Holidaymakers have been told to plan for delays as a huge number of roadworks are set to be carried out over the coming months.
Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency said it's the largest summer works programme ever, with 10% of state highways being repaired.
There will be roadworks at 3711 sites around the country, with 2027km of road being resealed.
Waka Kotahi's Mark Owen said motorists will need to be patient.
"We don't want people panicking about delays," he said.
"They just need to factor in extra time for their travel knowing that they are quite likely to come across roadworks in some areas."
It comes after growing criticism about the state of our roads with many reporting an increasing number of issues, like potholes.
"We've had an exceptionally wet winter as I'm sure everyone is aware and we have had some damage to our roading," Owen said.
"We've got a significant amount of summer roadworks to do."
Fulton Hogan's Nick Webby said it will be a particularly busy time for his staff and asked for some kindness towards them.
"We cop a fair bit of abuse and it definitely makes the day drag on a bit," he said.
"It's just unwarranted."
Webby said there will be "heaps of signs and cones, as much as everyone hates them".
"But they are there for a reason, obviously, to protect our workers and keep everyone safe."
But some say there's still not enough being done.
Road safety campaigner Geoff Upson said the summer's work won't fix all the issues and many of them should have been sorted sooner.
"The roads have become a little bit unsafe to drive on," Upson said. "We've got bumps, jumps, dips. Big cracks in the road."
He blames it on an underinvestment in road maintenance.
"What we've seen the government do over the last few years is they've been winding back road maintenance funding. So they've been taking the road maintenance funding and they've been putting it in other places."
Waka Kotahi said state highway repairs decreased for a while in the middle of the last decade as a result of insufficient funding.
The transport agency said it's still playing catch up.
SHARE ME