We liked Lonely planet more than Rough Guide, but they both cover almost exactly the same stuff, and neither gives enough details about trails and directions to beaches and waterfalls. The Nz Frenzy book was definitely our favorite to get us to cool spots on the North Island, but it only covers the North and there is no South one, so that was disappointing. Overall we agree that you should get a Lonely Planet for all the traveler essentials, but definitely get an Nz Frenzy if you have your own car/van on the North. Also you'll need a good map because it's just too hard to use all the little maps in Lonely Planet. Hope you find Kerosene creek and Tongaporutu on the North and Kaikoura's cute seals on the South. Cheers!!

Rough Guide to NZ & Lonely Planet's Tramping NZ are also worth buying. LP is smaller if you are backpacking, but lacks some of the information in RG.

For such a small country (just a bit bigger than the UK), New Zealand has so much to see, so it's hard to get everything in one book.

It is the one place you must visit in your lifetime. But, I warn you, once you've been you'll want to go back and back like us. I found helpful, friendly people there, a great budget campervan & car rental company Thomlinson Rentals, and we now we always rent a campervan, allowing us to stay off the beaten track.

Visit the NZ Department of Conservation Website www.doc.gov.nz and the tramping website http://www.enzed.com/tramp.html

We would recommend Bay of Islands, taking a cruise around Waitemata (Auckland) Harbour, signing up for a day's free sailing as crew at one of the sailing/yacht clubs around Auckland - great fun on the Rum races. Must see is Rotorua, Huka Falls, Waitomo Caves, Milford Track and West Coast of South Island. Actually just about everywhere is breathtakingly beautiful and the people very friendly. There are also good tourist information centres in NZ.

Pieces of Advice:
Don't take any food other than candy into NZ. Meat, vegetable/fruit or dairy products will get you a huge fine. When you get off the airplane, sniffer dogs go all over your hand luggage as well as suitcases looking for food as well as drugs.

If you have been hiking/walking in other countries before NZ, make sure your boots/shoes and all equipment is thoroughly cleaned. NZ is an agricultural country,and relatively clear of pests and they want to keep it that way.

If you are on a budget in money and time, you can rent Campervans and cars at a low cost. You can start in Auckland and leave them in Christchurch.

Please note: this review is ONLY about the Kindle version, which I found unusable. I am NOT reviewing the soft cover book.

I've used Lonely Planet books for over 20 years. I'm also very happy with my Kindle, which I take with me whenever I travel. So, I was really looking forward to getting my first Lonely Planet book in Kindle format. Unfortunately, putting a guide book on a Kindle just does not work. Maps and pictures are, of course, completely useless on the Kindle. But the problems go beyond that. The Kindle works fine for novels and for most non-fiction books. But with a travel guide, one needs to flip through pages quickly, refer back and forth between pages, and use the index. I found the Kindle version of this book completely useless, and will end up buying the regular soft-cover version to plan my trip.

P.S. -- the Kindle version works pretty well on an iPad. In some ways, the iPad version is better than a paper book. For example, you can click directly into websites from the book. The maps are also useable on the iPad, perhaps even a bit better than a paperback book. But, the index still does not work and I still found it a bit frustrating in that it is hard to flip from section to section, as one would with a paperback travel guide. In summary, this book is useless on the Kindle. As between the paperback and the iPad, I'd say it is pretty much a toss up.

I am near the end of my 1 month stay in NZ, and in the past month, I have encountered too many instances where I relied on LP's info but found it to be erroneous. Trains/ferries no longer running, activities/tours no longer in operation, and restaurants that have closed (in various regions). This book has proven to be a disappointment for 2006. (Thank god for the internet so I am able double-check everything.)

I really like the new layout for the Lonely planet series. I'm also glad that Lonely planet has been adding a little more opinion in its guides. The Lonely Planet New Zealand 12th edition is a great book. This book is an interesting and helpful read for anyone considering NZ. My only complaint is I was hoping the book would have the road atlas in the back that the LP Australia guide has.

This is the must have book for anyone doing NZ on the cheap, although NZ aint that cheap.

If you're doing a driving tour with your 78 year old Mum, you might want to look at something a little more middle of the road, but it worked for Mum & me.

Lot's of detail, but activities seems a bit more geared to the adrenaline junkie, then again, with 2 weeks to TRY and see both islands, I didn't have a lot of time to read the book.

Plan at least a month if you want to see both islands and not wipe yourself out.

Lonely Planet guides are my first choice. South America on a shoestring got me around the whole place, no worries...

Big and heavy. If you're backpacking with a friend, rip it in half and share the load. Just make sure you rip between chapters, not half way through!

"Lonely Planet New Zealand" is a great companion to Lonely Planet's "Tramping New Zealand". I've spent 15 weeks (3 trips) in New Zealand both sight-seeing and backpacking. "Lonely Planet New Zealand" is matter-of-fact and reflects the realities of traveling around New Zealand accurately.
I have a bookshelf of books on New Zealand, but these two books are the best. Their compact size and easy-to-read formatting makes them handy to bring along on your trip.
Lonely Planet's "Tramping New Zealand" is a must-buy companion book for those that want to explore the great national parks of this beautiful country. NZ is like visiting seven continents of wilderness on two small islands! Changing weather conditions and seasonal changes are accurately described in this information-packed volume. Every trek is accurately outlined. Some advice: If you enjoy backpacking do the South Island: Routeburn, Milford, Abel Tasman, Kepler and Banks Penninsula are five of the best hikes (tramps) in the world. Enjoy!

This guide includes a lot of detailed info related to excursions in different areas. Also included detailed maps that show you hotel accomodations in relation to eateries, and things to do and see. The guide also lists must see attractions at the beginning of each area chapter so you know what not to miss. Good organization, can find info fast.