Kiwi farmers using mini-dwellings to become micro-hoteliers

Kiwi farmers and life stylers around the country are using mini-dwellings to become micro-hoteliers.

The tiny house company Tiny Away has 15 small holiday rentals set on privately-owned land across rural New Zealand. One step removed from glamping, each mini-dwelling provides a hot shower, heating or air conditioning, a queen bed and a kitchenette. Some dwellings are connected to services, others are totally off-grid.

Rural property owners partnering with the company provide a level and suitably scenic spot on their property; Tiny Away provide a compactly designed, fully furnished mini-dwelling. Tiny Away handles marketing and bookings in a profit-sharing arrangement has landowners earning up to 45% of the rental revenue.

The idea is to attract visitors to stay in rural areas. It also enables rural landowners to supplement their income through participating in the tourism economy. It adds to a growing range of alternative, lower-footprint accommodation options, such as Canopy Camping for glamping, and Okay2stay or Campable for travellers in camper vans.

On the sustainability front, tiny dwellings make efficient use of space and resources, reminding us that we don’t need huge hotel rooms or wasteful 5-star resorts to have an indulgent holiday.

“A Tiny Away stay gives people a chance to experience the tiny house lifestyle and the philosophy of ‘less is more’ when it comes to travelling,” says company co-founder Jeff Yeo.

The company was founded in Australia in 2018, where it currently has more than 160 tiny houses available for rent. Arriving in New Zealand last year, Tiny Away now offers dwellings for rental from Northland and the Waikato to Canterbury and Otago.

Greg Rathbun and Tann Duangprasit operate a mushroom farm and avocado orchard, near Whangarei in Northland. The couple were the first in New Zealand to have a Tiny Away dwelling on their land, and have hosted Maungatapere Magic since early 2022.

Rathbun says the house was delivered to the site with everything packed inside, making the set-up very easy. “The beds, the sheets, plates, mugs, the outdoor tables – everything was delivered packed in boxes. Getting in and unpacking it all was just like Christmas!”

The dwellings are designed in Singapore by the sister company, Big Tiny and built in Australia and New Zealand. The company says the houses are made using sustainable materials with key eco-friendly features including waterless compost toilets, rainwater collections tanks for showers, and solar panels. The modular building model also provides opportunities to reduce construction waste.

Where the houses are located on working farms, hosts have the option of offering tours and other activities, giving visitors a glimpse into parts of rural life not provided by urban-based accommodation. Rathbun and Duangprasit offer mushroom farm and avocado orchard tours where travellers are interested. Guests can also buy avocados or gourmet mushrooms direct from the farm.

Rathbun says bookings were quiet over the winter months, but the tiny house was booked out for most of December and January. Overall, he says, it’s a very low-impact way to have an extra income stream.

In the Catlins, at the other end of New Zealand, in the southeastern corner of the South Island, Gordon and Janine Thompson are hosts of the Pekapeka Tiny House.

Committed conservationists, the couple have been replanting their ten-acre lifestyle property Earthlore since 2006 with rare and endangered natives. Their vision is to make it a wildlife haven to educate and inspire greater care for the environment.

Gordon says when he and Janine bought the property they’d see a few tūī, and bellbirds in the winter, but they never stayed. Now they have six breeding pairs of tūī, four of kererū and more bellbirds than they can count.

The Thompsons already offer a variety of tours and activities, and adding the Tiny Away dwelling means travellers who stay can enjoy the property’s rich bird life and other attractions, as well as making the most of the activities available.

During the popular Bat Walk guests visit a Catlins Bat Project survey area where bats are known to fly over at dusk, allowing a chance to hear and maybe even see the incredible – and critically endangered – little pekapeka.

On the Nature at Night Tour, small groups experience the sights and sounds of the nighttime bush, potentially seeing the long-tailed bats, and visiting a railway track with a colony of luminescent glow-worms stretching for about 250 metres along both sides.

Gordon says the low impact and sustainability features of the Tiny Away houses appealed to both him and Janine, as well as the company’s ethos of getting people back out into and reconnecting with nature. “Because that’s what we’re about too.”