Hashtag, vanlife: Living in a Van in New Zealand

Living in a van in New Zealand…on a budget. 

Following in the footsteps of many other working holiday visa backpackers, I spent my year in New Zealand living in a van. I wanted a slice of the cosy vanlife I’d heard whisperings about online. So, I bought myself a ‘motorhome’ to call my humble abode for the year. Travel and accommodation in one. Plus, a bit of cash at the end of my time in New Zealand to look forward to*. 

Sweet as, so they say in New Zealand.

Vanlife New Zealand. Hashtag, vanlife. Home is where you park it, I woke up like this, and all that.

My year in a motorhome didn’t quite turn out exactly like the pruned, filtered, and fine-tuned photos you might see floating around on social media. To be honest, travelling rarely looks anything like what you see on Instagram (that’s one of many, many, many reasons why I bid farewell to the ‘Gram in favour of Reality).

But, warts and all, I loved my budget-friendly experience of living in a van in New Zealand.

*this didn’t go quite to plan

living in a van in New Zealand

You need to take the term ‘van’ with a pinch of salt. My ‘motorhome’ was a station wagon; a former family car converted a portable residence for intrepid explorers on a budget. People such as me!

Anyway, I defiantly called it a van, motorhome, etc, because my AA insurance cover (which was £££££££) charged me the rate for a motorhome. 

My Honda Odyssey, who I christened Achilles courtesy of a weak spot I discovered post-purchase, entered the world in 1997, making him one of the first Generation Z cars.

According to a dubious paperwork trail which I found shoved underneath the front seat, I appeared to be the 9th owner. If Achilles were a cat, he was down to his final life. And in fact – he was.

*Spoiler alert* – I never did make my money back. 

(Hashtag) Vanlife v Vanlife (The Reality) 

Let’s take a quick tour of my van. The original chairs had been ripped out long before my time, to make space for a sleeping den. A sturdy wooden structure was crafted to hold the mattress that I would shortly buy. Beneath this was bags of space for all my luggage, laundry, camping gear, and kitchenware. 

At some point, the boot had been kitted out with what I liked to call my kitchenette: a hole drilled into a wooden plank just the right size to accommodate a plastic washing basin for scrubbing my pots on the go. There was also space for my two water tanks. As a self-contained van, I had a legal obligation to carry enough fresh water for three days and hold grey (dirty) water for the same length of time. 

Because the vehicle was so long in relation to its modest height, there wasn’t a lot of space indoors for chilling amid a whimsical nest of dreamcatchers, fairy lights, and pillows. This was a far cry from those Insta-friendly homes on wheels.

Getting into bed was a case of flopping myself in via one of the back windows – a manoeuvre I’d compare to a seal travelling overland. Once safely positioned in the bed with the doors securely slammed shut it wasn’t dissimilar to snoozing inside a coffin.

This van had clearly been through the wars, as was evident by the number of dents and scratches all over the body.

Warning sounds would beep frantically every time I dropped below 15 km. An archaic navigation system was long redundant. My lovely (and worried) house sitting hosts reattached the loose bumper with cable ties before waving me off north. 

But, by New Zealand vanlife standards – he was a van. And he was the first home of my own. 

Freedom Camping in New Zealand 

Crucially for me, my van was self-contained. This meant I had entry to the exclusive Freedom Camping Club: a secret society of campers who can pull over and sleep wild at any given place.

Not really; that’s not it all.

Essentially, those permitted to freedom camp have way more freedom (funny, that) in terms of where you can sleep. You need to travel with a potty on board, plus a couple of other legal requirements. You can read the most recent requirements here about how to freedom camp legally and responsibly in New Zealand.

Vanlife New Zealand…when you can’t drive

Back to the buying of the van. I viewed two vehicles before deciding to snap up the van from my second viewing. Looking back, I should have shopped around a little more. But what’s life without making a few hasty decisions? 

My first dilemma; exactly how to drive it?!

I learned to drive when I was 21. That made it nine years prior to my arrival in New Zealand. Since passing my test I hadn’t driven at all. My only brief stints behind a wheel were, firstly, driving an automatic tourist jeep briefly through a Mexican jungle. Until I hit a tree. Secondly, taking a friend’s car around an ASDA car park in Blackpool (the tower remained unscathed).

My family doesn’t drive and I moved to London in my twenties which is no place for a car. I’d not been around cars much. This meant I also encountered a few maintenance issues during my time living in a van in New Zealand.

After giving me the grand tour, my first potential seller asked, “test drive, then?” To which, I gulped and suggested that he drive the car while I watched. He chuckled and said he was the same when he arrived in New Zealand and that he’d teach me how to drive it. Fortunately, most of the cars and vans in New Zealand are automatic – so at least there were no gears to faff around with.

Actually, I’d hate to stall in New Zealand. Kiwi drivers have zero patience.

After a slightly nerve-wracking (but free!) driving lesson, I was much more prepared when seller number two turned up an hour later. This was the one that would become my very first car (and home). At least this time I knew the basics of how to switch the car on and adjust the mirrors before pulling out.

A learning curve

Dilemma two. Once I had a car – now what? With my minimal driving experience and, I was anxious about driving alone. Especially considering the length of it. I never did get used to parking this long vehicle. Not a good start to my experience living in a van in New Zealand.

As fate had it, a friend of mine (a fellow Hannah) had recently arrived in Auckland to buy her own home on wheels. She bravely buckled herself into my passenger seat and imparted all her driving wisdom. We circumnavigated many of the many, many roundabouts in Auckland’s North Shore. We sailed down the motorway, pounded by furious New Zealand rain while heavy goods vehicles overtook us on both sides.

That was even before I’d plucked up the courage to leave the safety zone of the leftmost lane.

After my dismal failure at fuelling up the tank, my buddy came along and showed me the ropes. Turns out NZ $10 barely makes a dent. Adding an extra zero, however, made the world of difference to both my van’s movability and my bank balance.

Nesting phase of living in a van in New Zealand

Once I’d sorted out the logistics, it was time to get prepared for living in a van in New Zealand. I spent the remainder of my time in Auckland getting Achilles The Van kitted out as my home on wheels, ready for vanlife. I’m not much of a nester but I did throw myself into the experience of owning and decking out my First Home. 

Pots, pans, bedding, cleaning stuff; all courtesy of those backpacker meccas The Warehouse and Kmart. I strung up tacky fairy lights and bought a cheap, faux fur blanket for those cold nights. 3 degrees celsius was the all-time low.

I fashioned curtains by hacking up a pair of bedsheets that were pinned up with clothes pegs. It was just like buying my first home. Which, technically, is exactly what it was! Much cheaper than a studio in London though.

I got into a pretty intense bidding war on Trade Me over a mattress, eventually claiming it for NZ $50. The seller messaged me to say $20 was more than it was worth (great sign). When I turned up to collect it, his house was perched at the top of a driveway. A long, winding, remarkably narrow driveway. He suggested I reverse up and we whack the mattress in the back. I said I’d probably end up taking out his neighbour’s fence. 

After we lugged it down the 500m driveway we realised my van wasn’t wide enough to accommodate a double mattress. Most camper cars have foam ones I later discovered. But, they’re not great for the back. Anyway – it was a happy ending. After a bit of shoving and heaving and reordering the front seats, we managed it eventually. This is why it looks like this…

My not-so-flying start 

Bizarrely, in New Zealand, it isn’t a legal requirement to have car insurance. Vehicle owners are recommended to at least purchase third party insurance.

But, New Zealand isn’t the cheapest island to call home. That’s why many travellers (and even residents) choose not to take out any motor insurance on their cars and vans. I reckon around half the backpackers I spoke to didn’t have insurance. Even for me, the thriftiest traveller, driving without insurance was something I didn’t even entertain. And, I even got to test my policy out!

My motorhome (plus contents) insurance with the AA cost me $60 NZD per month. And when I drove into another car in a Pak ’n’ Save car park (two weeks after buying it) that insurance saved me. Although the NZ $400 excess I had to hand over made my eyes water, it could have been a lot worse.

So, that was my rocky start to living in a van in New Zealand! Fortunately from then onward it was much smoother sailing (relatively).

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