"Is ABD worth the $$$?" Discussion thread

[WanderlustNZ]

I don't really drive. I can, legally, but I've lived in NYC for 15 years and can probably count on one hand the number of times I've driven a car since then. So that's up to my wife. I'm fine with planning my own trip though, to me planning the trip is half the fun.
I think guided tours to Australia/NZ cost so much partly because they all seem to include internal flights in order to see a big portion of the country in 2 weeks or less. Which makes sense if the tour is geared at travelers from North America or Europe who may only fly that far to see AUS/NZ once in their lives.

I completely understand what you’re saying about internal flights and some internal flights can be quite expensive (particularly getting to the likes of Alice Springs, Uluru, or all the way to the Aussie West Coast), but others are pretty good value for money and generally not indicative of the expensive cost of the tours. For example a flight between NZ’s North and South Islands need not cost you more than about US$70 p/p each way.
If you don’t like driving though (which is completely fair enough), then all my other arguments go out the window, and a tour is the way to go.

Good point about the age of tours. I just checked Gate 1 and the minimum age is 8. DS is 10, turning 11.