Hustle culture has become the new normal. We chase productivity and wear eye bags like they’re a badge of honour. It’s even spilt over into how we vacation: we pack our itineraries with countless activities just to come home even more exhausted than before the holiday.
It’s about time we learn to slow down. The art of slow travel is the antithesis to hustling. It’s travel that focuses on the quality of time you spend in a place, so you get a deeper appreciation for the culture you’re in.
Slow travel can be experienced anywhere but there’s one place that slow travel practitioners recommend over and over again: New Zealand. Here’s how to go about it:
1. Plan less to experience more
First-time travellers to New Zealand may feel the need to tick boxes and visit all the island nation’s greatest hits, especially when you have a limited number of days to travel, which goes against the principles of slow travel.
The key to slow travelling is to take a more Type B approach to trip planning. You might be familiar with Type A planning, where activities are penciled into itineraries down to the minute, and with rarely a second left empty.
Type B planning, however, leaves pockets of time unplanned for self-exploration. Use intuition to take you to new neighbourhoods, try out local restaurants not listed in guides and speak to locals who actually live in the city you’re in. In return, you don’t only get the opportunity to uncover hidden gems; you’ll also lessen planning fatigue that can come from trying to follow a strict schedule.
The counterintuitive solution? Booking a tour package with an operator like EU Holidays. Not only are itineraries already planned out, attraction tickets and accommodations are booked in advance for you, which is one less thing to worry about. They’ll even take care of the driving and navigating, so you’re not spending precious time fussing with maps and rental cars.
Plus, group tour packages with EU Holidays come with full free days that allow you to explore cities or recharge at your own pace. The 11D8N North Island + Fiji tour includes free days in Auckland and Fiji, while the 12D10N Spectacular New Zealand tour has free days in Auckland, Queenstown and Christchurch.
Even if you opt for a free and easy tour, such as the 5D4N North Island Thermal Discovery or 7D6N North South Discovery tours, there are activities you can opt out of so that you use that time to explore the area as you wish.
2. Stay longer in fewer cities
It’s not uncommon to find itineraries that squeeze multiple cities into a day to make the most of your time on holiday. But the rush means there’s barely enough time to fully appreciate what each city has to offer, which is the essence of slow travel.
By staying put, you’re not having to reorient yourself to a new hotel daily, but building familiarity with the neighbourhood you’re in. This gives you breathing room between attractions instead of speed-running landmarks.
This is why New Zealand is ideal to put this into practice. The country is split into two islands – North and South – and locals recommend sticking to one per holiday for a holistic experience. But, even if you choose to shuttle between the two, the islands’ hub-and-spoke geographical density encourages tavellers to stay in one city but gives the flexibility to travel out to diverse landscapes with a short drive.
If you choose to book a tour with EU Holidays, you’ll still enjoy this aspect of slow travel. Two of its tours, the 11D8N North Island + Fiji and 5D4N North Island Thermal Discovery tours focus on the North Island, which is known for its Maori culture and geothermal wonders.
Its two-island tours still prioritise spending significant time in each locale. The 12D10N Spectacular New Zealand tour splits five days in the North and a full week in the South, which is ample time to explore cities like Auckland, Queenstown and Christchurch. And from each city, a multitude of attractions. For example, Christchurch is the hub from which EU Holidays will take you to Arthur’s Pass, the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve and the Franz Josef Glacier. From Queenstown, you’re centrally-located to visit Lakes Hawea, Wanaka and Wakatipu, as well as visit the Cromwell Fruit Orchard ad the entire Mount Cook region.
The 7D6N North South Discovery is slightly more fast-paced, but you do spend more time in secondary cities like Rotorua. You get 1.5 days to visit its geysers, freshwater lakes and Maori culture, which is often compressed into a daytrip for other tours.
3. Build connections with local culture
With fast travel, you might choose to prioritise convenient meals along tourist strips over slower-cooked local cuisine, or sightseeing landmarks for photo opps over understanding history and culture.
That’s fine if you’re travelling just to fill up a photo album. But since slow travel means being in a city for a longer stretch of time, you get better opportunities to explore local hangouts, taste local food and experience untouched natural landscapes that aren’t found in the usual tourist spots.
In New Zealand, a big part of their history and culture are the Maori. They’re the indigenous Polynesians who arrived at the islands in the 13th century and you’ll find nods to Maori culture in most touristy areas. But Manaakitanga, the concept of Maori hospitality, happens when you’re no longer just a passing tourist but an intentional traveller.
For travellers booking tours with EU Holidays, you’ll get a taste of Maori culture throughout your trp. The 12D10N Spectacular New Zealand, 11D8N North Island + Fiji and 7D6N North South Discovery tours all include a Maori dinner, where a feast is prepared using a hangi, a traditional method of cooking that uses heated rocks buried underground to form a pit oven. This is followed by Maori performances of indigenous songs, chants and dances.
The tours even include visits to the Maori Arts & Culture Institute or a visit to the Mitai Maori Village for a showcase of traditional Maori canoes and paddling that’s still being used today.
Even for the shorter 5D4N North Island Thermal Discover tour has a Mitai Maori Cultural Experience. It’s an optional add-on, but worth the time and money for a lesson in indigenous history.
Beyond Maori culture, the 11D8N North Island + Fiji tour also includes a farmstay at a working farm in Cambridge. Agriculture is the backbone of New Zealand’s economy and at your farmstay, you’ll get the chance to milk cows, collect eggs, groom horses or even pick seasonal fruits and vegetables. As a reward for your hard work, guests are treated to a home-cooked dinner right on the farm.
4. Support local economies
Half the joy of travelling is discovering flavours and places you can’t get at home, so sticking only to familiar chains feels like skipping part of the experience. Slow travel imbues tourists to seek out local businesses, whether that means shopping at a local boutique or a local restaurant.
When you do, you allow local culture to continue thriving, since your dollars go straight to the locals who own the place, rather than a major portion of it being siphoned to other countries. This then prevents copy-paste cities with the same international chains you’ve seen a hundred times.
And it doesn’t take that much effort when you travel around New Zealand. Local businesses can be found everywhere – even in the more touristy areas. When shopping, look for the Buy New Zealand Made logo, a triangle logo that bears a kiwi bird. The mark has strict rules on what constitutes New Zealand-made, such as making sure products are manufactured locally and must qualify under the Fair Trading Act.
On your tours with EU Holidays, there are plenty of opportunities not only to shop locally but to eat and stay locally as well.
Take the 12D10N Spectacular New Zealand tour, where there are visits to the Maori Arts & Culture Institute and Greenstone Centre to purchase Maori art and ponuamu (local jade), as well as meals at local restaurants like Fergburger, a burger joint that serves inventive burgers using prime New Zealand beef. With the 11D8N North Island + Fiji tour, there’s dinner at Tony’s Wellesley Street, which has been serving local steaks for more than 60 years.
With the free and easy tours, you get the option to support a local onsen on the 5D4N North Island Thermal Discovery tour, and have a local guide show you around Rotorua on the 7D6N North South Discovery tour.
5. Explore sensory depth over visual proof
Today’s digital age will ask, “if you didn’t take it for the ‘Gram, were you even there?” Especially in a place like New Zealand where you’re surrounded by diverse landscapes, it’s natural to want to go trigger happy with your camera’s shutter button.
But the vastness of New Zealand asks that travellers pause for a moment to enjoy and take in what’s in front of them – the picture-taking can come later. In fact, you can take it one step further by exploring sensory depth. This means slowing down enough so that you can focus on the change in temperatures, the feel of the ground you’re stepping on, the sounds of rushing water or the calls of wildlife around you, and the fresh air filling your lungs.
When this happens, you’re no longer travelling for an audience – your social media followers – but for yourself. This way, you’ll form core memories that’ll stay with you and shape how you’ll approach travel from now on.
EU Holidays achieves this by providing generous time spent at scenic locations. Take the 12D10N Spectacular New Zealand itinerary which spends a whole week on the South Island. Most of the itinerary is centred on visiting natural wonders like Mount Cook National Park and Milford Sound. In each location, there’s more than enough time to take a breather, appreciate the scenery and still make time for pictures.
Experience slow travel in New Zealand with EU Holidays
If you often find yourself needing a holiday after your vacation, then it might be time to rethink the way you spend your annual leave. Slow travel encourages immersing yourself in local culture to experience each city as a destination rather than a pitstop.
Few places are better suited for it than New Zealand, and the good news is that slow travel principles can still be practiced with a booked tour package. With thoughtfully planned itineraries by EU Holidays, travellers get the convenience of pre-planned logistics with the time and flexibility to soak in the landscapes, culture and local life at a more meaningful pace.
No matter the number of days of annual leave you can spare, there’s an option for every traveller:
Your trip doesn’t have to be a race from one attraction to the next. Sometimes, the best way to see a place is to slow down long enough to feel like you’ve actually been there. If you’re ready for a slow travel adventure, book a New Zealand experience with EU Holidays.
This article is brought to you by EU Holidays.
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