NZ freedom camping and camping sites

There are new regulations on where you can camp in NZ. For more information, I suggest going to the Jucy website, which also has links to other government information. In addition, there is a website which identifies all the paid and free camping sites around the country.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Campervan rentals in the USA

Standby Relocations is now offering campervan relocations in the USA for as little as $1/day. Check with the routing feature in Google Maps though to see how long the distances are relative to your maximum allowed kilometres. Once you exceed those limits, you pay a per/km rate. If its nominal, no problem. You can pay the normal rental rate if you want more days, subject to their bookings of course. this company offers camper relocations in Australia, NZ, and now the USA. They have yet to offer such a service in Canada.

It is evident that the current offerings are for campervan relocations is restricted to movements to and from the following locations: Atlanta - Denver - Dallas - Los Angeles - Las Vegas - San Francisco - Boston - New Jersey and Orlando.

Such relocations are a good way of determining if you like the lifestyle prior to buying a campervan. The owners give you instructions on how to operate the camper facilities, and clearly there is a benefit in being able to try different styles, designs and size camper vans. We would all like a large one for space, but you might no like the awkwardness of driving a monolith. These are the issues best experienced. You can buy such campervans second-hand as well.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Freedom camping - Are tourists the problem?

NZ is having a big debate at the moment - the issue is freedom camping. Freedom camping is the practice of camping in undesignated public or private areas where no provisioning is made for toilets. This compels tourists staying in campervans (without toilet amenities) to desiccate on the roadside. The consequence is a 'minefield of turds' and spent toilet paper shrewd across private or public land.

The people is that backpacking is such a big industry these days, and there is pressure building to regulate behaviour to diminish the impact. The impact is bigger in NZ, because it is a smaller country, though it seems at this point, the greatest sensitivity is in areas which do not really embrace the tourism. Lake Hawea is a very beautiful lake on the South Island, and the key issue is that this place has a very small commercial precinct, and I think locals are quite proud of their 'low key' living, and thus self-righteously proud of that. Rather than placing up toilet facilities, they would prefer to exclude tourists altogether. Why? Because they are not in business, so they have nothing to gain from tourists. So why not exclude others. This is why these people are sensitive.

Queenstown has a more visible and severe issue. It is a hotspot for tourism. There are a lot of bars and activities, so you can imagine that it would be a hub, and that people would simply want to spend a lot of time here. One of the problems for campervans staying here is the lack of parking in the area.

Elsewhere, I just think it is less of a problem. There are always inconsiderate people, and it would be wrong to assume that they are all foreigners. At any time there are only about 400,000 foreigners in the country, and probably 300,000 of them are staying in backpackers designated camping areas and hotels. Young Kiwis are just as likely to desiccate in the bush. I tend to find a lot of NZ'ers have little respect for their environment (as compared to Australia).

I might add that:

1. Faeces and toilet paper are biodegradable, so its mostly a visual concern, though obviously its a threat to water quality in areas, like waterways.

2. People are doing this because there are few public amenities. All it takes is to erect a pump-out toilet in those areas with a problem. I can imagine that these facilities only need to be emptied about every month. Perhaps the solution is to require consumers without a fitted toilet to pay a fee to use those facilities, and then you give them a map to find them. This means you can reasonably prosecute them for not using them. The licence can be sold by the dealerships, much as if you were selling fishing licenses. At $20 per person for 6 months, it would more than offset the cost of these services.

In this video, we have local residents taking action to remove 'freedom campers'. Unreasonable impositions on freedom campers is destined to push them further into the bush. That means these people are driving more and spending less money in NZ, going to NZ, but rather there money going to Saudi Arabia in the form of petroleum imports.

I have been to camping grounds where people have liberally shit in inappropriate places. It is not just the lack of concealment, they dump near watercourses. This practice is best handled with a license sticker on vehicles, displayed when they are at the site between certain hours, i.e. If you are in an undesignated site after 6pm or before 7am, then you pay the fine if you don't have a sticker. The question is how do you fine a transient like a tourist? Maybe the NZ government has to collect a bond, otherwise the police will start having to take credit card payments :)

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Booking fees are illegal

I am reminded of a legal case in Victoria where a woman was obliged to pay a booking fee when she arrived at the pick-up site. No mention had previously been made of the booking fee when she made the booking. The lady protested and ended up taking the matter to court, where she won. If you are in the same position, you ought to know all charges upfront. i.e. Otherwise its bait advertising. This is common. I have been stung for this fee when I have rented a camper as a 'return' for $5/day. I thought I was getting a good deal though.

I'm just glad there are some people who still believe in justice. I wouldn't have gone to the trouble. I'd be psychologically scarred if the decision was wrong....contrary to my good reasons.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

The risks and rewards of campervanning

One of the problems with campervans is that they have a bad reputation in several respects:

1. Tourist transporters - locals in many rural locations hate tourists, and tripping into town in a campervan very much identifies you as a tourist.

2. Turd dumpers - some campervans don't have toilets, and users are inclined to dump a turd where there is no toilets, to the dismay of locals and other tourists. More so for governments who don't want to clean t up.

3. View blockers - some campervans are inclined to park in the best locations with the best views, to the dismay of locals who paid a million plus for their property, only to have a $50K-odd campervan park in front, and possibly dump a turd in their garden...or a beer bottle.

In truth, most campervanners are discrete, whether to avoid attention or to catch the scrutiny of police, who might be dismayed by the loitering of outside 'transients'. The attraction of mobile living gets more appealing by the day for several reasons:

1. Niche lifestyle vehicles - they are being made by more manufacturers and thus are getting cheaper. There are also the second hand campervans and the converts from delivery vans.

2. Lower cost batteries are making it easier to run appliances as well as lowering the operating cost. Expect more developments here with flow batteries.

3. More efficient appliances - The spectre of ever-improving energy efficiency is making it more appealing to function from a mobile home.

4. The high cost of housing - The cost of buying a home in Australia is enough to compel people to live on the road.

The big counter-arguments against the trend is probably:

1. The lack of comfort

2. The growing prospect of restrictions on where you can stay - the impossible implication of costs.

The simple solution is to hide your lifestyle - to live a life under the radar - to live life not in a 'campervan' but a simple delivery van. You will not get hassled out by aborigines as you cross the desert; you will not get your tires deflated by disgruntled landowners, and you will not get noticed by the police...unless you are surrounded by other campers, or otherwise parking in places where no other person would park at night, like in a national park or shopping mall carpark, etc.

If you want to know how seriously some people object to campervans; read this story about a 59yo Christchurch (NZ) man who attempted to set fire to a campervan who parked outside his home. My guess is that he wanted to give a message to all concerned that campers are not wanted outside their homes. The man was arrested for attempted murder. The worst experience for me was an aboriginal throwing a bottle at my vehicle as he drove past. It was footy night, and he must have won or lost....or just been pissed. All normal living conditions I'm sure in central Australia.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Hazards of travelling outback Australia

The perils of GPS systems are nothing next to the perils of bad roads in the outback of Australia when the weather turns against you. If you are planning a trip into the Outback of Australia, and are planning to take a vehicle off-road (onto dirt tracks), there might be a lesson to learn from this article. Of course most campervans are designed and contracted on the basis that you will only travel on bitumen roads. But for general knowledge you might be interested in the experience of these people.

View Larger Map

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com
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How safe is campervanning?

About 10 years ago I scared the hell out of my friend's girlfriend whilst we were campervanning on a beach north of Newcastle, NSW. This 90-mile beach has some of the most impressive beach sand dunes in the world. In fact many movies are made at this site for this reason. I openly wondered how many buried campers are concealed under these shifting sands given the isolation, the ease of digging, the ease of escape for any offender. I can also imagine that many psychotics might hang out on the beach at night. This is pure speculation because I'm not affiliated with any.

Safety considerations are a concern, though perhaps less of a concern that for campers. Any bad experience is in most cases likely to be a result of bad luck whether than systematic risk. When I reflect on my bad experiences they have arisen because of the following:
1. Exposure: If you are readily seen then there is the potential for people to cause you harm.
2. Isolation: If troublesome people some across a camper in a remote area, they are more likely to cause some injury if they sense that they can escape accountability.
3. Conspicuous: Some people like to attack that which is different. If there are some drunk guys passing a car, that is not special. If they pass a campervan they are going to reflect on it. The only place a campervan does not look conspicuous is in a camper park.

The implications for campervanners are:
1. The less conspicuous the vehicle - the less likely you will have problems. Driving around in a huge campervan attracts attention. A small camper which looks more like a delivery van than a camper will attract no attention because it is perceived as just another vehicle, and people will not expect people to be sleeping in it. In some places there are laws against living in the back of a vehicle. i.e. Public ordinances. Usually local governments and police don't prosecute on the basis of these ordinances until the practice becomes a public nuisance, or results in some grievance. This is why I suggest a smaller, work-type vehicle makes a better campervan.
2. Less isolation: When I was travelling around some people parked their campervans in industrial estates in towns. This makes sense for campervans, but ultimately I want to be located around people, so for a work-type (inconspicuous) vehicle, I am more inclined to stay in the suburbs. I would just park on-street in some quiet street, usually under a street light. In outback Australia some aborigines threw a plastic bottle at a rental I was sleeping in. no damage, but the point is - it was a rental and it could have easily been a glass bottle.
3. Avoid lawless areas: Usually lawlessness arises in low income and indigenous communities, often associated with alcohol. These problems occurs in settled areas, so if you must stay in a 'bad area', make it in a rural area where there is less likely to be people. I was staying in Katherine, NT, Australia. The local aboriginal football team won the competition and were out driving their cars drunk. I tried to sleep, but ended up at a tourist carpark next to a hot spring. It was a lovely place to have a swim the next day.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com