Traveling To South Island With 2 Under 4

Earlier this year I celebrated my 30th birthday. I wanted to do something special, and I have a good friend who lives in Christchurch, so I decided to travel to the South Island for the first time! I wanted to bring my little family with me, so here is my experience (and some tips!) of traveling with 2 under 4, plus how much we budgeted and ended up spending.

Choosing a destination when traveling with 2 under 4

Originally when I was thinking of how I wanted to celebrate my 30th, I wanted to go to Rotorua.

There is a spa there called the Polynesian Spa and they run mindfulness retreats a few times per year.

As a mother of two young children, working part-time and studying nearly full time, plus trying to get a blog & social media presence going, I was drawn to the thought of quiet, meditation, spa treatments, yoga and such.

It is a two day thing, so I thought I could bring my family, we’d make it into a long weekend and my partner would hang with the kids while I was at the retreat during the day and then we could have time as a family in the evenings plus the extra couple of days.

But then I decided that I’d rather go see my friend in Christchurch and go to the South Island for the first time. And that I’d take my whole family with me.

I still wanted to keep the spa element of the trip, so I looked up some options online.

I found Hanmer Springs and thought it looked awesome, waterpark with spa pools but also activities for the kids, and in addition what seemed like very luxurious spa treatments available.

So, that was decided, we’d spent 2 nights in Hanmer Springs.

With Christchurch, I wanted to stay close to my friend, which is why we ended up getting accomodation in Rolleston. I wanted it to be easy for us to do stuff with my friend and her family!

Plus I knew the area would be a little less overwhelming and have playgrounds close by for the kids maybe compared to the inner city.

Budgeting for a trip – what to take into account

I tried to budget for the trip very carefully, so I could save the whole sum in advance.

Biggest costs were flight tickets, accommodation and the rental car.

Flights can get very expensive, especially if you can’t be flexible with the travel dates!

I originally wanted to go in November, but was looking at flights way too late, so the prices had gone up significantly.

Which is why we traveled in mid-December instead.

On top of being flexible with the travel dates, I also only paid for one checked-in bag between the four of us.

To check how much I needed to save I went through a lot of travel dates to get an idea of the range in prices, and then I aimed to save the second lowest amount.

For accomodation I did the same thing, although I went with an accomodation package for Hanmer Springs that had a set price so that was easy to budget for.

For Rolleston accomodation I went with my friend’s recommendation and looked at their prices to have an idea what I needed to save.

The rental car was quite hard to estimate to be honest.

If you’ve ever hired a car, then you know that the total amount can often be wildly different from when you were comparing cars in the first place because of all the add-on costs.

So I had a look around to see the ball park of cheap rental cars and then added couple hundred dollars on top to make sure I’d have enough.

Other budget categories were food, petrol, activities and experiences plus other spending money.

For food I separated it between groceries and restaurant spending, and estimated it based on what we spend at home anyway.

For petrol I looked at distances and estimated how much driving we’d do plus added a little bit on, just in case.

With activities I checked entry fees to the places we wanted to go to (like Orana Wildlife Park), I chose my spa treatments so I knew how much I was looking at spending etc.

Then I just slapped a few hundred dollars for spending money, for anything I’d want to buy for myself or for the girls.

All up I budgeted $2,940 for the trip.

In addition to that, I knew my partner would be covering some food, spending and petrol so while I hoped to come under budget, I knew there was a bit of a back up.

The main reason I wanted to save the bulk of it myself was because I wanted to have a good amount of money and to be able to pay for experiences and convenience.

My partner can be a bit tight with money, so I didn’t want to be in a situation where we would say no to an experience because of the cost.

Also, I’m better at saving money than my partner is, so by saving it myself I knew for sure we’d have the money, AND I liked the idea of treating him a bit too.

Traveling with 2 under 4 – experience and tips

Our trip went great, considering that our daughters are 3 and 1, had never flown before or stayed away from home for that long.

On the days leading up to the trip we watched some videos about airplanes and flying, so especially the toddler would know what to expect. We talked about it and I even found a book at the library going into great detail on what would happen when flying, so we read that a few times.

I prepared for their first flight with lollipops to suck on at takeoff and landing, drawing and a tablet.

The day before leaving I made sure that I had downloaded some shows they currently like on Netflix so they could watch without access to WiFi.

My oldest did really well, and was happy to fly, my youngest was fine, but got a bit antsy towards the end of the 1h 20min flight, wanting to stretch her legs.

I realised I should have brought more food for her, to keep her a bit more entertained, so I made sure I had more food on the flight back so she was a bit more content on our way back.

We decided not to bring our own carseats for the girls, so I hired them from the car rental company.

Their selection was fine, but figuring out on the fly how to install a new carseat safely to a new car was maybe not the best, so next time I fly with the girls and know I’ll be driving I’ll most likely take their own seats with us.

But the actual hire of the seats I thought was fairly priced.

Hanmer Springs

We really enjoyed Hanmer Springs, the town was very cute and the pools were awesome.

The only thing was that our girls were just a tad young. While they did have a dedicated toddler area at the pools and lots to do, the bigger slides had an age restriction of 5 and a height requirement. On top of that, you had to have 2 people per raft, so we couldn’t even swap for one to be with the kids while the other went.

We will definitely go back, but only after our youngest is at least 5!

There were other activities there, but most we felt our girls were too young for, like mini golf. It would have just been chaos to try to play with them haha!

They had a little animal park but we ended up skipping that because we were going to the Orana Wildlife Park the next day.

But it was a beautiful little village and we can’t wait to go back there!

Christchurch

My biggest regret is that I didn’t bring a pram with us. Or borrow one from my friend.

Exploring a big city with two little ones without a pram was very overwhelming and stressful.

My oldest kept running into people because she had no awareness about her surroundings, refused to hold hands and kept dashing in whichever direction she pleased.

My youngest was happy to be held for awhile but would get frustrated for not being able to walk like her big sister.

We would have explored the city centre more, had we had a pram with us.

Luckily, the Orana Wildlife Park had prams for hire when visiting, which was great! My oldest really enjoyed being there, despite the heat.

My youngest loved the porcupine she saw, but she soon fell asleep and missed the rest of the park, which was a shame, she’s such an animal lover!

We also went to a big playground in Rolleston, which the girls really loved, and before we left on Sunday we went to Chipmunks, that was a hit too.

(I actually wanted to go to the botanic gardens but it was raining really heavy so we just had to leave it!)

Would we have done different activities had we not had such young kids? Definitely, but I suppose when traveling with little ones, catering to their interests and needs usually comes first.

I absolutely want to go back, can’t wait for the kids to be a bit older so we can do other things too!

My biggest takeaways when traveling with 2 under 4?

• A pram is a must, even if it is inconvenient to travel with, it makes life so much easier!
• Lots of snacks, always. Hangry kids are not fun when in a new location, or ever really
• Packing cubes are awesome! They made packing three people’s clothes into one suitcase so easy, and it stayed tidy for the whole trip. I used ones from Kmart
• Own drink bottles for the girls made life a lot easier
• I also made sure that we stayed at places with cooking facilities, saving money by being able to eat at the motel and less stress from not having to eat out with little ones
• Bringing small activities to do during down time at the motel room, I brought colouring books, colouring pencils and a memory game

Cost breakdown – did we stay within our budget?

As mentioned above, I budgeted about $2,940 for the trip trusting that my partner would cover some food and contribute to petrol as well.

All up my spending came to $2,792.31!

I was really stoked to come under budget, and that was without having to say no to anything (while obviously not spending like a crazy either).

On top of that amount my partner spent about $500 (he didn’t keep as close tabs on it as I did so I don’t have an accurate figure for him).

But here’s how this spending was split:

Flights for us all, with one checked-in bag were $607. My youngest didn’t have a seat of her own because she is one, which made our flights a bit cheaper. Plus as I mentioned previously, I was able to pick the dates with the cheapest flights.

(We flew Air New Zealand by the way, that was the only option from New Plymouth and I made sure the flight went straight to Christchurch.)

Car rental came to $435.54 for the 5 days. This included the hire price, second driver, comprehensive insurance cover, premium pick up location, payment card charges and 2 x car seats.

We used Jucy Rentals, as they had the cheapest option and I had used them before with a great experience. I went with a little Suzuki Swift as I knew we would only have one luggage with us, so we wouldn’t need too much space.

Our accomodation in Hanmer Springs was $529 for 2 nights. We had a 2 bedroom motel room, and the price included 2 x entries to the thermal pools, round of mini golf and this village limo activity as well.

It was well worth it, we really loved the location, motel and the space we had since there was two bedrooms!

In Rolleston we paid $350 for the 2 nights, but stayed in a studio with a king size bed and an extra bed. I almost went to ask to pay to swap to a bigger room, but it turned out to be fine, the kids actually both fit into the extra bed and the king size bed was big enough when they climbed to join us.

Luckily they are also heavy sleepers so we could watch TV and have a normal conversation after they fell asleep.

For food, I paid $100.38 for groceries which included snacks, breakfasts, lunches and couple of dinners. I also spent $121.60 at cafes and other snacks.

For activities, our thermal pool entries were covered by the accomodation package, but I had two spa treatments while in Hanmer, a facial and a hot stone massage. These were $280.

In Christchurch we went to the Orana Wildlife Park and that was $99 (including the pram hire) for us all. We also went to the Chipmunks indoor playground and the entry was $30.80 (on top of it I paid for a lunch/snack while there ($21.80) but that was included in food spending).

Other spending, which was shopping, came to $238.99.

My partner spent an additional about $253 on food (approximately 50/50 on groceries and eating out), $75 on petrol and another about $170 on shopping.

The most surprising cost to me about the trip was the petrol! We didn’t empty the tank once, despite driving to Hanmer and back, and then from Rolleston to more central Christchurch 1-2/day (about an hour round trip).

When we went to return the car we still had just under a quarter left, so all up petrol only cost us $75. So the little Swift was a great choice as our car!

Costs we didn’t need to consider – this time

There are couple of costs that are often related to traveling, but which we didn’t thankfully need to worry about:

Parking while away/separate transportation to/from the airport: my partner’s friend drove us to the airport and kept my partner’s car at his place while we were away. As a thank you he got to use the car, and he also picked us up from the airport.

Dog sitter/doggy daycare: We have a dog and this was the first time he has stayed behind when we went away. I made it clear to my partner from the start that a) I wanted to fly so bringing the dog was a no go, plus b) I would refuse to limit our activities or accomodation based on having the dog with us, which is usually the case.

Luckily the same friend who drove us and had my partner’s car agreed to take care of our dog while we were away, at no cost. We just obviously provided what he needed.

House sitter: We were away for such a short time and have great neighbours to keep an eye out, so we felt it wasn’t necessary this time around. If my partner’s friend hadn’t been able to take our dog, I would have asked one of my friends to come stay at our house and keep company to our dog. Luckily it wasn’t needed though!

All in all our first time traveling with 2 under 4 went great. Our daughters seemed to really enjoy the experience, all though traveling with them is definitely different to traveling without kids!