Holiday on the Right

Driving a camper van in New Zealand is “disconcerting… through a right-hand-drive country” but the “best part of driving the [vehicle] was the door it opened for conversation with waitresses, shop clerks and fellow campers,” explains the San Francisco Chronicle’s Nancy Davis Kho. “Straight lines on a New Zealand map may not reflect the belief, passed onto me by a New Zealander in her 70s, that the country’s road engineers were paid by the curve. Luckily, traffic is relatively light outside of Auckland and New Zealand drivers seem to know to give camper vans carrying tourists a wide berth… When we pulled into an empty parking lot at dusk, we were treated to a glorious view of the turquoise Pacific Ocean through that unique combination of pine and palm vegetation that characterises the country.”