Nya Zeeland

Nya Zeeland är en favorit för såväl naturälskare som backpackers. Vandra mellan gyllene stränder i Golden Bay, landets hippie-tätaste område.

Boasting New Zealand’s highest concentration of yoga pants, dreadlocks and bare feet in the high street, Takaka is a lovable little town and the last ‘big’ centre before the road west ends at Farewell Spit. You’ll find most things you need here, and a few things you don’t, but we all have an unworn tie-dyed tank top in our wardrobe, don’t we?

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.

Few people come to Queenstown to wind down. The self-styled 'adventure capital of the world' is a place where visitors come to throw their inhibitions out the window…and throw themselves out of planes and off mountain tops and bridges.

The Coromandel Peninsula juts into the Pacific east of Auckland, forming the eastern boundary of the Hauraki Gulf. Although relatively close to the metropolis, the Coromandel offers easy access to splendid isolation. Its dramatic, mountainous spine bisects it into two very distinct parts.

Take SH1 129km southeast from Blenheim (or 180km north from Christchurch) and you’ll encounter Kaikoura, a pretty peninsula town backed by the snow-capped Seaward Kaikoura Range. Few places in the world are home to such a variety of easily spottable wildlife: whales, dolphins, NZ fur seals, penguins, shearwaters, petrels and several species of albatross live in or pass by the area.

Brace yourself for sublime scenery on a breathtaking scale.

Perhaps best known as the gateway to the Routeburn Track, Glenorchy sits on a rare shelf of flat land at the head of Lake Wakatipu. The small town is a great option if you want to be beside the lake and the mountains but prefer to stay once removed from the bustle and bluster of Queenstown. The tramping around Glenorchy is sensational, and the town is also a base for horse treks, jetboat rides, helicopter flights and skydives. It's Queenstown on sedatives.

Dishing up a winning combination of beautiful surroundings, sophisticated art and culinary scenes, and lashings of sunshine, Nelson is hailed as one of New Zealand’s most ‘liveable’ cities. In summer it fills up with local and international visitors, who lap up its diverse offerings.

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.