In
Australia and New Zealand, cars
are driven on the left hand side of the road and the steering wheel
is on the right hand side of the car. For those of us who are not
already use to this, it takes a lot of concentration to drive. Even
if you think it's bothersome or not necessary, I recommend having a
passenger be a backseat driver with reminders. Having an annoying
backseat driver is better than the alternative of causing an
accident. During my visit, there was an ongoing debate amongst locals
about tourists renting cars and causing devastating accidents. See
one article here.
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| Four of us and all of our luggage fit into our Toyota Corolla. |
New
Zealand has a website which offers helpful information for anyone
driving in the country. I have looked for this kind of information
from other countries when I have rented cars abroad I and never found
a site so thorough.
Taking
all of this into account, I would still recommend renting a car to
travel around either country. If
you have room in the budget (in
November 2014, a gallon of gasoline was $8 USD) and
if you are pressed for time, it's
the way to go.
I spent a total of seven
days on the south island and am so glad that we had a car to get
around quicker than using public transportation. We would routinely
pull off the main road to explore the parks, hiking trails, or other
natural beauty that these amazing countries have to offer.
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| We found this river after pulling over in one of the many National Parks in New Zealand. |
Over
the three weeks of my visit, we rented four cars. The majority of the
time, we rented from Budget. We were happy with their service and
pricing. We were also interested to find out that Budget does not
charge extra for additional drivers. We also rented one car from
Hertz. Hertz allows additional drivers who share the same address as
the primary driver to be added without an additional charge. Do
beware that in Australia both companies charge a fee for a mandatory
toll transponder for the rental car. We were not allowed to opt out
of this charge.
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