New Zealand is a beautiful country and to enjoy a holiday there you must be interested in scenery(which is awesome), it's not a country for a lot of nightlife (though some of the cities are quite lively). On the North Island there is the 90mile beach at Cape Reinga and the Coromandel Peninsula with it's lovely beaches. The Art Deco city of Napier is worth seeing. About three hours drive from Auckland is Rotororua which is the centre of traditional Maori culture and thermal activity with the bubbling mud pools and Geysers, further south is Lake Taupo with the resort town of Taupo. The Capital city Wellington is on the very southern tip of North Island.
South Island is full of National Parks including Abel Tasman, Mount Cook and Fiordland National Park. Queenstown is a lively town and the world capital for weird sports. A day on Milford Sound is well worth the long drive, you can Penguin and Albatross watch near Dunedin or watch the fairy penguins returning to their nest boxes at Oamaru. You can Whalewatch at Kaikoura near Christchurch. The small town of Akaroa on the Banks Peninsula near Christchurch is well worth a stopover.
On both South and North Islands there are lots of vineyards most of which you can visit and sample the products.
For the adventurous take a jet boat ride and for the more adventurous, well, NZ is the capital of Bungee jumping.

thanks Judith
I thought this would be a useful thread for the forum and you've certainly given a detailed post Its interesting to note very few threads about NZ so I'm wondering just how many members have ventured as far?

My Wife and I had 3 weeks in New Zealand during our round the world trip in 2006. It was my favourite country out of the many that we visted and my Wife's 2nd, only beaten by Namibia.

All of the tips offered above are excellent. We hired a camper van in Christchurch and just went with the flow, it's the only way in NZ. Other places I would recommend are Lake Tekapo and Wanaka in the South Island, both with lovely lake/mountain panoramics.

In the North Lake Taupo was my favourite place and I am so shocked to hear of the backpacker murdered over there recently. We wandered around that area as though it was our local village, everybody was friendly and crime just didn't seem to be a part of it. I hope this won't put people off visiting as it a majestic setting. Also great was Matamata a.k.a. Hobbiton. They have certainly built a very good tourist industry from the fact that the setting for Hobbiton in the LOTR was filmed on local farmland a short drive away. We did a tour with a guide who was turned down for an extras role in the film. Her passion for the films and the area was phonemonal and it was one of the best things we did in the whole of NZ. She was also rather annoyed that the plane carrying Peter Jackson and his colleagues missed her Dad's equally impressive farm when they were looking for the Hobbiton set!!!

Everything was great in NZ. I agree with the other comments that there is little nightlife in the NZ towns and cities. The bigger cities do of course, Christchurch is quite laid back compared to the likes of Auckland and Queenstown. There are however some excellent restaurants, which didn't really help us finance wise. We expected to cook every night in the camper van to save money, but having sampled some of the restaurants we quite often just walked into town from the Camper Van park and ate there. One great chain is Lone Star, absolutely huge portions, very tasty and reasonably priced.

I could talk about NZ all day, but I think the fact that it remains my favourite country in the world proves just how good it is.

We did pretty much the same as JWhiting in 2002, 3 weeks in NZ as part of a round the world trip. Hired a camper van and stayed in some lovely well equiped sites, as well as camping wild. I agree with visiting Wanaka, it's a lovely small lakeside town on South Island. NZ is also my favourite destination and I hope to return.

One year ago today we were picking our motorhome up from Christchurch at the start of a fantastic adventure and the BEST holiday ever. Hubby and I keep looking at the clock saying "What were we doing now this time last year" and reliving it all.
Our first night in the motorhome was in Akaroa which had been recommended to us by someone on this forum and it was lovely. Following that the highlights of the trip were many (too many to mention them all) but here's some of them:- The trip through the Southern Alps to Te Anau was stunning. We loved the thousands of wild lupins growing by the road on the Burkes Pass. Our lasting memory of the south island is the deep turquoise colours of the lakes and rivers due to glacial deposits in the water (we were told). The boat trip on the Milford sound was wonderful but so was the drive to the Sound with many places of interest to stop at en route (eg the Mirror Lakes)
Queenstown is not to be missed especially a trip up the mountain in a gondola with fantastic views, but we got a lovely surprise at Arrowtown which is a wonderful small town with lovely shops cafes etc. We only went there because one of the scenes in LOTR was filmed at the river there but we are so glad we did go.
We had terrible weather on the West Coast so can't comment on the Glaciers as the rain was bouncing and mist down to the ground, so we carried on and ended up at Kaikoura on the East Coast where we went Whale watching by(very small) helicopter. That was a FANTASTIC experience. Picton was also a lovely surprise, more than just a stopover for the ferry, it was a pretty, colourful and very clean and tidy small town.
The ferry over to the North Island was very enjoyable with lovely scenery and some good natured hen/stag parties aboard (we think that's what they were!)
Taupo was just as described in the other posts and it was a shock to hear about the murder there recently. We loved Rotorua with the thermal parks. Our favourite was the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland between Taupo and Rotorua. The colours there are beyond description, never seen anything remotely like that place before!
Our last 2 nights were spent in the Sky Tower Hotel in Auckland with a meal in the restaurant at the top and then going up to the observation level to watch the sun go down over Auckland and that is our final memory of New Zealand and it brings a lump to my throat just thinking about it.
These are just a few of the wonderful things we experienced in New Zealand and I long to go back.

Another favourite place of ours was Orakeikorako which was also between Taupo and Rotorua. This was a facsinating place, with a boat journey across a lake to get to the actual park. Once in the park, plenty of geysers and excellent hikes.

http://www.orakeikorako.co.nz/Orakei_Korako_Geyserland/Welcome_IDL=2_IDT=1307_ID=7537_.html

Well worth a couple of hours of anyone's time, but a little off the beaten path. I think I took about 5 wrong turns before eventually finding it.

Excellent place and very friendly staff.

Oklamhoma. Interesting you had bad weather on the West Coast also. We had been left disappointed by bad weather in Te Anau and more importantly, bad weather (avalanches galore for 2 days) on the Milford Sound road which meant our plan to visit was scuppered. After Queenstown we headed up the glaciers route in awful weather before agreeing to head back across Arthurs Pass to Christchurch again and then we just carried on up to Kaikoura. Obvious disappointment we never got to do Milford (an excuse to go back) but also very disappointed in the Glaciers themselves. Perhaps you need to get on them to appreciate the significance and it is amazing just how much they have moved (signposts indicate where the glaciers were on various dates in time) but although glad to see them, we were not as awestruck as we expected. Carrying north to Greymouth the rain was torrential and it was then we decided to head inland and across to the east coast again. Kaikoura was excellent and but for the weather we might have missed it as the plan was to go up the west coast and to Nelson that way. Did the boat ride in Kaikoura and got up close and personal to whales....felt very very sea sick out there though!!

In the north the Waitomo Caves are must see....http://www.waitomo.org.nz/ but get there early as the guided tours through the caves and the boat ride out do get very busy, even in off season. There was a lovely camper van park here with great staff who booked all our excursions for us (the caves and quad biking). Getting to Waitomo also gave us the opportunity to go through Te Awamutu, a place referenced by Crowded House in the song Mean to Me.

A nice little stop on the North Island after leaving Wellington is Greytown. We actually had lunch here with a couple we had met on a tour of Cambodia and Vietnam, so it was lovely to see them again.

http://www.thewhiteswan.co.nz/ Great food and pretty cheap. Well worth an hour or two, and has nice outside tables if it is warm enough.

I think the key thing to NZ is appreciating that it is the smaller towns which have the most appeal over the big cities. We loved Christchurch, perhaps for it's Englishness but found the larger cities of Hamilton, Auckland and Wellington a little underwhelming. It's not like Australia where it is essential to visit the cities, and thats why the camper van option is such a good one. You really appreciate the effort in driving up to places like Mount Cook NP, and also just being able to pull up on the side of the road whilst driving the Volcanic loop in the North Island to take yet another picture of a snow capped mountain.

With our NZ soundtrack consisting of the Best of Counting Crows and the Best of Travis, we really had some fun. I would fly back tomorrow if I had the chance......

NOTE: It seems for some reason you can't link to that well known video sharing website on here. So these links below won't work.

May I suggest typing 100% New Zealand, and 100% New Zealand spoof into the search engine of that particular site and enjoying the adverts.

For anyone who has never had the privilige of seeing these amazing adverts for New Zealand, happy viewing.

We saw this one a few months before actually starting our RTW trip. Suffice to say it really put us in the mood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj3DTBzpvFY&feature=related

This is the current one. Seen for the first time on a soggy November night at City Screen in York city centre. Very nasty of the advertisers to do that to us that day!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sEZ-wdFegU&feature=user

A classic spoof take on the above adverts. Watch out for the expletive in case you have kids watching!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj3DTBzpvFY&feature=related

We spent 3 fantastic weeks in New Zealand for my 50th birthday in October 2006. If only it wasn't so far away, I'd be back like a shot! After doing a lot of research, our difficulty was in cutting the trip down to just 3 weeks, as there realy is so much to see. We settled with about a week on North islands and 2 weeks on South island, all booked independantly and using internal flights and car hire.

We flew to Auckland from Manchester via Singapore, with Singapore airlines and took the short internal flight to Rotorua. We found the volcanic area and Maori culture fascinating. The highlight was our visit to the thermal village of Whakarewarewa. The entry price included a guided tour and a Maori cultural performance and you were then free to wander the village. The tour was fascinating giving an insight into how the Maori people lived (and still do) amongst the steaming vents and boiling pools.

From there we flew down to Christchurch where we picked up a hire car. We drove over Arthur's Pass, staying overnight at the wonderful Wilderness Lodge, before heading down the west coast. We also found the glaciers slightly disapointing - the low cloud and drizzle didn't help and the glaciers we'd seen in the Canadian Rockies are more spectacular but we still enjoyed seeing the area, especially the rain forest with it's fantastic tree ferns and interesting birds.

From there we drove to the beautiful lakes of Wanaka and Te Anau, staying a couple of days at each. From Te Anau we drove through the spectacular Milford Road for an afternoon cruise on Milford Sound. We then took the overnight Doubtful Sound cruise which had to be one of the highlights of the trip. http://www.realjourneys.co.nz/index.cfm/doubtful It was a fantastic experience to get right away from it all amongst the swirling clouds and dramatic scenery - seeing seals and crested penguins on the rocks.

We continued down to the southcoast and through the Catlins to Nugget Point, where we explored the lovely coastline and beaches and saw penguins and sea lions at close quarters. We then drove up through Dundedin (where there are some fantastic botanic gardens) to visit the Otago penisula.

We then flew back up from Dunedin to Auckland and spent the last few days in Russell , a pretty colonial style town in the Bay of islands. Here we took a boat trip round the bays and saw dolphins swimming alongside the boat. We also visited the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, where we spent an interesting afternoon looking round the Treaty House, the Maori Canoe and Meeting house and walking along the coastal path. I found the wooden carvings in the meeting house quite fascinating.

We saw a lot in 3 weeks - but there is also much we missed. I would love to go again some day.

A selection of my trip photographs are on here:

http://www.worldisround.com/articles/317654/index.html

this is such an informative thread

Here's a link to my photos of some of the places mentioned earlier
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12218943@N00/sets/72157594538806993/

I've added a couple of the jet boating pictures mentioned in a following post though we didn't go on them, just watched. Looked great though

oh my goodness- they are absolutely stunning!

I'm surprised no one has mentioned jet boating. If you want a rush do this.

We did it twice, one in the South Island and once in the North. In the South, the Shotover Canyon is the place just outside Queenstown. I have never laughed so much in my life, seriously good (if a tad scary) fun, with plenty of 360 degree turns and of course water!!!

In the North the Huka Falls was where we did it again, just outside Lake Taupo. Loved this area, although the jet boating was probably not quite as much of a rush, the fact that you get very close to the falls is amazing.

Well worth doing, but bear in mind weather dictates. Don't leave it until your final day in the area just in case.

I noticed someone mentioned the Corommandel Peninsula in the North Island. This was our final day of driving before heading to Auckland and what a day it was. Very tight and twisty roads but well worth the time spent getting to places.

Hot Water Beach is fascinating. Dig in the sand and make your own spa pool. I've seen pictures of people upto their neck obviously enjoying the delights of the warm water.

Also near there is a place called Cathedral Cove. Park up on the cliff and hike down to the cove. It's a relatively easy although quite lengthy hike, about 45 mins each way if I remember rightly.

Follow this link for further detail or just google....

http://www.whitianga.co.nz/hwbeach.html

http://www.whitianga.co.nz/hahei.html