There are probably countries you can visit without a Lonely Planet Guide. New Zealand is not one of these. The way to enjoy NZ is to travel from place to place and not to pre-book anything far in advance. Car rental is easy, the roads are very good ( in the right time of the year) and you have accomodation galore. The most important reason not to pre-book is that you are always dependent on the weather. I have made three trips in the past few years to NZ with my family and on all occasions we had to change plans because of the weather.
The more flexible you want to be the more important the guide is, in particular when it's a first trip. The first time we arrived in Auckland with only a general idea what to do in our three weeks and we found that quickly we left other guides in the suitcase and relied solely on the LP to plan our trip. The guide contains all relevant information and is sursprisningly up to date. The most important is that it is not a commercail tourism promoter but that it gives yo an hones impression on what there is to do.
E.g. it was pretty clear from reading the guide that as a family with relatively small children we were better of in Wanaka then in Queenstown as the children were not yet at an age that they could enjoy all the thrills and that Wanaka, whilst offering Jetboating and biking was more appropiate.
Even on the third trip we took we still had the guide with us. You have to be prepared to do some long stretches of driving and nothing helps to drive awy the boredom as creating expectations and anticipation by reading aloud what is said about the next attratction.
In particular for accomodation I found it helpful. Everywhere you pick up the NZ AA guide with all motel accomodation ( very handy) and the LP is there to give you some reviews of the accomodation selected.
The book could haven been priced at a much higher level; I still would have bought it ( in fact, I am on my second edition)
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