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 protected by national park statues,…
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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 sight fishing, and for often…
Relaxed and Recumbent
Creator of Rotorua’s human-powered monorail, the Schweeb, Geoffrey Barnett, “combined a laid-back, recumbent bicycle with monorail technology” and came up with the idea while living in Tokyo. Barnett worked on the design for six…
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 making full use of the…
Thinking Outside the Ball
“As I tumbled down the mountainside in a gigantic beach ball filled with water, feeling somewhat like I was in a washing machine, it occurred to me that there had to be…
Queenstown’s Quiet Side
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Sarah Maguire visits “adrenalin-central”, but goes against-the-grain with a laid-back luxurious holiday. “Being a full-time working mother puts adrenalin into the system daily, so I don’t need that…
Delightfully Relaxing
On board Russell’s new 46m-long catamaran Ipipiri, which offers overnight cruises around the Bay of Islands, The Sydney Morning Herald’s Rob McFarland learns about the town’s colourful past. “If you’d visited the…
On the anchor stone
“There’s a flock of noisy kakas on my front lawn, quarrelling over some croissants left over from breakfast,” describes The Independent’s Kathy Marks, holidaying on Stewart Island, “a place so remote that…
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 from Canterbury Museum and the…
Bent to Every Whim
“The beauty of train journeys is that you can appreciate the dominance of New Zealand’s landscape over its inhabitants,” writes The Independent’s Dan Poole post-Tranz Scenic trip down through both islands. “Over…
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.” They also have a place…
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, each with bathroom en suite,…
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 be memorable,” writes Oxford University…
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 of defining experiences,” writes Max…
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 the most enriching part of…
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 Australia looking at the best….
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 across the Tasman. New Zealand…
Welcoming business nous
New Zealand’s migration policy has been relaxed in an effort to allow potential investors and entrepreneurs to gain permanent residency. Currently the majority of Brits hoping to live permanently in New Zealand must have…
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 to the final. Model Kimberley,…
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 the basis of the adage…
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 earth, capable and can-do. And,…
With a Hiss and a Roar
When visiting Rotorua, “think Yellowstone or Lassen, but with some key differences,” describes The Sacramento Bee’s Mike Melnicoe. “For one, the mud pots, hissing vents and hot springs do not, for the most part,…
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; staying the night at Franz…
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. “For this was an earthquake…
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: the Northern Circuit & Tongariro…
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 White Island and then across…
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 the nude rugby international tournament…
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, with Italy scoring 95.55 and…
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 culture.” “Today around 35 per…
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 Kea beginning in Christchurch. “The…
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 because it features one of…
Robotic travel plans
Victoria University associate professor and tourism futurologist Dr Ian Yeoman predicts self-cleaning hotel rooms, sleep deprivation tablets to fight off sightseeing fatigue, robot prostitution and hotel rooms so clever they’ll be able to detect moods and change…
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 the middle of nowhere can…
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. Of course, the New Zealand…
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 the style have become policy…
Futuristic Foot Power
New Zealand-invented pedal powered monorail shweeb opened in 2007 at Rotorua’s Agroventures Adventure Park as a “direct response to the transportation needs of today and the future.” Each capsule holds a single rider. Each…
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 Auckland would doubtless prefer that…
Holiday on the Right
Driving a camper van in New Zealand is “disconcerting… through a right-hand-drive country” but the “best part of driving the was the door it opened for conversation with waitresses, shop clerks and fellow…
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 Auckland’s current property market. Foreign…
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 up to 1000.” The Sydney…
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’ survey, with The Farm at…
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 up-close and personal”. No taller…
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 the city limits and within…
Face to Face on the South’s Slopes
Western Australia Today has pit two of New Zealand’s banner ski resorts against each other to see whether Wanaka or Queenstown really has it all. Combing through the views, nightlife, food, accommodations, and skiing,…
Everyman’s House
Artist Dick Frizzell’s Haumoana home ‘Faraway’ – “a sky blue, maritime-themed house that is surrounded by an olive grove, an orchard and a flower and vegetable garden” – features in the real estate section…
Pakiri Paradise
Horse-riding on a secluded North Island beach is one of the activities included in the series and accompanying BBC book Unforgettable Things To Do Before You Die; examiner.com reporter Jenna Voigt decides to complete…
Creators and Destroyers
The history and breathtaking landscape of New Zealand’s first national park, Tongariro (which dominates the middle of the North Island) is subject to an in-depth analysis by travel writer Mel White and photographer Stuart…
Little Island Paradise
Waiheke Island, in the North Island’s Hauraki Gulf has placed 6th in the 2009 list of the ‘World’s Best Islands to Live On’ by Islands magazine, and is praised in particular for being emigration-friendly…
Icy Kicks
Queenstown’s annual week-long Winter Festival saw mountain bikers tear down Coronet Peak’s slopes, near-naked bird people leap into a freezing Lake Wakatipu and cross-dressing men in heels sprint toward victory in a drag race….
Holiday With Gradient
At 2797m, Mt Ruapehu is the North Island’s highest peak with the largest area of patrolled skifield in the country on the Whakapapa side, and on the Turoa, Australasia’s longest vertical rise of 722m….
Western Scenes
The West Coast’s Bruce Bay is “windswept, isolated and utterly beautiful” where travellers “have left their mark on the beachfront with small cairns of smooth rocks carefully balanced on boulders which line the shore,”…
Near Perfect North
The Bay of Islands “is not only South Pacific-beautiful, it has been an important crucible for New Zealand’s human history”. That history begins with arrival from the north in sea canoes of the fierce,…
Winter Bar-Hopping
Queenstown’s “bar scene can match any city for quantity, variety and quality and the disarming sincerity of this cold town’s warm heart is impossible to resist,” writes West Australia Today’s Amy Cooper on a…
High Above the Bay
Bay of Islands luxury self-contained accommodation Cloud9 is reviewed by the International Business Times which describes the $1700 per night hilltop house as about “as close to heaven as you can get.” “This place…
Serene Spar
“If New Zealand were a boxer, it would be a contender for best pound-for-pound puncher on the planet,” according to canada.com. The North American news site describes “New Zealand one of those countries…
Wellington for Women
Wellington’s “glam beer hall” Mighty Mighty, “funky little” BATS Theatre and the “legendary” Slow Boat Records are included in a suggested itinerary for “ladies of the world” in the June/July issue of American popular…
