Buying a camper van in New Zealand

Our plan has always been to come to New Zealand for three months, buy a campervan, and drive around the country - both North and South Islands. My plan was to buy a self contained camper - meaning it comes with a shower, toilet, sink, maybe even a fridge, burner, and a microwave. And a heater for when it gets cold, an extra battery for charging my tablet, a little table and seats inside for those long, windy nights. We had heard of many tourists who explore the country this way, and we couldn't wait to get started. I made lists of things we were looking for, Caryl chuckled at my plans. We started looking online on Gumtree (the equivalent of Craigslist), backpackerboard, and trademe. We also walked around to some hostels to look at their advertisement boards and checked out local used car salesmen - some specializing in "backpacker vans."

I have some advice - the best campers can be found on Gumtree. Trademe is a paid site, so most backpackers won't use it. Hostel boards are antiquated and time consuming. I would stay away from used van places - they only have those vans that didn't sell by owner, most likely means they're not a great deal. The best vans sell quickly (depending on time of year, of course), so to get a good one you have to be on top of new listings. There were a few times when I would call, they would tell me they have 2 other people to show the van to, then they would text me saying the van was sold before we could even look at it. There's lots of turnover, and lots of different van designs.

The first van we looked at was a large van with a sink and a nice table area. It was at least 30 years old with over 400,000 kilometers. The owner said he had used it with his family. I found this to be suspicious - first, he had other listings on Gumtree, and inside the van had pink curtains and Christmas lights, telltale signs of a hippie van. He talked like a used car salesman, and during the test drive he told us he had gone on a work trip to Auckland the previous weekend, although he had earlier told us he had gone camping in this camper last weekend. Which is it?? After much deliberation (about 1 minute) we decided against it.

After looking at a few more listings, I came to realize that I wasn't getting my shower and toilet after all, and the best I could hope for was a gas camping stove and maybe a solar shower (basically a black bag you fill and leave on your car to heat up by the sun). Such is life.

The next camper we looked at was owned by a pair of 18 year old German guys. The van smelled as you would expect a van to smell after two kids lived in it without showering for six months. It had a table and two couches in the back, but we passed on this one, too.

Over the next week many vans and sellers came and went - a lovely, chain smoking Italian couple, a van painted like the solar system with only a mattress in the back, a sweet Toyota priced $2000 over its value because the kid "had to spend a lot of money replacing parts that broke." I liked the van, but the van's not worth any more now that it has a new battery and a new timing belt!

We almost bought a work van from a garage in town for $1800 NZ dollars - until our mechanic pointed out it only had 3 gears and couldn't go highway speeds for very long. A deal breaker for a car that's supposed to transport us for thousands of kilometers!

Then, finally, we found the perfect van from a lovely German couple. A Toyota Estima, not too old, not too many miles. It had a table, a bed/couch combo, nice storage and a place to cook out the back. We took it for a test drive, negotiated a price, all that was left was a mechanic's inspection. Well, turned out it's transmission fluid was leaking and the power steering shaft was severely damaged, ready to break at any minute. About a grand (and a few days) to fix. Needless to say all four of us were quite surprised. We had to let it go and resume the search.

Our patience was finally rewarded when Cecily and Valentin (UK and French, respectively) pulled up in their Nissan Vanette. They had purchased the van as a working man's van; Valentin is a carpenter and he fitted it out himself. They had lived in it for almost six months and needed to sell before they flew to South East Asia. We were the first couple to look at their van - we made an offer. They had more people to show the van to, but later that night they texted us letting us know they accepted our offer, as long as we could buy the van within the next 2 days, as they had found a cheap flight out. We had no problem with this; we had already pulled cash out of our bank in anticipation for the inevitable purchase. We took the van for the inspection the next morning - and it passed!!! All we needed was to get new breaks and an oil change - no worries there. It was a deal! We paid the cash, got the keys, for some insurance, dropped them off at their accommodation for the night, and we were done!

We went back to our couchsurfing host one last time to launder the sheets and blankets - we ended up leaving close to midnight once the drying was done. But we were excited to start our adventure!!!