Ideas for Managing
New Zealand has the most spectacular places in which to live and visit. However, it is also often protected by sandflies. To avoid visiting sandfly areas, would be to miss the best of NZ. You can go everywhere!
When you know a few sandfly and mosquito tips & tricks, you’ll be more likely to feel like you are managing the bugs, instead of being driven by them. Our Questions & Answers page also has quite alot of summarized information.
Dress for the Part
The single best thing you can do for managing sandflies & mosquitoes is to dress well for the occasion. A light-coloured long sleeve merino top would be our choice for comfort, weather, sun and bug protection. A hat with a good brim provides protection for your face.
Sandflies are more attracted to dark/warm colours and standing next to a person in a black fleece jersey will provide instant relief to you! Sandflies tend congregate lower rather than higher. So if you cover up your feet and ankles and stand up you’ll be less hassled. You can also provide your own sandfly attraction by wearing dark trousers & a light coloured top.
Cover up When you Stop
No matter how nice a bug repellent is, it’s much more efficient to keep most of you covered, so you can just pay attention to looking after your face and hands.
What if you do not want to be covered up with long legs and long sleeves? Ok, that’s fair enough. You might just have to keep moving more. Or bring a shirt and something to lay over your legs (like a sarong) so that when you do want to stop to eat or enjoy the view, you can.
Bites
Many people find that they get more bites the first time they visit sandfly & mosquito areas. After that most people get more motivated to figure out how to not let that happen again. If you already have bites, check out our bites page for ideas of making recovery as easy as possible.