Motorhome Travel in Winter
A New Zealand winter road trip in motorhome rental can be a memorable and rewarding experience. Motorhome rental rates are usually very cheap so your travel budget can go a long way. The roads and camping sites are quiet so you’ll often have the best tourist spots to yourself. But just like the weather, your dream holiday can quickly turn into an uncomfortable and even traumatic experience if you haven’t thought about the right motorhome rental.
Most motorhome rentals are designed for three season travel ie you’ll find most motorhome rental fleets parked up over the winter. They have little in the way of heating or you can only operate the heater when hooked up to mains power at a holiday park. Most are not insulated and have inadequate windows for cold weather.
If you are planning a quick getaway, you may be comfortable enough in a typical three season motorhome rental as long as you ask the motorhome rental operator for extra blankets and you stay at a holiday park each night and plug in to mains power. You can operate the heater as soon as you plug in. Since the motorhome rental won’t have insulation or good curtains you may need keep the heater running all night.
If you are planning a longer road trip and fancy some wild camping then you’ll need to choose a four season motorhome rental. Here at Wilderness we specialise in four season motorhome rentals. In fact, we've gone out of our way to create the ultimate winterised motorhomes.
To help you understand some of the common pitfalls you may get with other motorhome rentals through winter, we've made a list of winter scares and fears.
Cold at night due to an ineffective motorhome heating system
If you're cold at night, you won't get a good night's sleep and if you don't sleep well, you won't have any fun the next day – it’s that simple. What you need is a thermostatically controlled heater and high-grade insulation to provide extra warmth. All our Wilderness campervans except for the Dart have both of these to keep the cold air out and warm air in. The Breeze and Escape motorhomes also have double-glazed windows for added insulation. With a duvet (doona) and fleecy blanket to add to the mix your toes won't be numb for long.