Green Tours
Gardening is sexy and the green-groupies flock to Christchurch, New Zealand’s Garden City.
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Smell of Success
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.
Fusion Capital
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…
Wellington or Dunedin?
Is Wellington wonderful or should you skip the capital for the joys of the deep south?
Travel Happy
What’s good about Greymouth? It’s close to captivating glaciers and the bottle shop sells fill-you-own beer, sherry and port.
Queen of Tramps
Tramp through virgin forest then peruse the wine list in the spa before a gourmet dinner on the Queen Charlotte Walkway.
What the Hell is That Smell?
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”.
Netjetters in 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…
Southern Edge of Life
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…
Take a Break
Lunch breaks are best – eating at your desk makes the office “sound like the boiling muds of New Zealand”.
Cisco of the South
Funky Wellington’s natural glories make the city “a superior urban roost with a view, a mini-San Francisco”.
Buzz of It’s Own
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.”
Hot Lodge!
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.
Cup Buzz
The City of Sails is still high on the America’s Cup – and not showing any signs of slowing down before the next one.
Right on NZ
Come to New Zealand, one American’s all-huntin’, no (school) shootin’ right-wing paradise.
Trek Milford
The Milford Track is one of the world’s top ten walks – up there with Kilimanjaro, Tanzania and Snow Lake, Pakistan.
High Brag Value
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.
Travel Gets Edgy
Being on the edge means being “enroute to nowhere,” but good cocktails in hot bars, great views from hot baths, wine, alps, adrenaline and Auckland’s revolving restaurant “make this one you must go to sometime”. Also,
Everybody on Board
“Kiwi Experience, a hop-on-hop-off backpacker bus service that was created in New Zealand in 1998 proved such a successful concept that it became a blueprint for imitators around the world.”
Flying Feeling
Air New Zealand is highest-ranked Holiday Which? airline, beating out Britain’s “no-thrills” EasyJet.
Fleet of Foot
Ex-New Zealand detective Cheryl Fleet now runs international tours catering to women on journeys of adventure and renewal.
Living Well
Buzzy Auckland hits the big time, ranked 7th best-living city world-wide. Wellington also cruised high, beating London, Paris and New York at 23rd equal.
Travel Bug
Travel is at the top of the spending list for young UK professionals. Exotic New Zealand is among the choicest destinations on offer.
Capital Style
“Deregulation and the cosmopolitan tastes of a new generation of globe trotting Kiwis have transformed Wellington from a gray town for civil servants into a cultural haven with a thriving cafe scene, a budding movie industry, a…
Wharekauhau Station Seduces
“Included in the rectangular picture window vista is a real sea, Palliser Bay, below the cliffs where the sheep paddocks end, and edged by chalk palisades off to the left.”
Trans-oceanic Phone Tag
“After a morning spent hiking in New Zealand’s spectacular Rotorua region – a volcanic area of geysers, thermal pools and surreal landscapes – my tour guide, Jacqui, heard the chirping of her cell phone. Then, with…
Take Your Kit
Tourism New Zealand has a handy pack for travelling Kiwis, useful for defecting question about the number of sheep at home or the name of that atom-splitting guy…
First Wedding
Julie and Sean Humphrey “found out how beautiful New Zealand was and just decided to do something a little different” – traveling from Ohio to Christchurch for the first wedding of the (real) millennium.
Life in a Te Kuiti Villa…
Hints for a best-seller: New Zealand that “far-off place where property is cheap and the good life is to be had on a modest income,” would be ideal for Year in Provence-style escapism.
Unblemished
“We did not spot a single blemish in New Zealand, where it’s hard to tell where the pristine national parks end and the rest of the country begins….We discovered why New Zealand’s Milford Track, with its…
Bungy-free Zone
“They’re funny things, kiwis – like big hedgehogs with bird bits sticking out, and they snuffle around with their heads to the ground.” An anxious Brit birdwatches as an adrenaline-free alternative to “catapulting about the place”.
Professional Holiday
New Zealand is a top destination for young professionals seeking “cultural interest” and somewhere they’ve never been before.
Netjetters to NZ
New Zealand features on the itinerary for the winners of the Guardian‘s netjetters competition.
Turbulent Fiordland
“Fiordland has been twisted, buckled, and tilted. It has been buried beneath ocean sediments for millions of years, then thrust above the waves for wind, sun, and ice to carve and erode. It has been fragmented…
Thar’ She Blows!
The Kaikoura whale-boom is part of one of the world’s fastest-growing tourism opportunities, worth over US $1billion world-wide.
Milford Magic
“Awesome!” screams Eric Forseter, 23. “The sheer power of being under a natural phenomenon like that is unbelievable.” Milford Sound, “a virtual catalogue of natural wonders of the Southern Hemisphere,” awes and exhilarates visitors.
Global Peddlers
250 bike-riding globe-circumnavigators are on their way to New Zealand as part of Odyssey 2000, an official Millennium event.
Magical Mystery Tour
Bus till you bust with Magic Travellers Network, winners of “Best Scheduled Transport” in the 2000 NZ Tourism Awards.
Edge of a Lonely Planet
“New Zealand values its independence and is not afraid to take on the world,” states the latest Lonely Planet, labelling New Zealand the place for adventure, coffee and wide open spaces.
LA Love
The LA Times runs a triumvirate of New Zealand travel features: Compact New Zealand, Wellington and comment from Fabio, King of Hearts: “They have the most amazing lakes. They’re huge and as deep as the mountains are high”.
A Long Way to Deliver a Letter
Jules Brown from The Observer takes a scenic trip up the stunning Whanganui river on some rather usual transport – a mail bus.
Thigh-deep in Flyfishing
What does New Zealand have in common with Argentina, Russia and Alaska? No, not an “a” in the name – they’re all “flyfishing glamour spots”. Thomas McGuane chronicles his time standing thigh-deep in glamorous rivers in his new…
Air NZ Freshener
Air New Zealand is helping the in-transit global citizen feel more at home by offering amenity kits to make passengers feel fresh as a daisy when they debark. First Class flyers get aromatherapy kits to combat…
Gaping Gandalf
In the The Grey Book, acclaimed actor Sir Ian McKellen’s diary of the Lord of the Rings film shoot, McKellen raves about the scenery: “New Zealand would amaze and enrapture anyone who responds to the wild landscapes of…
Just Add Soap and Hey Presto: 20m Geyser!
In the notes and queries section of the Guardian a reader enquires about the practice of putting soap down geyser spouts to stimulate eruption. Leo Pyle elaborates on the science of the practice by refering to…
Edge Exposure
Fiona McCann might have frozen as she hitchhiked around the South Island, but she was comforted by the warmth of Kiwi hospitality in “the thrill inducing, stomach curdling adventure capital of the world”. On the soft side…
On Taupo Pond
Sucking the marrow out life isn’t quite as easy as it seems: “I once sat for a whole day fishing on New Zealand’s Lake Taupo, enjoying the sunshine and the superlative smoked salmon … pretending to…
The Panthenon, the Pyramids, Eiffel Tower … Christchurch?
In a Chicago Tribune survey of readers’ favourite man-made destinations, Christchurch came in tied for 14th as the place most readers would like to travel to, ahead of the Taj Mahal, Leaning Tower of Pisa and Disney…
Cut Along and Make It Your Own Way: Magnificent Cycling on the Road
The South China Morning Post’s took the North to South bicycle route through through the magnificent volcanic landscapes, tumbling glaciers and rugged coastlines of Aotearoa, and reflected back in the office: “Already I was yearning to be…
Xerox CEO Finds Copy of Heaven in Godzone
Asked to describe his most memorable trip, Dodo Cu-Unjieng, CEO of Philippine Fujitsu Xerox, answers (of course): New Zealand. “We were constantly overwhelmed by the beauty of the country. We would comment that when God…
So Far – So Good
The discerning readers of the Guardian and Observer have voted New Zealand as their favourite long-haul travel destination. “It is the Caribbean and the English countryside, Antarctica and California, Sydney and Gleneagles all rolled into one….
Scotland Looks for the Edge
Facing dwindling tourism numbers and the problem of how to overcome the bad service and the apocryphal deep-fried Mars bars, the Scotsman’s Peter Irvine is looking to the edge: “one threat to tourism in Scotland comes from…
Gung Ho Tourism
After China agreed to grant New Zealand “approved destination” status, Air China, the national carrier, will begin direct flights to Auckland, a move likely to spur further the growth of New Zealand tourism and NZ-China friendship. For…
