We’re still three months out from Christmas, but that yuletide buzz has already started happening. Christmas shops are in full flock, twinkle lights blazing, and every local restaurant is advertising to obtain your business’ custom for your 2008 Xmas work do. Is it too early to be thinking about Santa, weekday barbecues and cold beer on the beach?

For the team at NZS.com, we can’t quite comprehend that summer break just yet - it’s a little to far away to get excited about. However, with long weekends such as Labour Day coming up, and a few annual leave days stacked up, we’ve all been thinking it’s a great time to plan a mini-break with some travel holiday deals somewhere around the country, and kickstart the summer holidays 2008 a little early.

Luckily, last minute accommodation and the internet go hand in hand, as there are several sites out there offering some of the best NZ hotel rooms at bargain prices - often just a fraction of the rack rates. Last minute New Zealand accommodation and hotel deals are easily found online these days, and are great for sporatic trips (this weekend, perhaps?) as they often just list the following four weeks of availability at thousands of accommodation providers NZ-wide on their sites. Booking with such short notice means you get the best possible accommodation deals, as hotels would rather have all of their rooms occupied, even at significantly reduced rates, than have them completely empty.

Fancy a couple of nights away over the next month to scratch that pre-Christmas itch? Find last minute accommodation deals within both New Zealand and worldwide anytime - that’s the beauty of being online!

Image from Flickr.

While Monday this week (Queen’s Birthday in Australia) officially marked the opening of Australian ski season, it looks again like tens of thousands of Aussies will be venturing over the ditch to New Zealand when our major ski fields open at the end of this month.

New Zealand’s ski resorts receive approximately a quarter of their annual tourism from Australian visitors, last year totaling 70,000 Aussie holidaymakers, reports the Dominion Post. This figure is increasing by 20 percent each year, due to better and more reliable skiing this side of the Tasman.

New Zealand is leading the world with advances in environmental sustainability, as demonstrated at last weeks World Environmental Day in Wellington. New Zealand increasingly attracts international tourists committed to sustainable eco-tourist travel options, as we are privy to several tour operators determined to leave a smaller footprint on the globe.

Luxury tour companies such as Green Realm Travel offer tours on the New Zealand roads which are the cutting edge in comfort and environmental standards. This company has built their coaches based on the eco-friendly MAN A67 Euro 4 coach chassis, which uses progressive technology that reduces fuel consumption, exhaust-gas emissions and noise. The particle filter system in the engine make these coaches arguably the cleanest diesels in the world.

Image from Flickr.

You know how much I love free things. Who can resist a giveaway, even if the item in question is completely useless or impractical?

But this, ah, we’re onto a winner.

Good ol’ Air New Zealand is offering you the chance to win flights to Australia in a gimmicky, yet oddly enticing, way. The deal is this: just send a message online to a friend in Australia (an expat Kiwi, of course) and it’ll be displayed on a billboard outside Customs House in Sydney. Just by sending this message to a mate, you’ll go into the draw for a return flight to Aussie (and so will your friend). The gallery of sent messages also makes for good voyeuristic viewing (as well as the usual ‘I luv you, will you marry me?’s, there are comedians out there writing gems like this one: Hey man, remember the time we ate a whole pair of jeans? Come home so we can do it again!).

Remember, NZS.com lists heaps of other sites where you can enter competitions and snaffle free stuff for yourself. And if you don’t fancy your chances of winning, why not book a flight to Australia to escape these far-from-tropical wintry days?