New Zealand


Wanaka, New Zealand
The Antipodes Great Outdoors
If New Zealand is known for its tranquility and intimacy with Nature, Wanaka exceeds any imagination. Located in an idyllic setting between the homonymous lake and the mystic Mount Aspiring, it became a place of worship. Many kiwis aspire to change their lives there.
North Island, New Zealand
Journey along the Path of Maority
New Zealand is one of the countries where the descendants of settlers and natives most respect each other. As we explored its northern island, we became aware of the interethnic maturation of this very old nation. Commonwealth as Maori and Polynesia.
Banks Peninsula, New Zealand
The Divine Earth Shard of the Banks Peninsula
Seen from the air, the most obvious bulge on the South Island's east coast appears to have imploded again and again. Volcanic but verdant and bucolic, the Banks Peninsula confines in its almost cogwheel geomorphology the essence of the ever enviable New Zealand life.
napier, New Zealand
Back to the 30s – Old-Fashioned Car Tour
In a city rebuilt in Art Deco and with an atmosphere of the "crazy years" and beyond, the adequate means of transportation are the elegant classic automobiles of that era. In Napier, they are everywhere.
Christchurch, New Zealand
New Zealand's Cursed Wizard
Despite his notoriety in the antipodes, Ian Channell, the New Zealand sorcerer, failed to predict or prevent several earthquakes that struck Christchurch. At the age of 88, after 23 years of contract with the city, he made very controversial statements and ended up fired.
Tongariro, New Zealand
The Volcanoes of All Discords
In the late XNUMXth century, an indigenous chief ceded the PN Tongariro volcanoes to the British crown. Today, a significant part of the Maori people claim their mountains of fire from European settlers.
New Zealand  
When Counting Sheep causes Sleep Loss
20 years ago, New Zealand had 18 sheep per inhabitant. For political and economic reasons, the average was halved. In the antipodes, many breeders are worried about their future.
Mount cook, New Zealand
The Cloud Piercer Mountain
Aoraki/Mount Cook may fall far short of the world's roof but it is New Zealand's highest and most imposing mountain.
Napier, New Zealand
Back to the 30s
Devastated by an earthquake, Napier was rebuilt in an almost ground-floor Art Deco and lives pretending to stop in the Thirties. Its visitors surrender to the Great Gatsby atmosphere that the city enacts.
Fiordland, New Zealand
The Fjords of the Antipodes
A geological quirk made the Fiordland region the rawest and most imposing in New Zealand. Year after year, many thousands of visitors worship the sub-domain slashed between Te Anau and Milford Sound.
Aoraki / Mount Cook, New Zealand
The Aeronautical Conquest of the Southern Alps
In 1955, pilot Harry Wigley created a system for taking off and landing on asphalt or snow. Since then, his company has unveiled, from the air, some of the greatest scenery in Oceania.
Nelson to Wharariki, Abel Tasman NP, New Zealand
The Maori coastline on which Europeans landed
Abel Janszoon Tasman explored more of the newly mapped and mythical "Terra australis" when a mistake soured the contact with natives of an unknown island. The episode inaugurated the colonial history of the New Zealand. Today, both the divine coast on which the episode took place and the surrounding seas evoke the Dutch navigator.
bay of islands, New Zealand
New Zealand's Civilization Core
Waitangi is the key place for independence and the long-standing coexistence of native Maori and British settlers. In the surrounding Bay of Islands, the idyllic marine beauty of the New Zealand antipodes is celebrated, but also the complex and fascinating kiwi nation.
Queenstown, New Zealand
Queenstown, the Queen of Extreme Sports
In the century. XVIII, the Kiwi government proclaimed a mining village on the South Island "fit for a queen".Today's extreme scenery and activities reinforce the majestic status of ever-challenging Queenstown.
Matukituki River, New Zealand
Wanaka, New Zealand

The Antipodes Great Outdoors

If New Zealand is known for its tranquility and intimacy with Nature, Wanaka exceeds any imagination. Located in an idyllic setting between the homonymous lake and the mystic Mount Aspiring, it became a place of worship. Many kiwis aspire to change their lives there.
North Island, New Zealand, Maori, Surfing time
North Island, New Zealand

Journey along the Path of Maority

New Zealand is one of the countries where the descendants of settlers and natives most respect each other. As we explored its northern island, we became aware of the interethnic maturation of this very old nation. Commonwealth as Maori and Polynesia.
Banks Peninsula, Akaroa, Canterbury, New Zealand
Banks Peninsula, New Zealand

The Divine Earth Shard of the Banks Peninsula

Seen from the air, the most obvious bulge on the South Island's east coast appears to have imploded again and again. Volcanic but verdant and bucolic, the Banks Peninsula confines in its almost cogwheel geomorphology the essence of the ever enviable New Zealand life.
napier, New Zealand

Back to the 30s – Old-Fashioned Car Tour

In a city rebuilt in Art Deco and with an atmosphere of the "crazy years" and beyond, the adequate means of transportation are the elegant classic automobiles of that era. In Napier, they are everywhere.
now from above ladder, sorcerer of new zealand, Christchurch, new zealand
Christchurch, New Zealand

New Zealand's Cursed Wizard

Despite his notoriety in the antipodes, Ian Channell, the New Zealand sorcerer, failed to predict or prevent several earthquakes that struck Christchurch. At the age of 88, after 23 years of contract with the city, he made very controversial statements and ended up fired.
lagoons and fumaroles, volcanoes, PN tongariro, new zealand
Tongariro, New Zealand

The Volcanoes of All Discords

In the late XNUMXth century, an indigenous chief ceded the PN Tongariro volcanoes to the British crown. Today, a significant part of the Maori people claim their mountains of fire from European settlers.
Walter Peak, Queenstown, New Zealand
New Zealand  

When Counting Sheep causes Sleep Loss

20 years ago, New Zealand had 18 sheep per inhabitant. For political and economic reasons, the average was halved. In the antipodes, many breeders are worried about their future.
Lenticular cloud, Mount Cook, New Zealand.
Mount cook, New Zealand

The Cloud Piercer Mountain

Aoraki/Mount Cook may fall far short of the world's roof but it is New Zealand's highest and most imposing mountain.
Bertie in jalopy, Napier, New Zealand
Napier, New Zealand

Back to the 30s

Devastated by an earthquake, Napier was rebuilt in an almost ground-floor Art Deco and lives pretending to stop in the Thirties. Its visitors surrender to the Great Gatsby atmosphere that the city enacts.
The Sounds, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand
Fiordland, New Zealand

The Fjords of the Antipodes

A geological quirk made the Fiordland region the rawest and most imposing in New Zealand. Year after year, many thousands of visitors worship the sub-domain slashed between Te Anau and Milford Sound.
Passengers, scenic flights-Southern Alps, New Zealand
Aoraki / Mount Cook, New Zealand

The Aeronautical Conquest of the Southern Alps

In 1955, pilot Harry Wigley created a system for taking off and landing on asphalt or snow. Since then, his company has unveiled, from the air, some of the greatest scenery in Oceania.
Nelson to Wharariki, Abel Tasman NP, New Zealand

The Maori coastline on which Europeans landed

Abel Janszoon Tasman explored more of the newly mapped and mythical "Terra australis" when a mistake soured the contact with natives of an unknown island. The episode inaugurated the colonial history of the New Zealand. Today, both the divine coast on which the episode took place and the surrounding seas evoke the Dutch navigator.
Maori Haka, Waitangi Treaty Grounds, New Zealand
bay of islands, New Zealand

New Zealand's Civilization Core

Waitangi is the key place for independence and the long-standing coexistence of native Maori and British settlers. In the surrounding Bay of Islands, the idyllic marine beauty of the New Zealand antipodes is celebrated, but also the complex and fascinating kiwi nation.
Bungee jumping, Queenstown, New Zealand
Queenstown, New Zealand

Queenstown, the Queen of Extreme Sports

In the century. XVIII, the Kiwi government proclaimed a mining village on the South Island "fit for a queen".Today's extreme scenery and activities reinforce the majestic status of ever-challenging Queenstown.

Map


How to go


VISA AND OTHER PROCEDURES

Portuguese and Brazilian citizens are exempt from a visa to enter and stay in New Zealand for up to 90 days. 

HEALTH CARE

New Zealand authorities do not require any vaccination certificates. There are no risks of disease transmission worthy of alarm.  

For more information on traveling health, see the Health Portal of the Ministry of Health and Tropical and Traveler Medicine Clinic. In FitForTravel find country-specific health and disease prevention advice (in English).

TRIP TO NEW ZEALAND

A Star Alliance fly from Lisbon to Auckland with the Lufthansa (tel.: 707 782 782) via Frankfurt and Singapore, from €800. 

Must Do's


North Island:

  • Bay of Islands
  • Whanganui National Park
  • Tongariro National Park  
  • Waitomo Caves 
  • Maori culture in Rotorua
  • East cape 
  • Art Deco architecture and the “30s” in Napier
  • Auckland
  • ​Goat Island Marine Reserve
  • Wellington

South Island:

  • Abel Tasman National Park and Golden Bay
  • Mount Cook/Aoraki
  • Route from Te Anau to Milford Sound
  • ​Banks Peninsula
  • Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound
  • Queenstown and Arrowtown
  • ​Whale sighting in Kaikoura
  • Peninsula of Otago
  • the catlins
  • Glaciers and Franz Josef & Fox 
  • ​Stewart Island

 

Explore


INTERNAL FLIGHTS

the national company Air New Zealand it flies to almost every corner of the country, with the exception of the inhospitable southern tip of the Fiordland region. 

Scenic Flights 

They are very common in many parts of New Zealand. If you have the financial relief you need, don't miss the opportunity to land on an ice field near the top of Mount Cook, or fly over the Southern Alps and Milford Sound from Queenstown or Te Anau, on the South Island. , are carried out in light aircraft and cost from €100 to €800 per person. The price depends on the itinerary and the duration of the flight.

CAR RENTAL

As a green country, New Zealand has sacrificed as little of its scenery as possible to the wider tarmac of the highways. It has an acceptable and well-maintained simple road network. For those who arrive on time, the best way to explore the nation Kiwi is renting a car or a campervan, preferably 4WD, which gives you safer driving and allows you to explore dirt roads. New Zealand drivers respect the rules and speed limits in a way that is sometimes exasperating for those arriving from stops more relaxed with rules and regulations.

The lowest price you will find for car hire is around €15 per day, as a rule, for a Japanese used petrol car but in good condition, with insurance included, in low season and for periods of more than 15 days. The most famous company for practicing this type of prices is the A2B Rentals.  Several others are only slightly more expensive. 

Caravan rental equipped for sleeping and cooking on board starts at €30 per day, with insurance included. Approximately twice as much if they are 4WD. A jeep costs from €45 per day. You must add to these expenses the gasoline that costs around €1,40 per liter.

OTHER

As an alternative to car rental, sign up for the numerous tours offered by agencies and operators kiwis but remember that in terms of discovering the country, you lose out. It will only be able to stop where it is scheduled. 

When to go


As an antipodean country to Portugal, New Zealand has four inverted seasons in the year, compared to European ones.

Unless you are interested in practicing winter sports, the best times to visit the country are New Zealand's summer and spring – from late November to March – when it rains less throughout the country and in particular on the east coast and in the must-see area of ​​the fjords. In April, temperatures start to drop to minus degrees and the first snow falls in the mountains.

Queenstown and Wanaka – New Zealand's top snow sports destinations – are in full swing from June to late September.

Money and costs


The local currency is the New Zealand Dollar (NZD). International surveys are possible, everywhere, in the main locations and also at refueling stations on the roads. Payments with credit cards are almost always accepted. New Zealand now has a higher cost of living than Portugal. The recent appreciation of the New Zealand dollar against the euro had a great influence on this new reality.

ACCOMMODATION

Stays range from €20 per person, per night, in a hostel, to several hundred euros, per night, in the finest hotels in the country.

New Zealand is served by a vast network of International Hostels and by countless hostels and private hostels with very affordable prices.

FOOD

A half liter of water costs around €1,50. A complete meal can cost between €8 in a cheap restaurant and €200 in a more sophisticated restaurant. 

INTERNET

Almost all Youth Hostels and guest houses ensure internet access but it is not always included in the price of the overnight stay. The purchase of internet credit cards in different periods of time that can be used during stays has become commonplace. The more time you buy, the cheaper the internet. The most expensive hotels, these, usually have free access. Some cafes keep the sign open or provide passwords to customers.