Day 24 – Hokitika, New Zealand – 7:58pm

This afternoon I arrived in Hokitika after an uneventful 40 minute bus ride from Greymouth where I spent the previous two days. I bid a fond farewell to my fellow travelers who joined me in Greymouth after meeting in Nelson. We agreed to meet up again, either in New Zealand or one of our home countries.

The rain poured down in buckets as my bus pulled into Hokitika. Luckily, I did not get soaked as my hostel, Jade Mountain Backpackers, is within walking distance of the bus stop. I checked into my 6 bed dorm room and removed my jacket and rain pants. Although hungry, I was not willing to face the elements for lunch so I grabbed my computer and started to brainstorm accommodations in Queenstown, my next destination. That is when I learned a valuable lesson.

Up until this point I booked accommodations one or two days in advance.  Never had I run into a shortage of beds. Then I checked availability in Queenstown from November 28 to December 1 and not a single bed was available in the entire city.  NOT ONE BED.  If I did not already have a flight booked to Queenstown for tomorrow morning I would have picked a different destination. But, the flight was non-refundable and therefore I needed accommodations.

The strategy of booking so close to my date of arrival is something I picked up in recent weeks. It’s what backpackers and travelers do. Their plans are fluid and always changing; therefore, they wait until the very last minute to book transportation and accommodations. As a result, they often have to hitchhike because the bus was sold-out or sleep in a public park because no beds were available. I have seen firsthand backpackers walk into a hostel late at night and ask if there are beds available. When informed there is no vacancy, they pull out a map, find the next closest hostel and walk to that one. This continues until they find a bed, a bench or a soft piece of ground to call home for the night. While I like to think I’m slowly becoming a backpacker; I’m not to keen on sleeping on the ground without a tent over my head.

However, that possibility ran through my mind as my options dwindled. With hostels in Queenstown completely booked, I looked at airbnb. The least expensive rooms were either far from the city center or available only to females. Another possibility scratched off the list. My last resort was to scour local hotels and motels looking for availability. If there was vacancy the cost was often out of my price range. This continued one after the other. I eventually stumbled upon a motel with a nightly cost of $91 USD per night. This is far from the $15-$20 USD per night I’m used to spending on hostels. I reluctantly booked 3 nights at the motel and watched my average daily budget skyrocket.

One lesson I will take from this is to book hostels in advance if I am going somewhere that is extremely popular with tourists. Especially if it falls on a holiday weekend. This is the first hurdle that I’ve stumbled over. But, I’m still on my feet and all it means is I’ll have to rely on some more boiled noodle dinners until I see that average daily budget decrease.

 

*Keep an eye out for pictures from Greymouth, Hokitika and Queenstown.