Two Under The Sky

New Zealand Travel Itinerary & Cost Breakdown (Feb 2026)

2026-04-14T00:00:00+00:00

My husband and I visited New Zealand for our 5th anniversary in Feb 2026. We relied heavily on internet blogs while planning, so sharing our itinerary, experiences, and a detailed cost breakdown to give back to the community.

We’re the kind of travelers who love nature, hikes, and unique experiences. Not big on cities, museums, shopping, or fancy restaurants - so this itinerary is mainly nature-focused.

We spent 1 week in North Island and 2 weeks in South Island

We booked flights, stays, visas, and most activities ~3 months in advance, which helped us get some early bird discounts.

⭐ Top Experiences

Aurora Australis (Southern Lights) - We got insanely lucky - witnessed a full-strength aurora in the Mt Cook area, which is also a dark sky reserve! Easily the highlight of the trip!!

Oamaru Penguin Colony - We booked general seating, and to our surprise penguins literally walked right past us to their nests!! At one point, they were just ~2 feet away for a good 30 mins. I still could not forget it! (No pics as phone was not allowed)

Waitomo Glowworm Caves - Went in thinking it might be overhyped, but it absolutely wasn’t. Thousands of glowworms - it really looked exactly like the photos. (No pics as phone was not allowed)

Orakei Korako Geothermal Park - It was my first time seeing geothermal activity - and woww! So many colors, bubbling pools, and geysers. I highly recommend this if you are in Rotorua. It was not even crowded like other parks in Rotorua.

Tama Lakes Hike - One of our favorite day hikes. Super scenic, well-marked, and not too difficult. Great alternative to Tongariro Alpine Crossing in case it’s closed due to weather.

Clifden Cave (self-exploration) - This was wild - a 1 km cave, just the two of us with torches. Completely raw experience, and we even spotted glowworms inside!! Of course not to the extent of Waitomo.

Mt Cook - In Hooker Valley Track, we actually just sat for 1–2 hours near the first bridge, soaking it all in. One of the most peaceful and beautiful spots of the trip. We also did a couple more hikes in the area and all were great!

🤷‍♀️ Slightly Underwhelming (for us)

Milford Sound - Controversial take - but it felt a bit underwhelming. It was great no doubt but I had a lot of expectations. Possibly because I’ve seen fjords in Norway or mountains looked similar to what we see in India. Genuinely don’t know the reason. Probably in a different season it would be a totally different experience.

Hobbiton Movie Set Tour - I’m not into LOTR (my partner is), but even for him it felt more like a checklist item. Nice, but not mind-blowing.

🗺️ Detailed Itinerary with Photos

Day 1 - Auckland - Arrived in Auckland and checked into a hostel. (Took public transportation)

Day 2 - Auckland to Rotorua (via Hobbiton) - Picked up the car in the morning and drove to Rotorua, stopping at Hobbiton Movie Set on the way.

Day 3 - Rotorua - Explored Rotorua - public thermal parks, Redwoods day walk, short redwood forest hikes, and Rotorua Lake.

Day 4 - Rotorua to Turangi (via Orakei Korako) - Stopped at Orakei Korako Geothermal Park. Also spent some relaxing time at Lake Taupo.

Day 5 - Tongariro National Park - Tongariro Alpine Crossing was closed due to a thunderstorm, so we did the Tama Lakes hike instead. Later drove around the park and returned to Turangi.

Day 6 - Turangi to Auckland (via Waitomo) - Stopped at Waitomo Glowworm Caves on the way back.

Day 7 - Auckland (chill day) - Did a short hike near our Airbnb, visited Muriwai Gannet Colony Beach, and relaxed.

Day 8 - Auckland to Queenstown - Flew to Queenstown, picked up the car, did grocery shopping, and checked into our Airbnb. Since we weren’t tired, we drove to Wanaka via Crown Range and returned via a different route.

Day 9 - Queenstown to Te Anau (via Glenorchy) - Drove to Glenorchy first (one of the best drives of the trip!) and then continued to Te Anau.

Day 10 - Milford Sound (day trip) - Drove to Milford Sound early, did a morning cruise, and stopped at multiple scenic spots on the way back. Relaxed by Te Anau Lake in the evening.

Day 11 - Te Anau to Clutha (farm stay) - We booked a random farm stay on Airbnb for a rural experience. On the way we explored Clifden Caves (1 km self-guided), visited Monkey Beach. Our hosts even took us to show how they milk cows!

Day 12 - Clutha to Wanaka - Reached Wanaka by noon. Drove toward Mt Aspiring National Park but turned back halfway due to road conditions. We did Diamond Lake hike on the way. Couldn’t do Roy’s Peak due to a marathon road closure.

Day 13 - Wanaka to Haast, back to Wanaka (drive) - Since we were skipping the north-west of South Island we thought of driving toward the West Coast just to experience the landscapes. Made multiple stops but found the drive average, so returned early. Evening by Lake Wanaka + amazing stargazing.

Day 14 - Wanaka → Mt Cook → Omarama - One of the best drives (especially Lake Pukaki). Reached Mt Cook around 2 pm and did multiple short hikes - Tasman Glacier, Hooker Valley (till first bridge due to closure of track), and Kea Point. Returned to Omarama after sunset. Same night we saw full strength Aurora Australis just outside our motel along with milkyway!

Day 15 - Omarama → Lake Tekapo → Omarama - Started early for sunrise at Lake Tekapo (~6:30 am). Spent half the day there and returned after lunch. Relaxed for the rest of the day.

Day 16 - Omarama → Oamaru (via Dunedin) - Drove to Oamaru. Also visited Dunedin for the Albatross Colony but we didn’t end up going there and came back after enjoying great beer at Emerson’s Brewery.

Day 17 - Oamaru - Explored the town and did penguin watching in the evening - highlight experience.

Day 18 - Oamaru → Christchurch - Started late and took it slow with multiple stops along the way and reached Christchurch by late evening.

Day 19 & 20 - Christchurch - Met friends who flew in from Wellington. One day with them, one day for shopping (chocolates, souvenirs, etc.).

Day 21 - Fly back to Bangalore ✈️

💰 Cost Breakdown (for 2 people)

Total (excluding international flights): ~6,000 NZD (~3,40,000 INR)

Total (including international flights): ~10,000 NZD (~5,60,000 INR) (depends on when you book)

We cooked most meals ourselves. For eating out, it generally cost around 20 NZD per person per meal.

Activity	Price (NZD)	Price (INR)
International Flights (BLR → SYD → AKL, CHC → SYD → BLR)	3,941	2,16,154
New Zealand Visa	541	29,768
Domestic Flight (AKL → Queenstown)	250	13,786
Stay for 21 days (mix of Airbnbs / Motels / Holiday Parks)	1,800	1,00,000
Car booking Auckland → Auckland (6 days)	583	31,986
Car booking Queenstown → Christchurch (13 days)	1,067	58,518
Orakei Korako Geyser	115	6,300
Hobbiton Movie Set	220	12,107
Waitomo Glowworm Caves	150	8,335
Milford Sound	248	13,584
Oamaru Penguin Evening Viewing	88	4,835
Travel Insurance	49	2,717
eSIM Skinny (3GB data, 30 days + local minutes)	17	933
eSIM Data only (10GB, 30 days)	15	800
Total Fuel	514	28,190
Grocery	250	13,700
Public Transport Auckland (airport to city)	13	712
Eating Outside	370	20,290
Total (incl. International Flights)	~10,200	~5,60,000

🏡 Our Stays

Here is the link to all our stays. Please keep in mind that prices vary based on when you book, which season, which room, etc. (We booked 4 months in advance.)

Hope this helps you plan your trip!

Thank you!

What is success?

2025-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

For some time now, I’ve been thinking randomly about what success really is. And I kinda go down a rabbit hole whenever I start. This blog is just my scattered thoughts, written in a way that might make sense to me at the end of the day (or not?)

Is success individual or collective? Can one person be successful on her own? The more I think about it, the more I feel it’s a collective thing. I can’t achieve anything if the people around me don’t support me, encourage me, or at least don’t stop me from doing something. There’s an entire ecosystem - your partner, parents, children, friends, and so on - that helps you be successful.

Then again, what exactly is success? Is it achieving all your goals? That makes me wonder - what exactly is a goal? I know it’s personal to everyone, but goals keep changing in every phase of life, don’t they? Does that mean the definition of success also keeps changing? Will there ever be a moment when I say, “Okay, I’m successful now, and my journey toward success ends here?” What is the end goal? Is it to have money? To be happy? To be peaceful? To be healthy? To have an impact on society? Is there even an end goal at all?

And when I think even further, it all boils down to: what is the purpose of life and who am I? And that, my friend, is where the never-ending quest begins! 🙈

(Now that I re-read it, it still doesn’t have a clear ending 🤔)

Reflections After I Left My Job

2025-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

I left my job in April 2025, and it’s been around six to seven months that I’ve been a free bird! This is not the first time I’ve taken a career break, but it is the first time I have no goal, no next steps, no future plans.

Have you ever had a time when you weren’t looking ahead into the future and were just living in the present? When your mind is calm, your health is good, and you suddenly have so much time in your hands to figure out who you are? I feel like since eighth or ninth standard, my life has been pretty hectic. Not always physically busy, but mentally busy - always thinking about what’s next.

A calm mind is the best mind! ❤️

In school, my goal was to get really good marks and get into a good college - ✅
After college, getting a good internship - ✅
After the internship, getting a job offer - ✅
After getting a job: learning new things, building good professional relationships, growing in my career, earning the paycheck I deserve - all ✅

I took a professional break in between - but even that had goals: doing hikes, solo travel, figuring out if travel blogging could be a career - ✅ (and I realised no one pays like IT jobs for the amount of effort we put in).

After building a decent career and getting a decent salary, it was time to focus more on personal relationships: finding a companion, learning to share life with someone, travelling with your partner, and so on - ✅

Now what? Generally, people plan for a family and continue that journey - but that’s not for me. That’s not who I am.

I’ve had great teams, worked with some of the best colleagues, and proved myself good enough in my profession. But is it enough? Is anything ever enough?

Cooking is new meditation.

I decided to leave my high-paying remote job because it was getting too toxic and was starting to impact my health. When I left, I had no idea what I would be doing. To be honest, I thought I would get bored without work - but to my surprise, I didn’t!

This is the first time I’ve had so much free time without looking for the next big thing. I have no obligations and no responsibilities to fulfil (mostly towards myself). I’m financially stable enough to have the freedom to do nothing. I’m exploring myself. I’m trying to remember who I was in school, what changed in me, what experiences shaped me, and why. I’m finally trying to process some emotions and situations I might have buried years ago while pretending I had “moved on.” It’s surprising how, when you’re alone with nothing to do, so many layers of your subconscious open up-and you have no option but to deal with them.

I realise I don’t have to “prove” anything to be who I am or to be respected for who I am. It’s really difficult to separate your identity from your profession, but I’m trying. There’s so much ego in all of us that restricts us from letting go of our identities, because for years those identities have fed that ego and shaped who we are.

I’m a great multitasker, but that also means it’s very hard to be truly present while doing just one thing, because in my mind I’m doing multiple things at once. It’s super hard to slow down and do one thing at a time, think one thing at a time, or even more difficult - do nothing! 😛

In this era, it’s so hard to sit quietly and do nothing. Our brains are so overstimulated. YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and other social media apps have messed with our attention span. It’s almost impossible to sit idle. My mind constantly craves something to occupy it. It’s difficult to watch a YouTube video at 1× speed even though I have all the free time in the world. It’s difficult to read a book for hours without checking my phone. And it’s extremely difficult to just sit without a phone or book, and simply look at nature and do nothing. I’m still trying to achieve that - but damn, it’s hard.

All this tech has made us so dependent. If someone gave me a small house and asked me to live there without any devices, life might feel hard at first, even though there would be so much beauty all around.

Peaceful evening farm walks!

Now all I want is to have a calm mind, surround myself with nature, and just live each moment without thinking about what’s next. I’m sure that even with baby steps, I’ll get there.

Slow mornings in the farm.

Being in the Himalayas

2018-04-23T08:00:00+00:00

I got an opportunity to go for a trek - Everest Base Camp (via Gokyo lakes) in April 2018. Although we couldn’t complete it because of various reasons including health issues, we did spend 11 days surrounded by mountains. I thought of sharing my experience of life in the Himalayas.

Talking about Himalayas and actually going there and being in it is a whole different experience. People say that you find yourself in Himalayas and now I realise why.

When you start the trek, you see a lot of vegetation around you, beautiful greenery and a very live atmosphere with many domestic animals, people, beautiful colourful flowers. You want to just stop and fill your eyes with all the beauties. After you start climbing to higher altitudes, vegetation decreases and you reach one point where you can't find even a single leaf!

Cold and Windy Himalayas!

Mountains are cold, lonely and windy. You look around and all you see is snow covered mountains with clouds and chilly wind. There is a deadly silence all around you. All you hear is the wind roaring or rocks falling from the mountains. No other sound at all! Are the views beautiful? Of course! It is breathtaking! Literally Breathtaking! Many times you just want to sit there forever.

This is where you think about yourself, your family, your loved ones. Looking at the snowy and lifeless mountains, makes you feel great just being alive! You want to do things which makes an impact in the society, you want to do something good. All of your problems in life seem tiny just by looking at mighty Himalayas. You are breathing and you are fine, that’s all that matters.

Now let's talk about the Sherpa community in Nepal. Any person who goes to the mountains for guiding purpose, as porter or offering tea houses are generally called sherpa. The amount of work they do versus the returns they get are very disproportionate. Porter wages are especially low. I got a chance to talk to one sherpa who was guiding us for trek and just by listening to his life story I got tears in my eyes. His father was in jail and his mother killed herself when he was a child. He had to stop his education and started working as porter since he was 10 yrs old to support his family and now he works as a guide. Education is very low in rural Nepal and most of the people in the mountains there earn money by working as porter or guide. Life is not easy - they have to be away from home for long time without taking any breaks. At max 1 or 2 days in month they can go home and when there is no trek season - especially in winters, they do farming; but it is not enough. They have to survive from money they got while trekking. Many porters continue their work even after they grow old because they need money to feed their family and many of them die on the trek because of health issues. When people climb Everest, they are in the news, but almost no one gives any acknowledgement to the thousands of Sherpas because of whom they could do the summit. Sherpas risk their lives, family and everything for the trekkers coming from all over the world. I have never seen such hardworking, dedicated and honest people in my life till now.

When we sit in front of computers, having high paying jobs and bickering about maid or cook not coming on time or which movie to see on Friday, these are people who actually fight with life and because of them all the treks in Nepal are possible. Cheers to all sherpas in Himalayas!!

One more surprising thing I found on the trek was that there were many elderly people doing this trek. For some of them I might be their grand daughter's age! I got so much inspiration from them and I really respect them a lot! Everyone was fit, cheerful and just full of life. In addition to being physically strong, they were so strong mentally that they decided to finish this trek and they really did it, no matter how weak or tired they got physically! One more goal added in my life that I want to be like them when I get to that age.

I think everyone should go to the Himalayas at least once during their lifetimes. It is not just about mountains and beauty, but more about the people you meet there, experiences you gather, things you find about yourself and lastly you realise value of people in your life!

I hope I was able to deliver even 1% of what it feels like to be in Himalayas!

My first solo trip experience!

2016-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

My First SOLO TRIP!

When I decided to go solo, I was very clear. I wanted to spend quality time with myself, discover more about who I am, and fall in love with myself once again. Sometimes in our busy professional lives, we tend to ignore the small things we used to love when we were young. I wanted to try all of those things.

Finally, I told my friends that I was going on a solo trip! I got all kinds of reactions - from “Are you out of your mind?” to “Awesome, Kesh! Go on…” After listening to everyone’s opinions, I still wanted to continue. So yeah… I booked the tickets, the hotel, and was ready to go!

Pondicherry here I come!

Why Pondicherry?

I went there before and loved the place. The beach, the peaceful locality, the sense of safety - what else do you need on a solo trip? I packed a couple of clothes, some books, and left for Pondy.

Honestly, deep down I was also scared initially. I’ve travelled a lot before but never alone. This time I had to handle everything myself. There would be no one to accompany me. What if I didn’t like my own company? What if I ran into some problem? A chain of thoughts was running through my mind when I was about to leave. I was scared and excited at the same time. 😄

But the moment I reached, all those fears vanished! I was totally free like a bird - relaxed and refreshed. I got lost in the early morning breeze, the sunrise, and the sound of the waves. I used to read a lot when I was young then somehow with time it slowly stopped and I didn’t even realize it. So this was the best time to bring books in my life again. I started reading and then just forgot about everything else!

Long walks, salty breeze, and zero itinerary.

I roamed around a lot, tried different restaurants, and did some silly, crazy things I might never do when I go with a group. The best part was that there was no one to judge me. I was free to do whatever I wanted, no one was there to tell me what was good or bad. I was both the leader and the follower.

When you travel alone, you meet different kinds of people, and each person teaches you something. You realize there are so many different ways to enjoy and be happy. Especially in India, you meet people with various cultures, languages, and religions - each with something to share about their lives. Listening to them is just amazing, and after some time, you also feel connected to them.

At one point, I was just sitting at the beach and observing people. There were groups of friends giggling and pulling each other’s legs. There were couples holding hands, talking, lost in each other in that beautiful evening. There were children playing in the sand, throwing it around, building things, trying their imaginations in sand. No responsibilities, no stress, no worries about the world - probably the happiest people on the beach! There were groups of elderly people laughing, discussing family and retirement. They looked very peaceful, they had fulfilled their responsibilities towards society and now time to rest a little. There were families - parents teaching their children something, playing with them, and enjoying their time together.

And then there were people like me - without any company. Someone was playing a guitar, someone was writing in a diary, someone was meditating, someone was reading a book, someone was cycling, and someone - just like me - was sitting quietly, watching people, and enjoying the evening. Everyone looked happy and completely engrossed in their own world. I was just remembering that I was also part of a group like them when I visited last time and who knows someone like me noticed us at that time and thought the same? 😄 😄

From my experience with this trip, when you’re travelling alone, people are incredibly kind and helpful. It’s nice to see how curious people get when you tell them you’re travelling solo. They ask so many questions, and it’s always a pleasure to answer them.

I truly feel everyone should travel solo at least once in life. Sometimes we get so caught up in our busy lives that we forget the “real” us. Give yourself a chance to figure out what you truly love, what you want to do in your life, and what you are currently doing. When you go out and explore, you realize that the small things hurting you right now are actually nothing. There are plenty of things to do in life, and we are wasting our time thinking about some stupid things which don’t matter in the long run.

Go, find your love, explore, and enjoy! ❤️❤️