January Is the Month of Saying Yes

January in New Zealand is loud, hot and completely full at one end of the country, and pleasantly deserted at the other. Queenstown is at its busiest and Auckland has gone to the beach. It is also the month with the longest days of the year, which is the part almost nobody gets round to using. We run cars in both cities, and what Evolve Rentals is really handing you in January is the choice of when you go, which this month is worth more than where you go.

How much daylight do you actually get in January?

More than you will use. In Queenstown on 1 January the sun is up at 6:02am and does not set until 9:35pm, which is fifteen and a half hours, and there is still light in the sky well after ten. Auckland runs about an hour shorter at roughly fourteen and a half hours, which is still a long day by most standards.

That matters more than the temperature does. A January day has two comfortable ends and a hot, crowded middle, and you can treat those as three separate days if you feel like it. Most people spend the middle one and then wonder why everywhere felt so full.

How do you beat the crowds in Queenstown in January?

You move at the wrong times on purpose. The pressure sits roughly between ten and four, and almost everything worth seeing is quiet either side of it.

Take Bob's Cove. It is 14 km out the Glenorchy Road, about twenty minutes from town, and the walk down to the cove takes another twenty on an easy track. The Department of Conservation's own page warns that the car park gets extremely busy over summer and suggests going off peak, which is a polite way of saying that at eleven in the morning in January you will be reversing onto the verge. At half past seven, with a coffee with a view from town, the place is yours and the water is glass.

The same trick works on all of it. Arrowtown before nine is a different village from Arrowtown at midday, and the Crown Range late in the evening has all of the light and none of the traffic. None of it needs booking ahead. It just needs you to be awake at a slightly inconvenient hour, once or twice in a week.

What does January look like in Auckland?

The opposite of Queenstown, and it is the reason January is the best month to have a car in Auckland.

The city empties out. Everybody who lives there has gone north or to the Coromandel, the motorway that is a car park in November is clear, and the streets that are impossible to park in are suddenly yours. The problem to solve in Auckland is not crowds. It is the weather and what it does to the water, because the beaches change character completely after heavy rain.

You collect the car from us at 71 Mayoral Drive in the middle of the city and you are on a motorway within a few minutes, which is the whole point of Auckland in January. An hour in almost any direction and you are somewhere completely different from where you woke up.

Two things worth doing before you set off. Look at Safeswim, which gives live water quality and swimming conditions for Auckland beaches and refreshes through the day, so you find out before the drive rather than once you have arrived. And pick where you are eating on the way back, because plenty of the city shuts down over the holidays. Ours are in our favourite Auckland food stops. Where to actually point the car is in our Auckland summer road trips guide.

What are the in between moments worth saying yes to?

The bits that stick are almost never the booked ones.

A swim after dinner because the sun is still up. A twenty minute detour because the cloud has lifted off the far side of the lake, or because the tide has turned. An extra hour somewhere you only meant to look at from the car park. None of those survive a tight schedule, and all of them need a car sitting outside rather than a timetable you have to make.

If you want the longer version of that, the long summer drives worth doing in January covers the ones worth giving a whole day to, with honest timings.

One thing worth knowing before you jump in down south. Lake Wakatipu is glacier fed and it stays cold right through summer, so a January swim in it is a short, loud, excellent thing rather than a lazy afternoon float. Up north the water will not be the problem.

What should you leave out of the plan?

One big thing a day, and one afternoon with nothing in it at all.

January rewards people who leave room, because the best thing you do will almost certainly be something you had never heard of when you booked. Somebody at breakfast tells you about a place. The weather is better in one direction than the other. Saying yes is only possible if you have not already said yes to something else at that hour.

And give the drive home a thought. The days are long enough that you can be out until ten and still feel like it is early evening, which catches people out on roads they do not know. If lunch turned into a winery afternoon, sort the driving out before you leave rather than in the car park afterwards. If these are your first New Zealand roads, driving in New Zealand covers the things that tend to surprise people.

That is the whole case for having a car in January, in either city. Not speed, not status, just being able to change your mind at four in the afternoon and have it cost you nothing.

Book with Evolve Rentals and tell us where you are staying. In Queenstown we bring it to you, which nobody else here does, and in Auckland it is ready for you in the city. Either way a person hands you the keys, so if you want to know which way the weather is going you are asking somebody who drove those roads this morning.

FAQs

Is January a good time to visit Queenstown?
Yes, as long as you use the daylight. It is the busiest month of the year and also the longest, with the sun up just after six and down after nine. Work the quiet ends of the day and the crowds stop being the story.

Is Auckland worth visiting in January?
It is one of the best months for it, because the city empties out while everybody who lives there goes away. Traffic and parking stop being a fight, and the beaches and regional parks are an hour or less from the middle of town. Check Safeswim for conditions before you drive out to one.

Do you need a car in New Zealand in January?
You need one more in January than at any other time of year. The good hours are early and late, which is exactly when timetabled transport is thinnest, and in both cities the places worth reaching sit outside the centre rather than in it.

How long are the days in January?
In Queenstown about fifteen and a half hours at the start of the month, 6:02am to 9:35pm on 1 January, easing back to 6:39am and 9:16pm by the 31st. Auckland runs about an hour shorter. There is usable light for a good while after sunset on top of that.