Live like a local on your New Zealand holiday by renting a 'bach'. Pronounced 'batch', it is a term Kiwis commonly use for a holiday home.

Often located by the sea, river, lake or forest, baches are all about kicking back. They offer the perfect range of accommodation to allow you to holiday like New Zealanders do.

A brief history of the bach

Short for ‘bachelor pad’, the word bach is deeply embedded in the Kiwi psyche - unless you’re from the south of the South Island, where they use the word ‘crib’ when referring to a holiday house.

After World War II, as better roads made remote places more accessible, New Zealanders began building haphazard holiday houses in gorgeous places up and down the country.

Top bach spots

Baches aren’t confined to far-flung corners of New Zealand. In popular tourist towns like Rotorua, Lake Taupō, Hanmer Springs and Queenstown, privately-owned holiday homes are everywhere.

What you do on a bach holiday depends on where the bach is. If it’s on the shores of an alpine lake in the Southern Alps, you'll probably be hiking, biking, fishing and sailing or, if it is winter, skiing and snowboarding. If the bach is at a beach or by a lake, you're likely to be in or on the water nine months of the year (spring, summer and autumn). Certain elements of bach life are common to all - barbecuing, sleeping at any time of the day, not getting dressed up (jandals and shorts are standard bach wear) and embracing the great outdoors at every opportunity.

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Live like a local