According to Lifeguin’s travel calendar, the best time to visit New Zealand is December to May. Plan 14–21 days.
Best months for New Zealand
- Best months
- December to May
- How long to stay
- 14–21 days
- Continent
- Oceania
- Note
- Dec-Feb: beach, May-Sept: safari
What New Zealand is best for
Spectacular fiords, glaciers, and alpine Great Walks easily explored by campervan across both islands.
- Prices
- €€€ · more expensive than in Slovakia
Weather in New Zealand by month
Monthly averages around Auckland; the mountains and other regions can differ a lot.
| Month | Average temperature | Rain |
|---|---|---|
| January best | about 20 °C | some rain (57 mm) |
| February best | about 20 °C | some rain (69 mm) |
| March best | about 19 °C | some rain (69 mm) |
| April best | about 17 °C | some rain (84 mm) |
| May best | about 15 °C | a lot of rain (114 mm) |
| June | about 13 °C | a lot of rain (105 mm) |
| July | about 11 °C | a lot of rain (111 mm) |
| August | about 12 °C | some rain (96 mm) |
| September | about 13 °C | some rain (87 mm) |
| October | about 14 °C | some rain (78 mm) |
| November | about 16 °C | some rain (51 mm) |
| December best | about 18 °C | some rain (78 mm) |
Sources: what a place is best for — our own travel guides and, for places we have not written about yet, research done with the help of AI (Google Gemini); weather — NASA POWER climate averages; prices — World Bank price levels (CC BY 4.0).
Good to know about New Zealand
- Capital
- Wellington
- Languages
- English and Māori
- Currency
- New Zealand Dollar (NZD)
- Time
- UTC+12, UTC+13 in summer (most of the country)
- Plugs
- Type I · 230 V
- Driving
- On the left
- Calling code
- +64
Sources: Wikidata, Unicode CLDR and the IANA time zone database.
We haven’t written about New Zealand yet.