New Zealand Holiday Park

For those of you who don’t like to be confined inside four walls, holiday parks are a perfect fit.  A cheap and cheerful option, they provide travellers with a site to pitch their tent or park their caravan.  Some parks may also rent out small cabins, self contained units or backpackers lodges – naturally, the cost for these is significantly higher than the cost of a camp site.  Holiday parks are situated in holiday hot spots, especially by the water.

Holiday parks are set up to suit the diverse range of people who stay there.  Travellers can choose between a powered or unpowered site (naturally, powered sites cost a little more.)  They provide basic amenities, such as public bathrooms, showers and a communal kitchen area, and may additionally provide facilities to suit their customers, such as a playground for families, a swimming pool or barbeque area for backpackers and a spa for couples.  Some parks, particularly those by the water, also hire out boats, canoes and other equipment that suits the location.

Holidays parks are a casual and welcoming environment.  The primitive style of living and lack of privacy generally results in a friendly atmosphere, where people help each other out and strangers become friends.  As these parks are usually frequented during holiday periods, it’s not unusual for your neighbour to ask you over for a beer in the morning.

If you’d really like to get back to nature, why not book in a stay at the Kaitkati Naturist Park in the Bay of Plenty region – yep, naturist means nude!

Of course, there are other ways to ‘get back to basics’ without taking your clothes off.  For those of you who find the restrictions of a holiday park too overwhelming, why not try freedom camping?  Freedom camping (i.e. camping outdoors in the middle of nature) can have a debilitating impact on the environment, so the Department of Conservation (DoC) has a set of guidelines in place for freedom camping in New Zealand.  A quick visit to their website will provide you with the areas in which you are allowed to camp.  Be sure to follow the DoC guidelines – non compliance can result in a fine and (more importantly) can wreak havoc on New Zealand’s beautiful and fragile ecosystem.