Strategy and tactics

When you go on a trip with a travel companion, you have to be on top of your game both strategically and tactically. Otherwise you will go under. Here are a few small examples:

The trip was planned by me as a tour guide and I followed the travel guide closely. That is also the purpose of a book like this, that you have orientation and so it was my strategy on our 30-day trip through New Zealand to more or less work through the book.

After about 2 weeks, the travel companion noticed this and was reprimanded for my lack of creativity: “You almost copied the entire route from the travel guide!”

Yes, of course, because firstly you have a travel guide that is written by experts who do nothing else and secondly, as an island, New Zealand is limited in terms of land mass, so in the end you can only drive around once if you want to see everything . This significantly limits the options for travel variation. Stop clockwise or counterclockwise.

But what I also did, and what worked really well, was to make the accommodations I chose improve each time. We started with a small room in Auckland for the first night, then a larger room in the basement with an integrated kitchen and bed next to it. So not the non plus ultra either. But gradually things got better. First a separate kitchen and then up to small independent huts. Later there was a hut on a farm with a great view and then complete houses towards the end of the trip. If I had booked very good accommodation at the beginning, I would have set the standard far too high and set my expectations accordingly. Which then leads to massive criticism if the expectations are not met. The gradual but constant increase in the quality of accommodation eliminated criticism from the start and the travel budget benefited from the cost avarage effect.

So much for strategy.

The tactical mastermind of the entire trip was the matter of the suitcases. Naturally, souvenirs are always bought on these trips. The fact that we traveled all over New Zealand was used by the travel companion as a reason to buy as many souvenirs as possible, because you want to be reminded of every place. I feared this scenario and therefore created a bottleneck at the beginning. For the outward journey I said that we were only allowed to carry one piece of luggage weighing 23 kg. Therefore, on the outward journey the travel companion squeezed out space in my suitcase for the return journey. “Don’t take too much with you, because I need the space in your suitcase for the return trip.” However, even the travel companion noticed at some point that more and more bags and boxes with souvenirs and finds from what seemed like 1,000 second-hand stores were accumulating in the car where we had to stop along the way...

What the travel companion didn't know and what I wanted to keep them in the dark about for as long as possible was that as a passenger with our airline you were allowed to check in not just one but two pieces of luggage weighing 23 kg each. So that's an additional 46 kg for the return journey. Information that was classified as top secret. In the last week of the trip, after our additional luggage had already reached threatening proportions due to various Tupperware cans and Systema containers, the question I had been waiting for was asked: “If I don't get rid of everything, have you already thought about what? “You can leave your things there?”

The answer was nothing, and without waiting for the storm of indignation I said that everyone could check in two pieces of luggage. The answer wasn't relief, but rather indignation: “You're just telling me that now?” Without waiting for the answer, we rushed back to the last second-hand store to buy an additional suitcase. For only 5 euros. A large foldable bag had been part of the luggage anyway, probably with the idea that it would somehow be able to be carried as hand luggage if the 1 piece of luggage rule had remained. To make it short. There were over 40 kg of additional luggage and we got everything on the plane. But without my secrecy tactics we would have needed a container.