Driving Times

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azxoxo
azxoxo

Hello all-

I'm brand new on here and have done some looking around but haven't found a specific reference to this yet. Forgive me if it's been done to death. On another forum, someone mentioned the NZ AA website as giving much more accurate driving time per distance than other tools, such as google maps. I'm wondering if this is true or if there's another time/distance tool that estimates accurately. I'm aware that because the roads are not freeways and the terrain is windy and difficult, the actual travel times do not correspond to how my brain does mileage math. And because I'm from the States, converting to km does not come easily. I'm planning a trip to NZ with lots of driving and very little time, so I'm trying to come up with a reasonable itinerary. I'd hate to plan for 3 hours of driving daily and end up doing 6.

Thanks for your help!

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lew_stuhle
lew_stuhle

On another forum, someone mentioned the NZ AA website as giving much more accurate driving time per distance than other tools, such as google maps.

Hint: Type in, start and finish in both websites and compare.

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neverwinter
neverwinter

you can convert to km with a calculator and the websites will tell you the km distance. Allow for an average of about 60km/h.

some popular route one-way times (to do it safely and NOT, as some here assume, at 30km/h). Without stops:

Queenstown to Milford Sound 5 hours
Te Anau to Milford Sound 2 hours 15
Christchurch to Arthurs Pass 2 hours
Arthurs Pass to Greymouth 2 hours
Greymouth to Hokitika 40 mins
Hokitika to Franz Josef 3 hours
Franz to Fox 30 mins
Fox to Wanaka 5.5 hours
Wanaka to Queenstown 90 mins
Auckland to Rotorua 4 hours
Auckland to Thames 2 hours

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azxoxo
azxoxo

Thanks, both of you! Those were very helpful suggestions.

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justin23
justin23
blog

Googlemaps ususally errs on the side of caution, however it also doesn't factor in stopping time. Variances between websites will not be so big that a 3 hr drive turns out to be 6hrs, unless weather and or other factors change this.

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mitchlou84
mitchlou84

Well we got from Fox to Wanaka in under 3.5 hours non stop (well just stopping to change drivers). We found google maps quite accurate for us

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neverwinter
neverwinter

what a shame you missed so much by not stopping. And (as the distance between the two places is not in question) you averaged 75km/h on a twisty, hilly road with lots of blind corners and some one-lane bridges.

terrifying.

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mitchlou84
mitchlou84

You can't do everything on holiday, and we wanted to get to Wanaka. We finished a full day hike at Fox at 3.30, and wanted to arrive in Wanaka before it was too dark.
Google maps told us that it would take us 3 hours, so we took longer than that and did arrive in the dark, but we didn't do too badly.
Google maps must have taken into consideration the speed limit with the 3 hours it states.
I am not a particularly confident driver, and so wouldn't have been tearing along, my partner is more confident though, but it certainly wasn't terrifying. The roads were very quiet which will have helped

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