The final ten days of our trip were spent on the North Island of NZ. This island holds most of the population of New Zealand (which is only about four million in total) and is more known for its towns and cities rather than scenery. Because of this, we opted to rent a car and stay in Airbnbs and budget hotels rather than continue in our minivan. While we missed being in nature, it was nice to sleep in a proper bed. … Read More

Hey everyone it’s Alex! We’ve spent the last week or so finishing up our adventures on the South Island of New Zealand. After spending one night in Okarito, outside of the glaciers, we headed down to the Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea area. A little over halfway there we stopped to do a day walk to the Young River at the Blue Pools. We were a bit disappointed to see that the parking lot was really crowded when we pulled over. … Read More

Four flights and 21+ hours later, we made it to Christchurch, New Zealand! We flew on the budget airline, Air Asia (which we would definitely not recommend for long flights), and had stopovers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Gold Coast, Australia. I think we went through security checks more than four times in total. In Australia we had to get off the plane, go through international security, and then get back on the same plane in the same seats. … Read More