Look After Me Homestay: New Zealand Hospitality Formalized

New Zealand conjures a few images in my mind: the hobbit, people doing insane adrenaline sports, and hospitality. This last one comes from the many stories I’ve heard about how incredibly nice and hospitable Kiwis are to strangers traveling in their country. I’d love to visit New Zealand but I wonder if I would be able to find the same hospitality others talk so fondly about. It seems like most people just accidentally happen into fabulous situations in NZ. What if I go and this doesn’t happen to me?

I recently came across a site that I want to highlight because it formalizes this hospitality concept: Look After Me. From their website:

The reputation of New Zealand is staked upon being warm and hospitable. Look After Me Homestay Network offers the best of NZ to each other and the rest of the world.

We offer beautiful accommodation, in gorgeous places, hosted by the most genuine of people providing exceptional hospitality.

For prices that start at $33 USD a night you can find homes to stay in across New Zealand. And you can filter on the interests of your hosts if you want to find a match for your love of tramping, for instance. (I had no idea that tramping is the Kiwi term for overnight hiking.)

They have 269 properties listed, with the majority on the north island but overall a pretty good geographic coverage of the country. When I do finally get to New Zealand I’m including Look After Me this as a must-try lodging option.