Taupo makes the list of top-10 alternate destinations for US students traveling abroad for their summer. Up there with Cappadocia, Kuala Lumpur, and Krakow, Taupo is recommended for its extreme outdoor sports and value for the dollar.
“In my native NZ, a rain-free day is a small miracle, so my sodden soul soars when I feel that dry heat and behold those azure skies.” Desert-worshipping Kiwi Amanda Jones chronicles her Chilean adventure…
Lynn Barber leaves the trains at home and follows the postcard route through godzone, finds it to be “truly paradise” but also close to 100% boring. “To appreciate NZ you need to be all the things…
Ironically for Lynn, NZ was once again voted “Best Long Haul Country” over Australia, Cuba, Japan, Thailand et al by Guardian and Observer readers – they must have got off the bus and visited at…
Independent editor at large Janet Street Porter finds she can’t get close enough: “No wonder I’ve been back to New Zealand three times in three years. Sod the 20-something hours in the plane; the end result…
“The grandeur of this place is so extreme it makes you want to dive right into the heart of it”, Aotearoa-NZ is May cover country of one of the world’s most prestigious travel magazines, National Geographic…
Biographer David Gilmour finds chronicler of British imperialism Rudyard Kipling has an affinity for the edges, “his favourite landscapes were in adverse angles of the Pacific (New Zealand and British Columbia) and in opposite corners of the…
Featured in the April edition of Fortune magazine’s ‘boondoggle’ section: Wall Street billionaire Julian Robertson has built Kauri Cliffs, a “remote, lush getaway on more than 5,000 acres at the northern tip of New Zealand.” “Three private…
Following in the tradition of cine-tourism success prompted by such films as A Passage to India, Out of Africa, and Crocodile Dundee, New Zealand is enjoying its busiest ever summer tourism season, due in part…
A British lecturer has been funded to back-pack around NZ in the name of academic enquiry as the twentysomething MTV generation hit the road with wanderlust in their eyes: “Research done so far suggests that backpacking is…
Ellie’s provocations do not go unanswered with fans and citizens coming to the defence of the land and people. NZ enthusiast Marianne Curphey: “What makes this country different is that it doesn’t regard wildness as something…
Guardian Netjetter Ellie finds Godzone = dullzone, writing that you may need a thesaurus to do New Zealand’s beauty justice, but unfortunately that doesn’t make the country any more interesting: “One of the most frequently heard compliments…
Hauling a caravan behind a vintage Valiant, the Adventure Divas crew do New Zealand. Along the way they shoot pool with young film-maker Sima Urale, chill in Wellington with documentarian Gaylene Preston, are welcomed into the…
Next stop Queenstown – “an adrenalin-fuelled, hyperactive, big scream of a town where tourists go for one of two reasons: either to jump from a plane, mountain or bridge, or to watch others do…
SMH’s Kendall Hill goes Campervanning in NZ. She jokes that she was looking forward to a “wucked trip” but, “the pursuit of puns and funny thungs gave way to the pure enjoyment of exploring this remarkable…
Ellie finds down under dialect quirks and more: “At the Polynesian Spa I soaked in the thermal pools overlooking Lake Rotorua…I don’t know whether it was the ylang ylang, the lavender, the sandalwood or…
Good life here and now: Auckland is ranked above Munich, Melbourne, Stockholm and Toronto to win sixth place for overall quality of life in a William M. Mercer survey of 215 cities, topped by Zurich in…
The Southern Alps. The Tongariro volcanoes. The Fiordland rain forest. “There is something archetypal about the scenery here, as though someone copied the planet’s most distinctive landscapes and jammed them all on two islands….New Zealand is the…
US tour New Zealand “via its breweries, pubs and hard-case taverns”, finding barmaids who “pour the purge with a scowl that could compete with the hog trophies on the walls”, and brewers who freely offer insight into…
“Despite the global downturn New Zealand still welcomed a record number of international visitors for the 2010 1,909,391 people visited, a 6.9 percent increase from the previous year”.
“Thanks to a bunch of elves, orcs and hobbits”, New Zealand is “one of this year’s most fashionable tourist destinations”. Experts believe the trilogy will boost NZ’s tourist industry by a third. On the edge we’ve always…
The Times lists New Zealand a hot destination, due to scenery witnessed in Lord of the Rings. United Kingdom travel companies report 20 per cent increases in travel bookings since the film’s release. .
Condé Nast Traveller recently rated Aotearoa the world’s safest destination and the Government wants to make sure the haven remains safe, committing increased resources to help fight terrorism.
“Director Peter Jackson knew something Hollywood did not. He knew that his home country was more than a match for the imaginative breadth of Tolkien’s vision. The Lord of the Rings blows the secret – there is…
Tourists can now make in-depth explorations of New Zealand’s Milford Sound aboard a four-passenger sub, descending 330 feet underwater.
NBC editor-at-large pontificates on Marlborough: “what a place I found! It was a delicious way to finish four days of active travel in the near-anonymous adventure axis of the Pacific. It seemed a place beyond…
In a survey of travelers carried out by Condé Nast, New Zealand scores the highest for safety, with a reassuring 94.69. It is also voted the ninth most popular destination, beating out traditional favourites like Greece,…
“… Come aboard … we’re expecting you”. NZ makes the Top Ten Winter Cruise destination listing in November’s Condé Nast Traveller.
“Wow,” exclaims an article written by an American tourist holidaying in Auckland and the Bay of Islands. Americans are catching onto the favourable exchange rate and the relative equality of prices, making NZ “an adventure playground…
“New Zealand … is a gorgeous place. It’s pristine and green, people are friendly, and it’s well organised for visitors …” South Africa’s Independent takes an edge challenge and tries to review NZ without mentioning “hot-air ballooning,…
Allergic to mold? Your best holiday destination is “a snow-capped New Zealand mountain above the Pacific” where the elevation, snow, and ocean breezes kill dust mites and mold.
Survivor 2: The Australian Outback has tourism spin-offs for New Zealand in South Nevada.
New Zealand Beaches: solitude, expanse, beauty. The best. “At the back of the beach was a huge whale vertebra, bleached and scoured by the surf. I took a break on a huge log facing the sun,…
Beautiful scenery and dare-devil flying over “a serene sea-loch towered over by glossy, beech-clad pyramidal peaks”.
“There was a moment halfway up the Coromandel Peninsula, only a couple of hours out of Auckland, when I felt that this was as good as it gets. But there was plenty of competition for that…
Caver Dominic Casciani admires the beauty below the surface: “In New Zealand I have splashed through cave water, prompting microscopic glowing to light up the cave ceiling like a second zodiac”.
“I fell madly in love with Sydney and I thought, ‘I don’t have to live in America!’ My wife was already in love with Melbourne. Then we visited Auckland and it became our compromise. It’s the…
Gardening is sexy and the green-groupies flock to Christchurch, New Zealand’s Garden City.
Ben Powell, STA student travel writer of the year, visits New Zealand as his prize. He samples the delights of Rotorua: the small, the spectacle and the zorb.
The Independent takes a tour through the capital’s cultural collage: fusion cooking, Te Papa, cafes, Mansfield, transexual MPs, colonial history and Pacific awakenings, and finds in the cosmopolitan brew that “It is hard to know which flavour…
Is Wellington wonderful or should you skip the capital for the joys of the deep south?
What’s good about Greymouth? It’s close to captivating glaciers and the bottle shop sells fill-you-own beer, sherry and port.
Tramp through virgin forest then peruse the wine list in the spa before a gourmet dinner on the Queen Charlotte Walkway.
Touring Canadian Chris Atchison notes Rotorua’s characteristic odour, but finds “the sheer wonder of the natural show makes the stench a bit easier to tolerate”.
Get April’s GQ off the stand for Stewart Island savvy: “Stewart Island, on the Southern edge of life, where the foam is white, the hills are green and the necks are red, is a blast” and…
Lunch breaks are best – eating at your desk makes the office “sound like the boiling muds of New Zealand”.
Two of the Guardian’s globe-trotting “Netjetters” are lassoed by Aotearoa’s lures and both have trouble getting back on the plane. Sue jetboats in Queenstown, visits her first rodeo and is “very sorry to leave” and Milly finds…
And, “Auckland has a buzz of its own, with enviable dance music, fashion and restaurant scenes and the largest Polynesian and Maori populations in the South Pacific.”
Old-world charm is losing out to “far-flung destinations favoured by the elite such as game lodges in South Africa, Caribbean idylls, palatial hotels in India and New Zealand lodges.
Funky Wellington’s natural glories make the city “a superior urban roost with a view, a mini-San Francisco”.
The City of Sails is still high on the America’s Cup – and not showing any signs of slowing down before the next one.
Come to New Zealand, one American’s all-huntin’, no (school) shootin’ right-wing paradise.
The Milford Track is one of the world’s top ten walks – up there with Kilimanjaro, Tanzania and Snow Lake, Pakistan.
New Zealand’s rise in popularity with Indian tourists has two sources: massive exposure as background in Bollywood films and exclusivity: New Zealand has “high brag value” once you’re back home.
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