North Island Surfing Road Trip: 7 Days from Auckland to Coromandel, Raglan and Taranaki - Britz

Six nights and 1,050 kilometres in a loop from Auckland in a campervan, taking in three separate surf coasts.

The Coromandel comes first, with Hot Water Beach, where a hot spring rises under the sand around low tide and visitors dig their own pools in it, Cathedral Cove and Whitianga. The breaks on that coast face east and work on a different swell from everywhere else on the route.

Raglan follows on the west coast, where Manu Bay and Whale Bay sit on a long left-hand point that can run for several hundred metres on the right day, and the town has organised itself around that fact since the 1960s, with Bridal Veil Falls inland. New Plymouth and Surf Highway 45 close the loop, running round the base of Mount Taranaki through Oakura, Okato and Opunake, where the swell arrives straight off the Tasman and there are more breaks than cars at most of them.

Britz supply the camper and the day-by-day plan, and the hire is priced live per vehicle rather than per person; campsites, fuel, ferries, park fees and activities are all extra, with a nil-excess insurance pack available at booking. Seven days for 1,050 kilometres means real driving between the coasts, which is the price of surfing three of them in a week. Board hire and lessons are available at both Raglan and Taranaki. Nothing needs a 4WD, and a camper is close to the ideal vehicle for this, since the best breaks rarely have accommodation anywhere near them.