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…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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….
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…
Beats the Trail
“The Queen Charlotte Track is to the Appalachian Trail what the Ritz-Carlton is to a homeless shelter,” writes Angus Phillips for The Washington Post. Polar opposites. Phillips and a friend wanted to see the…
I Heart NZ
Three senior writers from The New Yorker have been posting rave reviews about New Zealand in blogs on the magazine’s website. Chief political commentator Hendrik Hertzberg, along with colleagues Judith Thurman, Rhonda Sherman, and…
What a German Thinks
A new book on New Zealand by German journalist Ingo Petz Kiwi Paradise takes the author to Palmerston North and the Caitlins, tells the story of a game of ping-pong with poet Sam…
Don’t Look Down
The seven kilometre route to Treble Cone can be unnerving for American travellers accustomed to ample four-lane roads leading to their favourite resort. The gravel road winding up from Wanaka to the ski-field has…
Contemporary Christchurch
New Zealand’s oldest city Christchurch is more than punting on the Avon and Octagon wizardry, and boasts plenty to do for the intrepid, including tram, Segway and Antarctica tours, a visit to Fred and…
Gold ‘Neath the Swingbridge
The Buller River, New Zealand’s longest river at 170km, is proving popular with gold panners from around the globe. “Before you get to the area where gold flakes are found you have to cross…
Beautiful or Else
“In New Zealand some things are taken very seriously and some are not. Sport is serious. Politics is not. Lifestyle is serious; religion less so,” explains Joanna Norris for Abu Dhabi’s English-language newspaper The…
Home on the Pa
Leading member of the Nga Puhi iwi Hone Mihaka is an oral historian guiding tourists about the land of his ancestors and the Ruapekapeka pa, 14km south east of Kawakawa and one of the…
Hokitika’s Wild Side
The population quadrupled this autumn in Hokitika, as food enthusiasts from around the world flocked to get a taste of the 20th Wildfoods Festival, serving up a host of obscure, adventurous, and downright daring…
Flattery Gets you Places
“Undoubtedly when God created the world He made two Edens. New Zealand is the second one,” writes Betty McCoy for Alabama newspaper The Gadsden Times, describing the country as “a pristine landscape drenched…
Next Stop: South Island
The Pangaea Expedition is making a welcome visit to the fjords of the South Island, heading straight over from a brief stop in South Africa. Eight New Zealand explorers will meet the crew of…
Tours in Make Believe
“When Florida native Michele Maro became captivated by The Lord of the Rings movies, she never imagined she would one day be walking around in the Shire, touring Hobbiton and peeking into hobbit holes,”…
On the Cheap
Rotorua hotpool Kerosene Creek, Rangitoto Island, Waitomo Caves, the Tongariro Crossing and Te Papa are the “five best freebies” on offer for tourists “with strained budgets” writes journalist Xavier La Canna who has lived…
Sirens Call from Russell
Luxury 70-acre retreat Eagles Nest, located on the Tapeka tip of the Russell peninsula, is one of Paradizo’s “emerging hotspots”, which writes that “the team behind Eagles Nest works around the clock making sure…
Tramp of all Tramps
New Zealand boasts more “swoon-worthy tramps per square mile than anywhere else in the world,” according to Backpacker magazine, and the notorious Milford Track is at the top of the list. “From Glade House…
Harbour-side Haven
Hokianga is “the perfect place to build a prototype of a new type of community to model a more visionary idea of how the world can be” writes Kimberley Paterson for The Seoul Times…
Victorian Mod-Cons
Greytown in the Wairarapa – population 2001 and New Zealand’s first planned town – is definitely worth a visit writes the WA Today’s Kate Duthie, a town not unlike Berry, on the NSW South…
French’s Heaven
It was love at first sight for comedienne Dawn French when she landed on New Zealand’s North Island, falling for a “peaceful, unspoilt and friendly” country that reminded her of Scotland, only warmer. French…
Built to Sway
21 February 2009 – “Wellington, full of steep and newly formed hills held together by grass, gorse bushes and stunted ngaio trees … shares with its better-known counterpart San Francisco an engaging characteristic: it’s…
The Greatest Crater
Lake Taupo, is “arguably the most famous crater lake on the planet”. Formed by a volcanic eruption 27,000 years ago, Taupo offers up the strange bedfellows of an almost surreal tranquility and furious geothermal…
Anchors Aweigh
The new Marsden Cove Marina is a luxurious full service port of entry, and a welcome addition to New Zealand’s Whangarei Harbour. “The area is a cruising ground to pine for,” with twenty three…
Privy to Beauty
The Northland town of Kawakawa is home to the remarkable public toilet created by Viennese-born artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who is profiled in the Jakarta Globe. The work is a gift from Hundertwasser, who was…
Pursuits of Happiness
“Beyond the wild, raw landscapes, another New Zealand beckons: one of sophisticated restaurants, silvery olive groves, and the most lush, grape-heavy vineyards this side of Bordeaux” writes Condé Nast writer Chang-rae Lee, who spent…
A Paddler’s Paradise
Abel Tasman Park on the northern coast of the South Island is a veritable kayaking nirvana, offering up pristine coastlines of granite headlands, tiny coves of golden sand, and voluptuous hills cloaked in emerald…
Above the Mountains
New Zealand’s Maori namesake, Aotearoa, is captured at sunset in digital by photographer Chris Picking in the form of a lenticular cloud swirling above the Tararua Ranges. Picking said: “The picture was taken in…
Region of the Perpendicular
The Milford Track – “what Americans call a trail” – is free of mammals and snakes, explains New York Times writer Robert Hershey, but watch out for the “large and brazen New Zealand parrot,…
World’s Best Walk
The Tongariro Northern Circuit and Heaphy Track are two of the world’s best unknown treks, an 82-mile “one-two punch that delivers the full range of Kiwi highlights in nine perfect days — and without…
