“You guys seem cool, just take my house for the weekend and leave the keys under the mat,” says Neil our Couchsurfing host, whom we’d known for all of twenty minutes back in 2013. After a fun chat about our shared love of travel, his original offer of a one-night stay in his guest room…
The South Island was made for road trips. It has glaciers, fjords, volcanoes, vineyards, Lord of the Ring forests, impeccable roads, and very few people sharing it. With only one million inhabitants in a landmass the size of New York State, the South Island feels largely untouched and the ultimate place to connect with nature…
Imagine arriving to the shore of a glacial lake, surrounded by yellow poplar trees and snow-capped mountains and saying, “We’re home.” This my friends, is campervanning in New Zealand, where each night you stop at an absurdly gorgeous place, make a home-cooked meal, open a bottle of Marlborough wine, and then wake up to a…
Wow!!! That is what we have to say about New Zealand. We road-tripped from the top of the North Island to the bottom of the South Island and had to pick our jaw off the floor of our campervan with every mountain, beach, glacier, volcano, vineyard, colonial town, and geothermal pool. New Zealand has to…
We looked up at the tallest mountains in New Zealand, guarded by glaciers on all sides, and thought, “How the heck are we going to get up there?” We could get a taste with a trek to the base or an ice hike around a few of the crevasses, but to get the full effect…
Mike shuffles his bound feet to the edge of the platform and swan dives 44 floors toward the bottom of a rocky canyon. The rope catches, he bounces up like a rag doll, and with each fling of the elastic he screams…pure joy. This is the sound of the highest bungee jump in Australasia, AJ…
The famous fjord, the greatest site in New Zealand, an 8th Wonder of the World…call it what you want, Milford Sound lives up to its good name. We drove into Fjordland National Park at night and all we could see was the silhouettes of massive mountains, faintly lit by a starry sky. The next day…
The road snakes around the northwest coast, heading from one jaw-dropping National Park to the next in New Zealand’s South Island. Rich with gold and coal, the area drew fearless miners through the mountains to these shore in the late 1800s. The miners have long since left and seals, albatrosses, and parakeets seem in greater…
Kiwis are known for their hospitality so we inadvertently tested the theory by hitchhiking, couchsurfing, and asking Wilsons outfitters to host us on their three-day kayak/hike trip through Abel Tasman National Park. This leg of our New Zealand journey was all a leap of faith, but that’s what keeps it interesting… Hitchhiking is accepted as…
The phone rings…”Annie, the grapes are ready to pick! If you and Mike want to catch the harvest, come to Marlborough ASAP.” It was Joanne and Bruce Kerner on the line, our family friends that followed their dream to start a vineyard in New Zealand. Ever since Kerner Estate opened in 2000, I’ve been dying…
Recognized as not just one of the best day-hikes in New Zealand but in the world, Tongariro Alpine Crossing is 19.4 kilometers of jaw-dropping and heart-racing terrain. Remember Mount Doom from Lord of the Rings? Peter Jackson’s inspiration for the fiery volcano was none other than Mount Ngauruhoe—one of the three highly active volcanoes that…