We bought a car

After 2 weeks in New Zealand, we decided to buy a car. More precisely, we bought a van, in which we can sleep and camp.

Why did we decide to buy a van?

In New Zealand, there are many places, especially farms, that can only be reached by car. Additionally, the car offers much more flexibility than traveling by bus. Moreover, there are many beautiful camping sites where you can get a spot right by the beach.

However, it's advantageous to buy the car with a travel partner (at least that's how I see it), as the costs are split in half and you can take turns driving.

At home in Germany, we received the tip to buy the car from a company called 'Kiwi Cruise Control' in Auckland. Here, you can also sell the car at the end of the journey. This means, you make a buy-back agreement with the company and get a pre-determined price back at the end when you return the car. In short: if I drive the car for one year, I get 30% of the purchase price back. For half a year, it's correspondingly more, and so on. It doesn't matter how many kilometers the car has been driven during that time. The only important thing is that it comes back in the same condition as when you bought it. The practical thing about it is that at the end of your journey, you don't have to deal with selling the car, saving you the hassle and time. Another advantage for all German-speaking travelers is that the owner herself is German and can explain everything comprehensibly. I think that's relatively important because buying a car is a big deal and shouldn't be done lightly. She also explains things like insurance and other stuff. In addition, the couple who owns this small company has a huge warehouse full of second-hand camping equipment that you can take with you for free. The only condition is that everything must be returned. As a result, we saved a lot of money, as we later realized when we had to buy the missing things and had to spend a lot of money just on that. So, it's worth packing all things that seem useful (or maybe not so useful at the moment ;) ).

This blog entry might be more interesting for those who are planning to travel through New Zealand, but in my future entries, there will certainly be something for everyone who is interested in what I experience and which cool places we will visit.

So, stay tuned! :)