New Zealand

⚠️ Entry rules and local regulations change without notice. Before booking, check entry requirements and local rules — visas, access, nature reserves, visitor quotas — with the official authorities.

New Zealand, the land of the Māori nicknamed 'Aotearoa' (the land of the long white cloud), is a South Pacific archipelago made up of two large islands. The North Island is home to cosmopolitan Auckland, the cultural capital Wellington and the geysers of Rotorua. The South Island offers breathtaking scenery: the fjords of Milford Sound, the New Zealand Alps, Queenstown the adventure capital and the golden beaches of Abel Tasman.

Two islands at the end of the world

New Zealand — Aotearoa in Māori — is two main islands and a thousand kilometres of coastline at the far edge of the Pacific, 270,000 km² with barely five million people. It was the last large landmass on Earth to be settled by humans, by Polynesian navigators around the thirteenth century, and the Māori remain a sixth of the population, with their language official and their culture visible in a way that has no equivalent in Australia. The Treaty of Waitangi of 1840, between the Crown and the chiefs, is still the country's founding argument.

The North Island is volcanic and warm: Auckland, the largest city, on its two harbours; the geothermal country around Rotorua with its geysers and Māori heartland; the volcanoes of Tongariro, crossed by the finest day walk in the country; Wellington, the small, windy capital. The South Island is colder, emptier and more spectacular: the Southern Alps and Aoraki/Mount Cook, the glaciers running almost to the sea at Franz Josef and Fox, the lakes of Wanaka and Tekapo, Queenstown and its adrenaline industry, and Fiordland in the far south-west, where Milford and Doubtful Sounds cut into the rainforest.

The scale is the thing to understand before planning: the country is 1,600 kilometres long, the roads are two-lane and slow, and a fortnight sees one island properly. Three weeks is a reasonable minimum for both.

November to April, with the seasons reversed

Summer runs from December to February and is the main season: warm in the north (22–26 °C), mild in the south, long days, and the roads and lodges at their busiest and most expensive. November and March–April are the sweet spots, with settled weather and fewer people. Winter, June to August, is ski season in Queenstown and Wanaka and quiet elsewhere; the West Coast and Fiordland are wet all year — Milford Sound receives seven metres of rain, which is why it looks the way it does.

The NZeTA, the levy and the campervan

⚠️ EU citizens do not need a visa for stays of up to three months, but must obtain an NZeTA (electronic travel authority) online before departure — NZ$17 via the app, NZ$23 via the website — and pay the International Visitor Levy of NZ$100 at the same time. Both last two years. Flights from Europe take 24 hours or more with one or two stops. Biosecurity is taken seriously: declare all food, wooden objects and outdoor gear, and clean your boots — fines for undeclared items are immediate.

Most visitors hire a car or a campervan; driving is on the left and distances are longer than they look. The Department of Conservation runs the Great Walks — Milford, Routeburn, Kepler, Tongariro — on a booking system that opens months ahead and sells out in a day for summer. Eat green-lipped mussels, lamb, whitebait fritters on the West Coast, and the wines of Marlborough and Central Otago; the coffee is excellent everywhere.

Essentials & your questions