Nya Zeeland

Dominated (in the best possible way) by Mt Taranaki and surrounded by lush farmland, New Plymouth is the only international deep-water port in this part of New Zealand. Like all port towns, the world washes in and out on the tide, leaving the locals buzzing with a global outlook. The city has a bubbling arts scene (with two superb free galleries), some fab cafes and a rootsy, outdoorsy focus. Surf beaches and Mt Taranaki (Egmont National Park) are just a short hop away.

Nowhere is solitude sweeter than on the West Coast. A few marvels pull big crowds – like Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers, and the magnificent Pancake Rocks – but you'll need jetboats, helicopter rides and tramping trails to explore its inner realms. Hemmed in by the Southern Alps and the savage Tasman Sea, the West Coast forms almost 9% of the land area of New Zealand (NZ) but contains less than 1% of its population.

Two words immediately spring to mind when Kiwis think of their seventh-largest city: 'Scotland' and 'students'. The 'Edinburgh of the South' is immensely proud of its Scottish heritage, never missing an opportunity to break out the haggis and bagpipes on civic occasions. In fact the very name Dunedin is derived from the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh – Dùn Èideann – and the city even has its own tartan.

Before Whanganui was Whanganui, it was Petre, a town built at the mouth of the river in 1940. As one of New Zealand's oldest towns (and the fifth-largest until 1936), it's an amalgamation of Māori culture, heritage buildings – take a 60-minute self-guided tour with the free Whanganui Heritage Guide from the i-SITE – and a thriving local art community.

Nya Zeelands ekologiska och biodynamiska vingårdar är många och bra. Följ med på cykeltur mellan pittoreska gårdar i landets två populäraste vindistrikt, Marlborough och Martinborough.

Coastal Abel Tasman National Park blankets the northern end of a range of marble and limestone hills that extend from Kahurangi National Park. Various tracks in the park include an inland route, although the Coast Track is what everyone is here for – it's New Zealand's most popular Great Walk.

Det lider ingen brist på magiska naturunder i Nya Zealand. Fjordlandskapet i Milford Sound tillhör ett av landets mest besökta plaster, vill man däremot uppleva mer natur och färre turister ska man bege sig till intilliggande Doubtful Sound.

Welcome to the New Zealand you've been waiting for, a picturesque landscape characterised as much by volcanic mountains as it is by bodies of water and native forest. Much of it is thanks to the Taupo Volcanic Zone – a line of geothermal activity that stretches via Rotorua to Whakaari (White Island) in the Bay of Plenty. It’s beautiful, but it's what's on the inside that counts: thermal activity bubbling beneath the surface that's responsible for some of the North Island's star attractions, including the country's largest lake and the three snowcapped peaks of Tongariro National Park.

The Nelson region is centred upon Tasman Bay. It stretches north to Golden Bay and Farewell Spit, and south to Nelson Lakes. It's not hard to see why it's such a popular travel destination for international and domestic travellers alike: not only does it boast three national parks (Kahurangi, Nelson Lakes and Abel Tasman), it can also satisfy nearly every other whim, from food, wine and beer, art, craft and festivals, to that most precious of pastimes for which the region is well known: lazing about in the sunshine.