Tips for Travelling through a new country as a backpacker for a few days?

[TopHatFox]

Onto an adventure! I'll be on a plane from Boston on Monday to Auckland, NZ on Wednesday morning! How Exciting!

I'm thinking of loose planning for the four days of free time I'll have before joining a a sailing expedition for 6 weeks straight.

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Couch surfing

I've been trying to find places to couch surf here with no luck, might need more references. If any of ya'll would be willing to write references from what you know of me from this forum, that'd be mighty handy!

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Hostels

http://www.hostels.com/auckland/new-zea ... priceTo=12. There are plenty of hostels for backpacking throughout NZ that only cost $10-20 a night, which interestingly is the same as $300-400/mo suggested for ERE, likely less combined with camping (see below).

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Camping

I"m debating whether to take my two person tent and sleeping pad along with me to camp out for a few days. I'm also thinking of changing the flight from the original Dec 24 to Jan 20, but the cost is $350 to make the change with Air New Zealand, plus the expense of travelling for a month, so I'm not inclined to do so, unless if one of you can provide convincing evidence otherwise (please do...? (: ).

[EMJ]

"New Zealand has very strict biosecurity procedures at airports and ports to prevent the introduction of pests and diseases.

declaring all used equipment like camping, farming, hunting, sporting, gardening, and other recreational equipment"
https://www.mpi.govt.nz/travel-and-recr ... o-declare/

[Ego]

What a great opportunity. You've already paid the admission fee (bought the airline ticket) you might as well extend, stay and see the country. If NZ proves too expensive, you might be able to extend your layover (Sydney?) or fly on one of the low cost airlines anywhere in Asia for a month. Off the top of my head Air Asia, Tigerair and Jetstar are all good low cost airlines. If you buy a ticket early you can get unbelievable deals.

Cycle touring is popular in NZ so you may be able to buy a cheap bike ride it for a few weeks and sell it to someone at the hostel at the end. Also there are many positions available on https://www.workaway.info/hostlist-NZ.html where you get free rent and food in exchange for working on a farm or maintaining a backpackers hostel like this one.

https://www.workaway.info/12831654284a-en.html