I spent a while in New Zealand a few years ago and my friend and I took the Kiwi Experience bus around the country but if they had this back them we may have taken the naked bus around the country simply because of the name. Although its apparently just a catchy name to attract tourists it actually is really, really cheap.
They advertise rides for as low as $1 between a lot of points on both islands. The main difference between this and the Kiwi bus is that the Kiwi bus is way more expensive and additionally, you cannot ride the Kiwi bus just between two cities or stops. You could however, take a more expensive private bus around New Zealand. We did that if we didn’t want to stop in certain towns the Kiwi bus forces you to stop in. The naked bus is a nice alternative to have and I hope it takes off. In major tourist spots like New Zealand, it is nice that they are starting these nice cheap busses. Hopefully it will follow in the rest of the commonwealth like Australia, South Africa, India and who knows, maybe even in the UK.
New Zealand Naked Bus?
August 2, 2007 by 5 Comments
Kiwi bus was awesome! Wouldn’t have changed my experience for anything. cool name though.
Kiwi Experience was amazing or as we called it, the shagon wagon
Hi, I am the ceo of nakedbus.com. Thanks for mentioning our service – actually the “naked” is because we strip out the costs you don’t need – such as paper tickets and so, and that helps us to keep prices down. We definitely intend to remain the low cost way of travelling round New Zealand – and you will meet many locals and travellers on your journeys.
You are quite right that we are more flexible than the tour buses, so well worth a go!
Thanks for the comment Hamish. Good luck to you and next time I am in NZ, I will certainly check you guys out.
Naked bus has terrible customer service. They have a record of leaving passengers behind, unmarked buses, rude drivers, leave early or arive late, $1.99/min phone call to customer service, re booking fees…
It seemsto be hit or miss with these guys. You may have a drama free trip. Then you may get left behind in the wop-wops and have all your stuff stolen.
Not worth the hassle, unless you’re feeling lucky.
I’d not thought that when the ceo says “because we strip out the costs” that he was talking about any kind of service.