Disclaimer: The following is an email I sent to friends and family in March 2014, preserved here for posterity.

Subj: Kiwi Colin

Kia ora!

In the back of my mind, there has been a fear festering that by staying with one family per country, I've been missing out on "seeing" the countries. I have no opinions or experience of Jo-berg, Pokhara, or Bangkok.  I didn't see zebras or orangutans or kangaroos.  I missed hiking Anapurna Base Camp, didn't have a full moon party, or go skiing in Hokkaido.  

This gnawed at me country by country until I finally decided I had to be a tourist at least once.  So . . . I bought a car when I landed in New Zealand, drove all over the north and south islands, saw everything and sold the car. 

This is how it went:

Buying the car was surprisingly easy, and a financial no-brainer.  Renting would cost about $1200 in money I would never see again.  Buying an old station wagon, with a bed built into the back, a gas stove and fishing gear and cooking essentials included was $960.  Easy.  So 12 hours after landing in Auckland I owned a car.  

Then… I just drove it around to some beautiful places and took pictures.  

I basically found a cool place, drove for half a day, walked around for half a day, then found a cheap campsite where I could set up my little stove and make a simple meal, usually rice or pasta and veges (plain, but healthier and cheaper than McDonalds).  I slept in the bed in the car, made eggs in the morning, then found somewhere else cool to hike.  With a few exceptions, this describes my whole month.

A brief itinerary:

North Island

I drove down from Auckland to Kerosene Creek which is an awesome natural magma-heated hot spring (That counts as a shower right?).  From there to do the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, which is a 6 hour trek climbing Mt. Doom.  I think I got to the summit of Mt Tongariro, but the beautiful weather I started with turned to hurricane winds and a thick fog/cloud when I neared the top, so the summit wasn't that impressive [ed: this is the background picture of the whole blog].

From there, I headed down to Wellington to catch the ferry to the more interesting South Island.  I spent the night camping at the thoroughly anticlimactic Rivendell.  One of the most beautiful sets of the movies is . . . completely removed so that all that remains is some famous trees.  There are signs saying "you may recognize this native beech (tree #110 on the map) from the background of when Aragorn kisses Arwen on the bridge."  The bridge is not there. Just the tree.  My last stop in the North Island was to drop off my passport to the Brazilian embassy in Wellington to get a visa.

South Island

On the South Island, I got in contact with the only Kiwis I know, Kate and Tim, who I met in Nepal (fate).  They completely changed my experience and made the next two weeks awesome.  Their generosity was incredible and I owe them a lot when they visit America.  They gave me their couch in Christchurch, a shower, and a home cooked meal.  Tim let me stay with his brother in Dunedin, and Kate was incredible to give me the key to her family beach house in Manapouri, which was the most beautiful town I visited.  They also drew out an itinerary of places to hit like the best mountains, lakes, and hikes, 

but more importantly, the best fish & chips, burgers, and ice cream on my way. 

After a week of driving around, I ended up back in Tim's hometown where I stayed with his wonderful family, where I could shower again (I know, 3 in one month seems excessive), and had more delicious farm-grown home-cooked food (including a roast of one of their cows).  I had a sad goodbye then drove up the beautiful west coast to take the ferry back to the North Island so I could have some time in Auckland to sell the car. I stopped at some beautiful random beaches along the way and tried my luck looking among the stones for some natural Pounamu or New Zealand Jade, which sometimes gets washed down rivers and thrown onto the beaches.  

It was a pretty relaxing time, but ultimately not fruitful.  I also stopped at Golden Bay and did a little hike through the Abel Tasman park.

North Island: Part II

On my way through Wellington the second time I picked up my passport and headed North.  I stayed at a beautiful black sand beach and made a beeline for Auckland to sell my investment.  

I gave myself some time to find a buyer so I wasn't pressured into selling it for $10 and a coke before I got on the plane.  I was pleasantly surprised when it only took half a day to find someone with cash in hand, so owning a car for a month costs about $40 because I sold for $920 (yeah I could have taken time and probably made money, but I value "easy-peezyness" and now I have time to write this)

I don't have the courage to look at how much I spent on gas yet.  

Conclusion

I basically saw the whole country, or most of it at least.  This led me to the conclusion that was actually my starting premise for what to avoid while traveling.  I have merely taken my own crappier versions of the images that come up when you image search "New Zealand."  I have seen pretty things. I can now have conversations with other people who have "done" NZ that go like "Oh cool man, did you do Tekapo?" "Yeah, Mt John summit right?" "Yeah…" "…Good view up there huh?" "Yup…" "..." "...".  

In a country with such interesting people and a well preserved indigenous culture, I learned almost nothing about the Maori or how they fit into New Zealand. In a country with more sheep and cows than people ( outnumbered 7:1 and 2:1 respectively) I learned nothing about the wool, lamb, dairy, or beef industries.  In the country with the best rugby team in the world, I don't even know the most basic rules of the sport.  

In short: I've had a very common, very expensive, very shallow experience of New Zealand (but I got some good panoramas), and now I'm more than ready to go back to the very rare, very cheap, very deep experience of volunteering with locals.  

I don't regret it at all and I got a lot of good out of the trip (including listening to the entire Lord of the Rings audiobook), but tomorrow (actually 40+ hours away) I'll be on a vineyard in Chile, and I can hardly wait. 

Hei konā,

Colin