Trip Planner New Zealand

Queenstown and Wanaka at a Glance

The main street of Arrowtown in autumn, lined with large sycamore trees in full golden and amber colour, with heritage stone and timber shopfronts, fallen leaves covering the footpath, and the Lakes District Museum visible in the background.

Two lakes, two personalities, one impossibly beautiful corner of New Zealand. Queenstown delivers the bungee jumps, the ski fields, and the finest pinot noir on the planet. Wanaka offers the same mountain backdrop with half the crowds and twice the soul. Between them, the Southern Lakes region is simply unmissable.

Southland and Fiordland at a Glance

A swimmer wading into the crystal-clear glacial waters of Lake Marian in Fiordland, arms outstretched, with the steep bush-covered valley walls, snow-dusted peaks, and dramatic cloud formations of the Darran Mountains reflected in the still green water behind her.

Stand at the edge of Milford Sound as Mitre Peak rises from black mirror water. Walk four days through ancient beech forest to get there. Kayak the silence of Doubtful Sound. Watch the Southern Lights burn above Stewart Island. Southland and Fiordland don’t just show you New Zealand — they show you the end of the world.

Canterbury at a Glance

The restored blue and gold Christchurch heritage tram passing through the colourful pedestrian precinct of New Regent Street in the Christchurch CBD, with pastel-painted Spanish Mission style shopfronts and outdoor café tables lining the brick-paved street.

From the rebuilt laneways of Christchurch to the ice-blue immensity of Aoraki/Mount Cook, from sperm whales breaching off Kaikōura to the Milky Way blazing over the Mackenzie Basin — Canterbury contains more extraordinary landscapes per square kilometre than almost any region in the Southern Hemisphere. This is New Zealand’s South Island at its most varied and spectacular.