Ski resort purchase

Auckland-based entrepreneur Nick Wood has bought the Teton Pass Ski Resort, west of Choteau, Montana for just under $41, and will spend a further $4 million upgrading the area…

Following Frodo

Fiordland’s Routeburn track may attract significantly fewer visitors to it than the Milford Sounds, but the “majestic, snowcapped peaks in every direction, along with waterfalls and hidden tarns” are…

Tourists keep coming

Statistics New Zealand has released figures which show the number of overseas visitors arriving in New Zealand for short term stays has topped 2.5 million for the first time…

Dream team celebrated

The New Zealand Olympic Committee has decided to pay tribute to the world’s most famous mountaineering duo by naming the country’s Commonwealth Games logo “2928 Hillary and Tenzing”. The…

Te Kano released

On New Zealand’s National Pavilion Day at the World Expo 21 in Shanghai a 1-meter long, three-meter wide canoe made of 35-year-old kauri was gifted to China. At the…

Where the locals go

“Sometimes in New Zealand the differences between us and them become much greater than a few murky vowel sounds and divided rugby and cricket loyalties,” The Australian’s Nicole Jeffery…

One Great Ride

The first legs of the 3km New Zealand Cycle Trail have been opened between Ruapehu and Whanganui. This 242km section of the trail will take four to six days…

Peak Design

En-route to Mount Aoraki, India’s Economic Times’ reporter Bidisha Bagchi stops off at Lake Pukaki and, “after admiring the majestic blue of the lake that came from the rock…

Wwow What a Wwoof

From their wwoofing holiday in Northland, Californian couple Jacob and Kendall Madden describe their time spent working on five organic farms in the region in a guide about what…

Peace reigns supreme

New Zealand has been named the most peaceful nation for the second year running in the fourth annual Global Peace Index (GPI). Compiled by global think tank Institute for…

Anything but the Bungy

Lyttelton-based Joe Bennett, author of Hello Dubai: Skiing, Sand and Shopping in the World’s Weirdest City, tells the Telegraph why Queenstown is his kind of town. “It’s the main…

Wacky Winter Stunts

Queenstown’s Winter Festival hits the southern town for the 35th year this June with an estimated 6, revellers expected to attend the week-long festivities. While there are big-ticket items…

Day tripping

Oft considered more English than England, Christchurch, New Zealand’s oldest city offers a preferable moderate climate, fresh contemporary Antipodean cuisine and a host of outdoor activities in and about…

Great Barrier secrets

Escaping the New Zealand mainland, The Sydney Morning Herald’s Rob McFarland takes a four-hour boat trip to Great Barrier Island and “a ruggedly beautiful wilderness”. “The Barrier, as it’s…

Harmony and Fury

The BBC’s Sydney correspondent Nick Bryant “reflects on New Zealand’s mix of controlled fury, subtle charm and social harmony, and asks why the rest of the world can’t be…

Feast Your Eyes on This

“Rest, relaxation and rugby. What more could you want?” asks the Telegraph in an article written in the build up to the Rugby World Cup 211. When it comes…

Most beautiful of all

Fiordland’s Routeburn and Greenstone Tracks, combined at 7km and both within the World Heritage-listed area of Te Wahipounamu in south-west New Zealand, make for “what might be the most…

Fame becomes them

Tickets for The Flight of the Conchords’ two May shows at Dublin’s Olympia Theatre sold out in a record 12 seconds. “It’s all just weird,” Bret McKenzie says. But…

Island Paradise

Waiheke Island’s Mudbrick Vineyard & Restaurant is recommended by the Wall Street Journal in an article about worldwide wine tours. Waiheke Island features alongside the Barossa Valley, Australia; Western…

Collaborative honour

Director, Peter Jackson, has been knighted by Governor-General, Sir Anand Satyanand, at an investiture ceremony in Wellington. Jackson’s knighthood was for services to the arts in New Zealand. “The…

Especially select

New Zealanders have a love of coffee, wine, water and an extraordinary, “relentless” particularity for those beverages, for dogs, sport, even driveways and beech trees, writes Peter Miller for…

Rite of passage

“Having a towering, tattooed man press his nose against mine has to be one of the more unusual and enjoyable greetings I have experienced,” describes Victoria Mitchell for Scottish…

Best Northern Beaches

The North Island’s top beaches are named by The Sydney Morning Herald’s Bruce Elder, who writes that those suggested are so good that no trip to New Zealand would…

Gandalf’s Return

The Hobbit, produced by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, will begin filming in New Zealand in July with Sir Ian McKellen once again taking the role of Gandalf the…

Adrift on Lush Rakiura

“It’s from the air that Stewart Island reveals itself,” describes The Independent’s Ben Ross on a trip to Rakiura, or ‘Glowing Skies’. “All but one-sixth of the land is…

Taste for Trout

New Zealand’s trophy trout fishing is popular with anglers from all over the world who travel to the North Island for lake fishing and to the South Island for…

Sculptured Meaning

At Timaru’s Phar Lap Raceway, a bronze statue of the famed Big Red and his regular jockey, Jim Pike takes pride of place. Today, the South Island city is…

Perfect with Pimms

Worchester Street in Christchurch is the feature promenade in The Age’s ‘Street Smart’ travel section. Christchurch is a walking city and Worcester Street one of its loveliest promenades. Stretching…

Barrier Time

“You won’t find street lights, an ATM or a bank on the Barrier,” a local tells Los Angeles Times reporter Rosemary Macclure. “But we do have two stop signs.”…

Luxury Lodge World’s Best

Rotorua’s luxury Lake Okareka Lodge has been voted the world’s best luxury country lodge at the Luxury Hotel Awards held in Thailand. The five-year-old lodge has three double bedrooms,…

Perfectly Picturesque

New Zealand’s “countryside is stunning (no wonder The Lord of the Rings was filmed there); the people are charming — like happy Britons; and the food and drink can…

Defining Experience

“The New Zealand lodge is almost a travel genre in its own right; and, like the safari lodge, the ranch and the spa resort, it comes with a set…

Picking Up the Protocol

“New Zealand may be best known for adventure tourism including sky diving, bungee jumping, gliding and ‘Zorbing’ ó rolling downhill in a 10-foot-tall inflatable sphere cushioned with water.” Yet…

Slink Into Style

The Wairarapa’s Wharekauhau Lodge & Country Estate is one of five “sexy and stylish retreats” recommended by the Observer’s Mr and Mrs Smith who travel throughout New Zealand and…

Ski Season Success

New Zealand’s 2009 winter ski season was the best it has ever been with 1.5 million sets of skis and snowboards hitting the slopes, including over 100,000 skiers from…

All the Way South

Online reality show The Gap Year: Challenge New Zealand began in November and follows the adventures of five British travellers battling it out over four weeks to make it…

If it Ain’t Broken

New Zealand has been named by travel gurus The Lonely Planet as one of the ten top countries to visit in 2010. The travel bible named New Zealand on…

Luxury on Tap

New Zealanders – the Telegraph’s Lisa Grainger and her partner came to learn on a recent trip – “are masters of the understatement”. “They’re dry. Quietly confident. Down to…

Tourist Bucket List

The six best things to do in New Zealand are, according to The Observer: attending Gisborne’s Rhythm and Vines Festival for New Year’s Eve; walking the four-day Hillary Trail;…

Symbol of Renewal

“If you believe clouds have silver linings, Napier’s is surely rimmed with neon and chrome, the shiny new materials of the art-deco age,” describes the The Observer’s Nigel Tisdall….

Jurassic Park Tramps

“One of the best and most economical ways to see New Zealand is to tramp your way through it,” suggests Canadian  freelance writer Vawn Himmelsbach, whose favourite tramps include:…

In Hot Water

Despite New Zealand’s growing prosperity, the country’s natural beauty has been preserved says Hindustan Times travel writer Vir Sanghvi, who describes his seven-day adventure from Rotorua, by chopper to…

Streak Down South

Dunedin is promoting itself as New Zealand’s quirkiest city in a bid to encourage more visitors to the southern centre. The wackier tourist activities include the June staging of…

Travellers’ Top Spots

New Zealand took second place after Italy in a Condé Nast Traveler readers’ poll for best destination in the world. Each country was given a mark out of 100,…

Feast for the Eyes

“If it’s culture you’re after, make a beeline for the North Island,” writes the Examiner’s Molly McCahan, suggesting in particular, a trip to Rotorua, “considered the centre of Maori…

Waving Mad By Camper

The first rule of campervanning around New Zealand is to wave every time you pass a fellow camper, according to the Daily Mail’s Charlotte Gill who travels in a…

Remarkable Rail

Taieri Gorge in the South Island is included in the Telegraph’s ‘All you need to know about the world’s most remarkable places in 60 seconds’. Taieri Gorge is special…

Communing with Quiet

Owner of Roxborough Farm Lloyd Watkins invites Toronto Star correspondent Adrien Veczan to spend a weekend on his 210ha property in Tirau. Veczan writes: “The feeling of being in…

Perfection on the Peak

Coronet Peak is an international training hub for the US Ski Team, Swedish, Swiss and Canadian Alpine Ski Teams as they train for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver….

Deco Pride

Napier’s annual Art Deco weekend celebrates the most complete Art Deco city on earth, writes Times Online travel writer Dan Cruickshank, where even street furniture and signage consistent with…

Out of Town Delights

Waiheke Island, Martinborough and North Canterbury’s Waipara Valley, each a short drive from a main centre, are all worth exploring for “epicurious travellers” from across the Tasman. Residents of…

For the Big Spenders

A St Mary’s Bay, Auckland home, on the books at Boulgaris/Maguire Properties, is advertised in The New York Times’ international real estate section, which also provides an overview of…

Flirtatious Fins

Kaikoura’s Dolphin Encounter marketing manager Jo Thompson says the acrobatic and sociable dusky dolphin is the “big tart of the dolphin world” and “unique for travelling in pods of…

Top Lodge Spots

The Lodge at Kauri Cliffs has been voted No. 1 Lodge/Resort in Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific in the 2009 Travel + Leisure World’s Best Awards readers’…

Mobile Bach Adventure

A Christchurch Classic Camper Volkswagen Vanagon is rented by Los Angeles Times’ reporter Mary Engel and her  husband who says the rented vehicle makes for an “experience still more…

If Trees Could Talk

Much movie magic is created “in and around Wellington, the San Francisco-like capital city situated at the southwest tip of North Island” writes Boston Globe correspondent Ethan Gilsdorf. “In…