New Zealand

Queenstown is the adventure capital of the world — bungee jumping was invented here, and the stunning Southern Alps and Lake Wakatipu provide the backdrop for everything from skiing to skydiving. Beyond the adrenaline, there's a sophisticated food and wine scene, and Milford Sound is a day trip away. New Zealand's most photogenic town.

New Zealand's largest city is built on 53 volcanic cones with harbors on two sides. The "City of Sails" offers world-class sailing, Polynesian culture, excellent food, and easy access to black sand beaches, wine regions, and native bush.

New Zealand's compact, creative capital punches well above its weight with world-class Te Papa museum, a thriving craft beer and coffee scene, colorful wooden houses, and stunning harbor setting. Often called the "coolest little capital in the world."

New Zealand's geothermal capital — the Taupo Volcanic Zone's heat manifests in boiling mud pools, shooting geysers, and sulfurous steam rising from the city streets. Pohutu Geyser at Te Puia is the Southern Hemisphere's largest at up to 30 metres. Wai-O-Tapu's Champagne Pool is a vivid orange-rimmed acid lake. The Whakarewarewa Living Village has been continuously inhabited above geothermal ground for centuries.

New Zealand's South Island gateway — rebuilt after the 2010–11 earthquakes into a living showcase of urban innovation. Shigeru Ban's Cardboard Cathedral is a global architectural icon. The International Antarctic Centre is the world's best gateway to the southern continent (without going). The TranzAlpine train crossing the Southern Alps is one of the world's great rail journeys.

Queenstown's quieter alpine cousin — a lake town wrapped in the Southern Alps where the population (10,000-ish) doubles in summer for hiking and triples in winter for ski. The lone willow growing out of Lake Wanaka (the Wanaka Tree) is New Zealand's most photographed tree. Roy's Peak, Cardrona, and Mt Aspiring National Park are all within 20 minutes. Fewer bachelor parties, no bungee touts, more board shorts and trail runners.

The fjord Rudyard Kipling called the eighth wonder of the world — a 15-km arm of the Tasman Sea cut into Fiordland's granite, with Mitre Peak rising 1,692 m straight out of the water and Stirling Falls plunging 151 m off the cliff. It rains 200+ days a year and that's the point: every storm makes hundreds of temporary waterfalls. There's effectively no town, two cruise piers, one lodge, and a road in from Te Anau that closes for avalanche control most winters.