We spent three nights and two days in Rotorua, on New Zealand’s North Island. In some ways, it’s the North Island’s answer to Queenstown; an attractive town on a beautiful lake with outdoor thrill attractions and plenty for tourists to
Napier is a city on the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island. It’s the nexus of the largest wool center in the Southern Hemisphere, and the primary export seaport for northeastern New Zealand. It’s located in the center of
After covering a fair amount of New Zealand’s South Island, we flew from Christchurch to Wellington to explore the North Island. Wellington, at the southern tip of the North Island, is officially the windiest city in the world, with an
We wrapped up our tour of New Zealand’s South Island with a brief stay in Christchurch. Christchurch is probably best known, unfortunately, for the damage it suffered during earthquakes on September 4, 2010, and February 21, 2011, the latter of
Oamaru (pronounced ŌM-a-RU, not ō-MAR-u as we had initially guessed) is a town of 14,300 on the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island, between Dunedin and Christchurch. A century and a half ago, it was a rapidly growing, bustling
After Queenstown, we took a bus ride across the picturesque Otago region to Dunedin, a city on the Pacific (eastern) coast of New Zealand’s South Island. We stopped in Dunedin for a day during our New Zealand-to-Australia cruise in 2013,
From Auckland, we flew to Queenstown, a resort town in the heart of the “Southern Alps” on New Zealand’s South Island. It was touristy, to be sure. It would probably be a quiet, sleepy town if it weren’t for tourism.
During our visit to Queenstown, New Zealand, we took a bus tour to Milford Sound. The ride to and from Milford Sound was nearly as spectacular as the sound itself. Technically, it’s not a sound, it’s a fiord. (Fiord is
Our first stop in New Zealand was Auckland, home to 1/3 of the country’s population. We visited Auckland once before in 2013, at the start of a cruise from New Zealand to Australia. So we’ve already seen some of the
In February 2026, we visited Honolulu, Hawaii, for three nights enroute to New Zealand. The stopover provided a welcome way to break up the long flight from the US to New Zealand. Our visit was disappointing in some regards, but
