The knowledge: Travelling to New Zealand without flying
Every week a reader gets a chance to put a travel question to the Been there community and travel experts. How does this work?
This week's expert is Richard Hammond, author of Clean Breaks – 500 new ways to see the world and the founder of greentraveller.co.uk – an online guide to low impact travel.
The dilemma:
We would like to go to New Zealand after retiring by flying as little as possible and visiting interesting places on the way.
We have read about OZ-Bus, but it sounds very uncomfortable. Do any readers have experience of non-flight round-the-world trips to share?
Fred and Fran Long
What the experts say
Richard Hammond is the author of Clean Breaks – 500 new ways to see the world' and founder of greentraveller.co.uk:
If you want to go to New Zealand via Asia, you could take the train from London to Moscow, then the Trans-Siberian railway to the Far East from where you'd catch a freighter boat to New Zealand. Seat61.com (easily the best site on the net for worldwide train travel) has information and links on overlanding to Australia.
I've just learnt that RailEurope has now partnered with Russian tour operator All Russian Trains so you can book train tickets and visas from London all the way to Moscow. For information on travelling by cargo boat, check out geocities.com. Also see lowcarbontravel.com, for how 'slow traveller' Ed Gillespie did the trip from the UK all the way to New Zealand without taking a single flight.
Another option is to go via the US: there's a cargo boat that goes from Long Beach, California to Tauranga, New Zealand which takes 15 days (the round trip goes via Australia, Tahiti and Mexico and takes 55 days). The 'Hansa Flensburg' has accommodation for up to six passengers – the cabins are air-conditioned and have twin beds, a fridge, sitting room with a sofa, chairs and a desk. More info and contact details at freighterworld.com.
If you're prepared to work for free passage on a yacht, there are several websites where you can find yacht owners and skippers looking for crew, such as: crewfile.com, crewsearcher.com and findacrew.net.
Readers' replies
Following Gavin Young's Slow Boats to China should get you half way there...
Mark
Apart from a plane, there is only ONE way to get to Unzud which is surrounded by water... and that's by boat/ship/cruise liner - and I would highly recommend that!
Cruise ships go around the world. The cruise line we went with (Royal Princess Cruises) have cruises that go from the UK to the Caribbean; the US to Asia and Australia; to NZ and back to the US (Hawaii) and then onto Canada and the glaciers.
These cruises stop at various cities/places along the way. It really is a matter of where you want to go/how long you want to go for and book it.
Cruising is cheap compared to mixed air/land travel as you will pay on average less on a cruise per day than you will for a plane flight and subsequent hotel accommodation. Food is also included on a ship. No paying extra after you find a local restaurant.
The downside of course is that your floating luxury hotel goes everywhere with you and it won't provide all the delights of a unusual local cuisine. The upside is that your floating hotel is very comfortable and you can do as much or as little as you like... no running to catch a plane or bus is required.
Hope that helps.
I Smith