New coach travel pass for New Zealand
March 14th, 2009 by Tim Uden
I’ve just added information about the new Naked Bus New Zealand coach pass to the BUG website.
The Naked Passport is the simplest of New Zealand’s coach travel passes where each pass is valid for a set number of trips so it is obviously better value on longer trips.
Passes are NSD $157 (£59) for five trips; NZD $260 (£98) for 10 trips; NZD $330 (£124) for 15 trips; NZD $370 (£139) for 20 trips; NZD $437 (£164) for 25 trips; NZD $497 (£187) for 30 trips. There is also an Unlimited Pass that costs NZD $597 (£224) for as many bus trips that you fit into one year.
A travel pass costing around £8 per trip may not sound like a good deal when you can buy tickets on Naked Bus from only NZD $1 (38p) each. However those cheap seats need to be snapped up around a month in advance and last minute seat on a route such as Auckland-Rotorua can still cost NZD $42 (£16).
Flexibility has a price, but with the Naked Passport at least that price is still very affordable compared with the alternatives.
The Naked Passport is better suited to independent travellers who don’t want to plan everything months in advance, while travellers who don’t mind booking a set itinerary weeks in advance just to get the cheapest fares will do better with individual tickets.
A compromise between flexible travel and getting the best deal is probably the best way to use this pass. For instance you can plan a rough itinerary and pre-book a handful of tickets in advance to get the cheapest seats and then buy a Naked Passport to use on last minute travel when prices are higher. This means that you still have an independent element to your trip, but pre-booking some tickets in advance can mean the difference between buying a 20-trip pass and a 25-trip pass and it can save you up to £20.
Alternatively, travellers on a one-year working holiday visa can get a lot of value out of the Unlimited Naked Passport bus pass, which lets you make as many bus trips as you can handle within a one-year period all for less than $600.
The Naked Passport passes are really good value, especially when a one-year unlimited pass costs around the same as two weeks of car rental; and if you rented a car you would still be up for fuel, insurance excess and parking.
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