From the World Heritage inscription for Tongariro National Park: In 1993 Tongariro became the first property to be inscribed on the World Heritage List under the revised criteria describing cultural landscapes. The mountains at the heart of the park have cultural and religious significance for the Maori people and symbolize the spiritual links between this …
From the World Heritage inscription for Te Wahipounamu: The landscape in this park, situated in southwest New Zealand, has been shaped by successive glaciations into fjords, rocky coasts, towering cliffs, lakes, and waterfalls. Two-thirds of the park is covered with southern beech and podocarps, some of which are over 800 years old. The kea, the …
Over my years on the road, several times I have found myself circling back to the Land of the Long White Cloud (a common nickname and translation for Aotearoa, the Maori name for the country). New Zealand is a country best known to some as Middle Earth (yet another fun fact and a nickname given …
Ladies, gentlemen and Kiwis of all ages, it’s time to dust off our categorization of the Seven Wonders of World series, inspired by the New 7 Wonders contest years back, and take a close look at all that New Zealand offers! It’s no secret we find it a fascinating country (enough that we profiled it …
I was speaking to a total stranger about New Zealand recently. At a certain point in the conversation, he told me he’d never heard anybody say a bad word about the country. “Same for me,” I said. And it was true. Over the course of two separate New Zealand trips, and a total of 18 …
When an internationally recognized publication like ‘Travel + Leisure’ lists Waiheke Island as the Best Island in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific, and the fifth-best island in the world in 2018—and “Lonely Planet’s Best In Travel’ lists it as one of the ten best regions in the world in 2016—then you know for sure …
Other than some obvious things like driving on the left, I’m amazed at how easy it is for an American to fit in, in New Zealand. As I was driving around the country, I could just as easily have been in any number of US states. As I’d drive around, I’d say “this is just …
I am writing this on the Sunday Morning of the finals of the Rugby World Cup in Auckland, New Zealand. Tonight’s final match will be the New Zealand All Blacks vs Les Bleus of France. I was last in New Zealand in 2007. I spent 3 weeks driving around the country and the one thing …
This is where I’ve been living for the last two weeks. The campervan is a pretty economical way to travel in New Zealand. The van cost NZ$39 per day and was a diesel, which sold for about NZ$0.97-1.04 per liter (there was also a NZ$3 per 100 km tax I had to pay at the …