I've put together a map below of all the freedom camping spots that we stayed in as well as some attractions that we visited, activities that we did and places that we ate at. I hope you find this helpful! We covered a lot of ground in 10 days.
WARNING: none of the camping places we stayed in had showers. They all had toilets (apart from the camping spot near Mt Doom).
Because we went travelling in off-peak season and because of COVID-19, we did not have trouble finding spaces and often arrived late a night and were able to find a space. However NZ is getting a lot stricter about freedom camping so a lot of 'campsites' are being shut down. There was one night where we tried at least 3 camping spots near Taupo before we found somewhere to stay! Just make sure you have looked up options on the camping app and you should be fine.
We also only used our inside toilet in emergency situations as to limit the amount of times we had to use a dump station. We also ran out of water so used the public toilet sink to wash up our dishes on quite a few occasions. This meant that we only had to stop for water and a dump station twice which saved us a lot of time and energy!
If I were to do it again I would definitely get earlier starts so that you can make the most of the day light. Because it was going into winter, days would get dark at around 5:30pm. This meant that by the time we got ready for the day it was already midday which gave us less time to explore and travel the country. So I would definitely recommend getting up early so you can explore in the morning. Driving in the day is also really fun because you see a lot when you're on the road. We would often only have time to drive when it was dark, so I would definitely plan out what times you want to drive so you can see the road in the daylight.
