Rankers
Rankers is both a website and offline app that allows you to rank and review New Zealand experiences. Users can access the reviews of hundreds of tourism providers, categorised by Activities, Attractions, Accommodation, Transport, and Regions. Based on the reviews, each provider is rated out of 100 percent. Users can also read comments left by others who have visited the provider. The app allows you to search for time-based activities, e.g. the top-ranked nature experience under 30 minutes or walks under an hour. A newly released feature of the app is ‘Goin’ Local’, which lists local producers, artisan products, organic produce, farmers markets, pick your own fruit, etc.
Campable
Campable is a new concept that gives motorhome travellers a unique experience of New Zealand by allowing them to stay at private properties around the country and getting up close to Kiwi life. Available sites include working farms, vineyards, beaches, country resorts, plus much more. The sites are usually more secure than freedom camping sites because they’re on private property. The app also features commercial campsites and freedom camping areas, as well as LPG stations, dump sites, and i-SITE locations. Users can also filter by specific requirements, such as pet-friendly, showers available, and power.
Gaspy
With petrol prices all over the shop right now, the Gaspy app is just what you need to find the lowest priced petrol or diesel near you. The app also has a popular gaming aspect that allows users to collect Spy Coins and Badges for completing missions regarding fuel pricing. The game is great fun for regular travellers, and the motorhoming community certainly enjoy competing among themselves on the leaderboards. The folk at Gaspy also tell us that motorhomers are invaluable in terms of accuracy because they regularly visit small out of the way places and update the local prices, and are always quick to contact them with closures or misuse issues.
Wikicamps
Wikicamps offers a huge database of campgrounds and holiday parks as well areas of interest, information centres, and dump stations. Users help keep the database up to date, so it’s always growing and being updated with the latest info. The app also includes a trip planner, checklist, and even a satellite pointing tool. And because it works offline, you don’t have to worry about having Wi-Fi or using up your data. A new update is due out soon, which includes a new, more intuitive user interface, better offline mapping, and lots of new features.
Great Rides
The Great Rides app is dedicated to the New Zealand’s 22 Great Cycle Rides. Users can view more than 1500 pages with thousands of photos and links, hundreds of maps, elevation profiles, and trail section descriptions. Once on the trail, plot your journey using mobile GPS (even away from cellular coverage) on live maps to help you keep on track, know how long to hold on for before the next toilet, and to highlight stops along the way describing amenities and the rich heritage of some sites. The app is intuitive, consistent in its format to aid familiarity between trails, and has become a must-have for anyone considering biking any of the Great Rides of the NZ Cycle Trails.'
Campermate
Operating in both New Zealand and Australia, Campermate helps campers find those all-important travel necessities such as ATMs, toilets, free Wi-Fi, fuel, supermarkets, dump stations, rubbish bins, and DoC Visitor Centres. For almost three years, CamperMate users have been geocaching new locations that aren’t on the database and adding them through the ‘Add a location’ button on the menu. This keeps the entire database growing to having New Zealand 100 percent covered. Users receive geo-located road and emergency alerts as well as daily deals. The app has an offline mode and is available for both Android and iOS.
Roadtrippers
Roadtrippers is another award-winning site and app that helps users plan road trips from a two-day adventure to an epic cross-country trip of a lifetime. The app is designed to help you plan your travels around ‘off the beaten path’ places and offers a worldwide database containing extensive lists of interesting spots. Plan your trip around historic places, scenic points, excellent eateries, or hidden gems that you might otherwise miss. Once planned, the trip downloads as an interactive map.
Weather Watch
Need to check what the weather’s up to before you hit the road? Weather Watch provides detailed forecasts for Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, and Palmerston North, with basic forecasts available for smaller centres. The app contains the same live news feed from weatherwatch.co.nz, current weather conditions, and interactive 14-day maps, covering wind, rain, swell, and temperatures.
