[Kara] The New Zealand Campervan Phenomenon

As Seth and I were preparing for the New Zealand portion of our trip, we read a lot about people renting "campervans” to explore the country.  We don't really use the term campervan much in the US, but the idea of campervanning doesn't seem so strange to me.  RVs are prevalent and my brother Tristan has intermittently lived out of his Toyota Rav4 during his adventures.  (Check out his great website suvrving.com for all kinds of advice and expertise on how comfortably travel and camp out of your SUV.)

But I was still surprised by the sheer number of campervans and small RVs on the New Zealand roads.   What I didn't realize before we visited is that you can camp (or camp in your vehicle) for free on most public land in New Zealand—and that makes campervanning a pretty flexible way to see the country.

What I didn't expect at all, was the assortment of crazy looking campervans.  One of the most common campervan rental companies is named Jucy (pronounced like "juicy” I guess).  All of their vans are painted like this one.  We saw at least 20 of these a day.  Kate said she would NEVER be caught dead in a Jucy van.  You can check out the range of Jucy campervans here (with pictures of the floorplans so you can see how you'd fit in one of these guys).  https://www.jucy.co.nz/our-vehicles/camper-vans/

Once a day or so, we saw one of these vans that was graffitied and had a silly sentence painted on it.  These are from a company called named Wicked Campers.

They also offer campervans painted to look like the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine which we saw at least twice (but I never got a picture of).  Here's a link to the site where you can rent them so you can see I'm not making this up!  http://www.wickedcampers.co.nz/new-zealand-campervans/new-zealand-campers/mystery-machine-2-sleeper-camper.html

(What do you think the odds are that Wicked Campers actually have a license from Warner Brothers to use the Mystery Machine likeness?)

And occasionally, we saw something like this that was just painted crazy like this monkey car.  This minivan could belong to any regular family in NZ and their car almost wouldn't stand out.

We did feel a little left out of the campervan craze, but we were content to drive around in our rental car and sleep in motels rooms which were very reasonably priced (equivalent to the daily rental rate for a campervan), clean, spacious (compared to a campervan) and had kitchenettes so we could cook our own meals.  Plus, we could shower, which most of those campervanners couldn't do! (Though Tristan has a strategy for that.  Again, you should check out his website suvrving.com.)

Here's a picture of Seth and Cannon making pancakes in one of our motel rooms while the girls worked on homework.  Even a motel room can feel luxurious compared to a van!

Those jugs that look like they'd hold juice are actually
filled with dry pancake mix.  Add water and mix.  Pour into the hot pan.  So clever!