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Any family road trip on the West Coast will be full of memories. But whether those memories are of new adventures and places you discovered together, or constant bickering and endless hours stuck in the car, all comes down to planning.
There’s a lot to squeeze into a West Coast itinerary, and it’s tempting to try to do it all. But after enough years welcoming families to this part of the country, our advice is to slow down. Spend less time packing, driving and unpacking, and leave more room for the stuff you came all this way to enjoy.
Don’t measure your days in kilometres
A two-hour drive with kids rarely takes two hours. There are toilet stops. Snack stops. Someone feels carsick. Someone else desperately needs to get out and stretch their legs. Then you spot a beach, lookout or short walk that wasn’t on the itinerary and decide to pull over.
On a big road trip, that’s all part of the fun, as long as you’ve allowed time for it. That’s why we suggest you keep your driving days manageable and look at what there is to do along the route before deciding how much road you’ll cover. On the West Coast especially, getting from one destination to another can be an adventure in itself.
Pick a few bases and explore from there
In the article How Many Days Do You Need on New Zealand's West Coast? we explained how beneficial it can be to set up a base and do day trips, instead of moving on every night.
Changing accommodation every night might help you cover more kilometres, but it comes at a cost. Every morning starts with packing and every afternoon ends with unloading again. If you’re camping as a family, take that hassle and triple it. Once you’ve got the tent up, beds sorted and everyone knows where their toothbrush is, the last thing you want is to pack it all away again.
Instead, pick a well-located base and call it home for a few nights. With a huge range of things to do near Greymouth, the Greymouth Seaside TOP 10 Holiday Park is arguably the best place on the West Coast to do this.
Let the kids choose something too
Adults and children don't always agree on what counts as a holiday highlight. You can travel hours to visit a scenic lookout, only for the kids to be more interested in the rocks beside the car park.
That’s why it can be helpful to give everyone a say on your West Coast itinerary. Around the central West Coast, that could mean Pancake Rocks one day, gold panning at Shantytown the next, a bike ride on the West Coast Wilderness Trail or a few hours exploring the beach.
Short walks are handy too. You get the bush, rivers and views you came to the Coast for without committing the family to a four-hour hike nobody wants to finish.
Remember, the day doesn’t end at 4pm
You’ve finished sightseeing for the day, everyone has eaten, and there are still three hours until bedtime. The kids, of course, have found another reserve of energy, and are bouncing off the walls.
This is where having more than just a hotel room can make such a difference. A playground, games room, jumping pillow, basketball hoop or beach nearby gives them somewhere to go without having to load them back into the car. Meanwhile, you can sit down for five minutes and wonder where they were hiding all that energy during the walk you did earlier.
When booking accommodation, always look at the facilities, but also what’s in walkable distance. Those added family-friendly elements is one of the reasons holiday parks work so well for a family road trip.
Make feeding everyone easy
You don't need us to tell you how quickly eating out adds up when you're feeding a family. And while meals out are part of the fun, there are better things to spend your money on when you’re on a family roadtrip.
Having access to a kitchen gives you the option to pack lunches for the road, and decide whether dinner is at a restaurant or something easy back at your accommodation.
If you’re camping, check what cooking facilities are available before booking your campground. Cabins and self-contained units vary too, so find out what’s provided rather than assuming you’ll have an oven, cooktop or cooking equipment waiting for you.
And know where the supermarkets are. Nobody makes their finest holiday decisions while hungry.
Expect a bit of rain
As much as we’d like to tell you that the West Coast is all sunshine and rainbows, that would be a bit disingenuous. Rain happens and here in Greymouth, we get our fair share of grey skies, funny that.
That being said, like anywhere in NZ, we can get four seasons in one day, so it’s best to pack for all occasions. Keep waterproof layers in easy reach, and a few indoor ideas ready so a wet morning doesn't derail the entire day. Shantytown, Pounamu Pathway Māwhera and the galleries and shops around Hokitika give you options when nobody fancies heading out on a long walk.
A flexible itinerary helps here too. If you've based yourself somewhere for several nights, you can swap your days around and save an outdoor activity for better weather instead of missing it because you're due to move on tomorrow.
And sometimes, of course, the best thing to do is put your raincoat on and head out anyway.
Leave room to do very little
It can be tempting to pack your road trip full of activities, but not every day needs a headline attraction. After several days on the road, a slow morning can be exactly what everyone needs. Let the kids play, wander down to the beach, do some washing, have lunch and head out for one short activity in the afternoon.
It can feel strange leaving blank space in an itinerary when you've travelled a long way to get here, but those gaps give everyone a chance to reset before the next big day. And often, they're the days the kids enjoy most.
Find somewhere the whole family can settle in
At Greymouth Seaside TOP 10 Holiday Park, we have families travelling in all sorts of ways, so there's plenty of choice when it comes to where you sleep. Pitch the tent or park up on one of our powered or non-powered camping sites, keep costs down with a cabin, or give everyone a little more room in one of our motel units or self-contained seaview apartments.
Once you're here, the practical stuff is covered too. There are communal kitchen and dining facilities, guest laundry and free WiFi, plus a playground, jumping pillow, basketball hoop and games room for younger travellers.
Best of all, we're right by the beach. So once you've parked up for the day, you don't need to get everyone back in the car again to enjoy a change of scene.
Years from now, the kids won't remember how efficiently you planned their West Coast holiday, but they will remember panning for gold, running around on the beach, bouncing on the jumping pillow with new friends until dark, and that walk where it absolutely bucketed down.
Ready to make memories? Book your base at Greymouth Seaside TOP 10 Holiday Park.