Having the right apps when you’re in a new country is basically a type of life hack. When you’re coming to explore New Zealand, there are a bunch of websites and apps you can download to do epic stuff, eat great food, and stay within your budget.
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Explore New Zealand with these apps
Here are some apps you can download before you arrive to help you save money, find epic experiences, and explore New Zealand with ease.
New Zealand Traveller Declaration
Ok, so not very exciting, but doing the Traveller Declaration is super important before you even arrive in New Zealand! This will make your whole immigration/customs experience way more streamlined. Start this up to 24 hours before you start travelling. And you can also do it on your browser if you don’t want to download the app.
BookMe to explore New Zealand
BookMe is the best way to find great discounts on activities all over New Zealand! I’ve nabbed things like 50% off a Milford Sound cruise and a 2-for-1 ticket to the Hanging Treetop Walk in Rotorua that let me see it during the day and at night. Seems too good to be true, but can confirm it’s legit!
Here are some examples of BookMe deals to check out:
- Sail boat to Maori Rock, Lake Taupō (59% off at the time of writing)
- Sky diving Franz & Fox Glacier, West Coast (20% off at the time of writing)
- Ice Bar Entry, Queenstown (96% off and just $1 at the time of writing)
- Whale watching flight, Kaikoura (49% off at the time of writing)
Get Your Guide
Browsing through Get Your Guide helps you find activities you may never have known about otherwise. Like, I had no idea about the black water rafting adventure through the glow worm caves in Waitomo. It’s an app for activities, unlike BookMe which is more NZ/Aus/Fiji specific. You should always check both!
Here are some examples of Get Your Guide activities you can book in New Zealand:
TravelSpend
TravelSpend isn’t just useful to explore New Zealand, I use this app everywhere all the time. I’ve even started using it to track our day-to-day expenses now that we’re back and living in Auckland.
My fave features are: the automatic currency conversion, average daily spend view, ability to spread expenses across several days (eg. accom), and, obviously, the colourful pie chart.
Seriously, this app is the best. The free version lets you track everything in one country at a time, but I have the premium version so I can look back at my spending in all the places I’ve been. This was super cool after travelling to 10 countries over 2023 and looking at how well we did in each location.
It seems counter-intuitive to pay for a budgeting app, but I think the premium version is worth it. You can get 50% off the first year if you use my li’l code: RUNAWAYWITHME.
First Table
Try great restaurants at 50% of the price if you’re willing to take an early (or sometimes late) booking time at a restaurant listed on First Table. There are lots of parameters — like a max of 4 guests, a 90 minute seating limit, and a 1 drink minimum purchase per person. The 50% discount only applies to food and sometimes select menu items are excluded (eg. oysters or all-you-can-eat wings).
It usually costs $5-10 to reserve the table, like obviously they don’t want people snagging these early or late time slots then just not showing up. But considering the 50% saving on food I think it’s still a great deal.
It’s not going to be as cheap as going to Subway. But if you’re ready to order dinner like a normal person and take advantage of a pretty significant discount, this is totally worth it. And bonus: if you use this link to sign up, we both get $5 off!
DiscoverCars to explore New Zealand
You’ll need a car to see all the best stuff in New Zealand. If there’s one thing about the country that drives me crazy, is how poorly connected it is with public transport. Even within the cities it’s pretty weak. But, that said, all the best stuff in outdoorsy and would require a car even if we did have good public transport. So definitely make sure you book in advance and budget for expensive petrol. (Another reason to get an Airpoints card is that you get a 6c discount per litre at Z and Caltex.
Start your search for a rental on DiscoverCars here:
Gaspy
Gaspy will tell you where to get the cheapest gas! It pulls data from local gas stations and displays them on a little map so you can do a browse and decide where you want to fuel up. In a country where the current price per litre is $2.77 (Gaspy also has this cool stats page), you’ll want to look for the cheapest stations.
Ola
Ola is just like Uber, but from my personal experience it’s way more reliable. I don’t know why, but Ubers in Auckland cancel all. the. time. Ola drivers also keep a higher percentage (82%) of the fare, compared to Uber (75%). If nothing else, it’s just helpful to have as a second option if you’re not getting any luck with Uber. You can also use Didi and Zoomy if you already have them downloaded, but they tend to be less popular.
Ola is available to help you get around in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton, Tauranga, Queenstown, Dunedin, Napier/Hasting, Palmerston North, Nelson, and New Plymouth.
Airpoints
If you’re here for 2 weeks or something you can probably disregard this. But if you’re here for, let’s say, 2 months, you can rack up some decent Airpoints. If you’re flying in or out with Air New Zealand you should definitely join the points program ASAP so you can collect points from the flight. (If you’ve already booked but haven’t flown yet, no worries. You can still add your loyalty card number.)
Here are some ways to get Airpoints while travelling around New Zealand:
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- Shopping for groceries at New World
- Buying booze from Liquorland
- Booking a rental car with Avis/Budget
- Staying at one of these 10,000 hotels
- Getting gas/petrol at Caltex or Z
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You can then spend your points on a few different things, like bookings with Star Alliance airlines, car rentals with Avis/Budget, upgrades on your flight, or souvenirs from the online store. I’ve never done this, but you can also use points towards activities and experiences! If you don’t have enough Airpoints to cover something in full, you can pay the rest in cash.
I think it’s one of the best loyalty/points programs out there, and definitely the best one in New Zealand. You can get a physical card or just use the digital one in your Air NZ app.
Explore New Zealand with Grab a Seat
Grab a Seat has regular deals for flights around New Zealand and sometimes even to Australia, the Pacific Islands, and Asia. Believe it or not, it’s normal to find $59 flights from Auckland to Wellington, or $99 from Auckland to Queenstown. And this is with Air New Zealand! Not some budget airline. So it’s definitely worth downloading and keeping an eye on if you’re planning on doing any domestic flying.
Trade Me
Just like GumTree, Kijiji, and Craig’s List, Trade Me is the main buy & sell platform across New Zealand. This is worth downloading if you’re here for a few months or on a Working Holiday Visa and you want to buy a car or a campervan or find an apartment and cheap furniture. However, if you’re just here for a short trip it’s definitely not something you need.