Photo by Nicola Attridge.

“You should have waited until summer!”

Here’s a phrase that many travellers have heard too often and usually occurs after a comment about the weather or an attraction being closed until the peak season for maintenance and after the first dozen times hearing it you’ll probably become desensitised, smile and accept that yes, you probably should have arrived during peak season when the weather is perfect, every attraction is open and more facilities are available to you. Sometimes you simply can’t help when you need to arrive at a destination. There may be that month you need to fill before a major event in a different country and the only ways to fill it is to stay later at your current location which may not be possible, travel on tangent to a completely different location or to simply turn up early at the location you’re going to be. Or, you could be that cunning adventurer who looks past the cons of off-season travel and experience the destination in a completely different way. In New Zealand, this is definitely what we did. So, what are the pros and cons of off-peak travel?

In the first part we’ll look at some of the benefits of travelling off-peak…

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