Oceania
Get a Personal Pick →New Zealand
74 destinations
Legendary Destination
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Water Abel Tasman National Park
"Golden sand bays separated by headlands of native bush, accessible only by kayak or on foot."
City Akaroa
"French street names and croissant bakeries in a volcanic harbour Britain almost lost to France."
Mountain Aoraki / Mount Cook
"New Zealand's highest peak rising from a turquoise glacial lake into permanent snow and silence."
City Arrowtown
"A gold-rush town where autumn turns every tree amber and Chinese miners' cottages still stand."
Mountain Arthur's Pass
"An alpine village where kea parrots shred car windscreens in the shadow of plunging waterfalls."
Water Bay of Islands
"A hundred and forty-four islands where dolphins thread through the waters where New Zealand's founding treaty was signed."
Water Cape Kidnappers
"Twenty thousand gannets crowd crumbling sandstone pillars above a coast Cook named for an abduction."
Water Cape Palliser
"Fishing boats launched by bulldozer into wild surf beneath a red-and-white striped lighthouse."
Water Cape Reinga
"Two oceans collide in a visible seam of foam where Māori spirits begin their final journey."
Water Castlepoint
"A lighthouse on a razor-thin reef where fossils crumble from the cliffs into the surf below."
Water Cathedral Cove
"A cathedral-sized limestone arch frames turquoise water on a coast carved across millennia."
Mountain Denniston
"A coal-mining plateau reached by an incline so steep that miners rode the coal wagons down."
Water Doubtful Sound
"Three times Milford's length and ten times the silence — a fjord reached only by boat."
City Dunedin
"A Scottish-built city with the world's steepest street where yellow-eyed penguins nest on the headland."
Water Farewell Spit
"A twenty-six-kilometre blade of sand curving into the Tasman, closed to all but guided safaris."
Mountain Franz Josef Glacier
"A glacier tongue descending into temperate rainforest — ice meeting tree ferns near sea level."
Water French Pass
"A tidal race so violent between two islands that permanent whirlpools churn year-round."
Mountain Glenorchy
"Where the road ends and a glacial lake meets trackless mountains at Fiordland's edge."
Water Hokitika Gorge
"Glacial flour turns the water an impossible turquoise — like someone poured paint into the gorge."
Wilderness Hollyford Valley
"A valley so remote a bush airstrip is the only alternative to three days on foot."
Water Hot Water Beach
"Dig knee-deep in wet sand and volcanic hot water fills the hole beneath your feet."
Water Kaikōura
"Sperm whales surface beneath snow-capped mountains in waters teeming with crayfish."
Water Kapiti Island
"Kōkako sing at dawn in a forest fortress cleared of every predator — sixty visitors daily."
Mountain Lake Marian
"A lake cradled in granite cliffs where waterfalls pour into water cold enough to stop breath."
Mountain Lake Matheson
"Tannic black water mirrors Aoraki so perfectly that reflections look more real than the peaks."
Water Lake Taupō
"A volcanic caldera filled with cobalt water, carved by an eruption that darkened Roman skies."
Water Lake Tekapo
"Purple lupins frame a stone church beneath the southern hemisphere's clearest dark skies."
Water Lake Waikaremoana
"A mist-wrapped lake so sacred that local Tūhoe people guard its forested shores as ancestral territory."
Water Marlborough Sounds
"Fifteen hundred kilometres of drowned coastline folded into bays reachable only by water."
Water Milford Sound
"Waterfalls plunge a thousand metres into a fjord so still it doubles the sky in reflection."
Mountain Milford Track
"Four days through rainforest and over a mountain pass Victorians called the world's finest walk."
Water Moeraki Boulders
"Spherical boulders the size of cars sit on the tide line, cracked open like dinosaur eggs."
Mountain Mount Hikurangi
"The first peak on the mainland to catch each sunrise, sacred ground where Māui beached his waka."
Mountain Mount Sunday
"A solitary hill standing guard over a braided river plain — Tolkien's Rohan made viscerally real."
Mountain Mount Taranaki
"A near-perfect volcanic cone so symmetrical that satellite photos look digitally rendered."
Mountain Mount Tarawera
"A volcano torn open overnight, its crimson rift still steaming after a hundred and forty years."
City Napier
"Rebuilt entirely in Art Deco after a 1931 earthquake flattened the city in two minutes."
Water Ninety Mile Beach
"Called Ninety Mile Beach but only fifty-five — still vast enough to land aircraft on."
City Oamaru
"Victorian limestone buildings house a steampunk village while blue penguins parade ashore at dusk."
Water Okarito Lagoon
"New Zealand's only white heron breeding colony nests beside a lagoon framed by glacier-capped peaks."
Wilderness Ōpārara Basin
"Limestone arches span a black-water river in a forest so dense the canopy swallows all light."
Water Piha
"Black iron-sand stretches beneath a lion-shaped monolith where the Tasman pounds relentlessly."
Water Poor Knights Islands
"Jacques Cousteau ranked these volcanic sea stacks among the world's ten finest dives."
Water Punakaiki
"Limestone stacked like a giant's breakfast pancakes, with blowholes that roar at high tide."
Mountain Putangirua Pinnacles
"Pillars of ancient gravel tower like a ruined cathedral, exposed by six million years of rain."
Mountain Queenstown
"The town where bungee jumping was born, cradled between a glacial lake and jagged peaks."
Water Raglan
"One of the world's longest left-hand point breaks rolling into a harbour of black volcanic sand."
Mountain Rob Roy Glacier
"A hanging glacier calving ice into a valley of waterfalls reached by a half-day scramble."
City Rotorua
"A city built on geothermal fury where mud pools bubble through suburban back gardens."
City Russell
"New Zealand's first capital — once dubbed the hell-hole of the Pacific by scandalised missionaries."
Mountain Skippers Canyon
"A gorge so narrow and the road so treacherous that rental cars void their insurance here."
City St Bathans
"A gold-rush ghost town of twelve residents with a flooded mine pit turned sapphire lake."
Wilderness Stewart Island / Rakiura
"Kiwi birds outnumber humans on an island where the aurora australis ripples overhead at night."
Water The Catlins
"Jurassic-era petrified trees lie exposed on a beach where sea lions sleep in the dunes."
Mountain Tongariro Alpine Crossing
"Emerald lakes glow in the craters of an active volcano on a moonscape ridge walk."
Water Tunnel Beach
"A hand-carved tunnel through a cliff opens onto a beach hidden below sandstone arches."
Wilderness Wai-O-Tapu
"A pool fizzing with carbon dioxide beside a sulphur lake in a landscape smelling of hell."
Wilderness Waipoua Forest
"A two-thousand-year-old kauri tree stands wider than a house in primeval darkness."
Wilderness Waitomo Caves
"Thousands of glowworms turn subterranean limestone into a ceiling of cold blue stars."
Water Wanaka
"A glacial lake ringed by peaks where a lone willow growing from the shallows became iconic."
Mountain Welcome Flat Hot Springs
"Earned hot pools steaming beside a glacial river — seven hours of walking to reach them."
Water Wharariki Beach
"Archway islands rise from the surf behind dunes where fur seal pups play in rock pools."