Still the Place to Be

NZ has proven its staying power as a must-see for British tourists by winning both the Dream Destination prize at the 2006 British Travel Awards and the favourite long-haul country category in the annual Guardian Travel Awards. The Guardian special kicks off with a lengthy feature on the North Island, focussing on Waiheke Island (“white sand beaches, glittering bays”), Raglan (“Haight-Ashbury dressed in Billabong and Quiksilver”) and Great Barrier Island (“remote, controlled, clean, green, simple and pop star-free”). The writer is particularly taken with Waiheke: “Here, town and country appetites could be sated in one day. My family and I could pursue a life of convenient, à la carte isolationism … If we wanted, we could be fashionable, socially mobile metropolitans and carefree beachcombers all within the same 24 hours. We could have our feet under desks during the working day and sand between our toes come the evenings.”