Photographers will enjoy the West Coast and New Zealand is one place, even though I go there every year and used to live there, that I bring my full kit, or as much kit as possible. If I was traveling light I’d be fine with one wide angle and one zoom, but really, the scenery here on the West Coast and further South in Wanaka, Queenstown and Milford Sound is spectacular and you’re going to want your best camera and best lenses.

It’s daylight saving in New Zealand over the summer so Sunsets aren’t until 9 and even 10p.m in some places.  So if you want that magic hour light, better to get up early. It’s also very dry in New Zealand (compared to Asia) so no need to bring plastic bags and shit like that you usually have to take when you go to Asian destinations and go from the low cool humidity of hotel rooms to 36 degrees and 90% humidity.

In a week I’ll go through 10 rolls of film and take well over a 1,000 digital photos as there’s so much to see and the landscapes are awesome.   Small towns on the West Coast are unlikely to sell fast SD Cards, and have small selections of photography gear and accessories so make sure you don’t forget anything and bring plenty of batteries. Wifi can be slow and on existent in some remote places so back up your stuff to multiple hard drives if you’re anal about that because backing up 24MB files to the cloud can be frustrating and impossible at times.