New Zealand's Best Bits
- Milla Rae
- Aug 28
- 9 min read
MY TOP TEN THINGS THAT NEW ZEALAND DOES EXCEPTIONALLY WELL.
I’ve just finished editing 44,444 photos from our recent trip to New Zealand. Many of them looked almost identical to one another, but for a minor shift in cloud positioning, the fractional elongation of a shadow, or an almost imperceptible improvement in just how brightly the golden sunshine shimmered on the surface of a lake. It’s possible I took too many photos, but I simply couldn’t resist the futile compulsion to try and tame the wild beauty of those sweeping panoramas into a cluster of pixels on my phone screen.
I knew before going there that New Zealand would be picturesque. As I’m sure you know too, even if you haven’t visited. Everyone in the world has heard that New Zealand is beautiful. Lots of us have one of those outdoorsy friends who travels all the way to New Zealand to do some high-octane activity — an activity that is probably also possible to do much closer to home — and who comes back with that high decibel, panty-breath, arms gesticulating type fizz. They rave about how incredible New Zealand is, with its other-worldly landscapes, fresher air, a population uniquely calibrated to take a weirdly relaxed view on danger, and with a legal system to support their risk appetite. However, knowing all this before I arrived didn’t make it any less of a marvel.
New Zealand appears to have been designed by children, and then a responsible adult rounded it off with some wineries and bungee jumps. The scenery is made up of the best pages of a picture book: snow-capped mountains, undulating farmland dotted with sheep, deep river gorges, cleanly designed cities, coastal playgrounds, enormous supermarkets with toys conveniently stationed at the checkouts, pristine beaches and zebra crossings with lollipop ladies. Hats off to the children who designed it: it’s a work of art.
I wonder if the only way it’s allowed to be so beautiful is that it agreed to stay away from the rest of the world. You can’t have scenery like that sitting side-by-side with a grubby, dense metropolis, now, can you? It wouldn’t be fair. No, New Zealand is far away for a reason. And perhaps as a result of being so far away from everywhere else, it has quietly and calmly become truly exceptional at a number of things - some more surprising than others.
Here’s my Top Ten List of things that New Zealand does exceptionally well. Well enough, in fact, that it’s worth losing an entire day in time to go and see for yourself.
Suburbia
Playgrounds
Mountains
Public toilets
Wine
Domestic airport security
Open kitchens
Pak-n-Save
Food
Adventure sports
Bonus Item: Godparents
Bonus Bonus Item: Not being full of things that can kill you
1. Suburbia
I don’t know if this is just an Auckland thing, but even if it is, it’s remarkable. Suburban New Zealand is a breeze. They absolutely excel at pavements, lane driving, traffic signals, road signage, growing orange trees in private gardens (really - orange trees, like it’s the mediterranean) and cycle paths. Granted, many of these things might not seem so extraordinary if we didn’t live where we do: in Mumbai. One thing, however, that would stand out regardless of our current country of residence is the apparent national love of traffic cones. I have never seen anything like it. Deployment, arrangement and collection of traffic cones appears to be a deeply involved business and I wouldn’t be surprised if the International Traffic Cone Statistics Bureau (which I am sure is headquartered in New Zealand), has New Zealand at the top spot for the sheer number of traffic cones deployed per capita. Or per sheep. Or per square metre. Whichever metric you choose, it’s a high number. At zebra crossings during the school drop-off rush, they even train children to rapidly deploy and retract a string of traffic cones to ensure the safe passage of their fellow students. Perhaps that’s the secret: start ‘em young to ensure the love of traffic cones is passed down from lollipop lady to first grader; generation to generation.
2. Playgrounds
If Jasper hadn’t already achieved platinum tier status on his Playgrounds with a View membership before this trip, he most definitely has now. In our two weeks galavanting between the North and South islands, we visited no fewer than 12 playgrounds: some more than once. Everywhere we went, be it to a scenic spot, a winery or the school drop-off, there was a playground. And not just a ‘we should probably put something here to fill the space’ playground; these were well thought-out, beautifully designed, sensitive to the diversity of landscapes and people playgrounds. And not only were these exceptional playgrounds at every place we stopped, they were also always accompanied by a coffee shop within a toddler-negotiable radius of the equipment. As Jasper romped up and down a mountainside slide, scuttled around on a high ropes spider web or ran himself dizzy in a hamster wheel, I sipped my coffee with delight.
3. Mountains
To be fair to other mountains in the world, this may be mostly due to the fact that I had the absolute joy of seeing them from above. The day we flew into Queenstown was a postcard for New Zealand tourism: perfect sky, perfect snow-caps, perfect sunlight. The mountains stood proud, their peaks sharpened by ice, as our plane cork-screwed down into the valley that conceals the airport; once we were down in amongst them, they rose rugged and strong from their imposing, dark bases. In case you’re wondering, many of my photos feature mountains, but none do them any justice.
4. Public Toilets
Seriously, how many countries have you been to where you’d say you enjoyed a visit to a public toilet? How many countries have public toilets that are works of art? (#7 on this linked list. I am a little sad that Jasper’s bowels didn’t require us to use this one although we did admire it in passing.) Living, as we do, in India, I admit I’ve developed something of a fear of Jasper needing the loo when we are out and about. While some of Mumbai’s parks have facilities, I would rather avoid using them. Even in the brand new shopping centres, the facilities leave a lot to be desired. (The main thing to be desired is space - space to fit a parent and child in the same cubicle, space to avoid touching the walls, space to place your phone or a hook to hang your bag.) But not in New Zealand. Oh no, no, no. New Zealand has public toilets to end all public toilets. Whether it was a long drop near the coast, or an interactive robot loo with a timed door-lock and ambient birdsong, every toilet was clean, spacious and abundant in loo roll. Every park, every supermarket, every beach had a nearby loo and I can’t tell you the impact this has on a parent’s ability to relax.
5. Wine
Don’t worry, I’m not about to go all sommelier on you. You can decide for yourselves if you like the taste—they stock it in all good bottle shops across the globe. I only want to take this opportunity to appreciate the way you can experience the wine in New Zealand. And by this, I mean I want to recommend an e-bike tour of the Gibbston Valley. We were 4 adults and 4 children: 3 of whom fit in chariots (like the princes they are), 1 of whom had to endure a mock-tandem. The organisers call it a ‘tour’, but in fact it’s more like a test. They give you a map and an e-bike and then they send you off into the winelands and hope you’ll be where they asked you to be at the end of the day. Unsurprisingly, the day was exceptional. And not only because of the quality of the wine at each pit-stop. The truest proof in the wine-biking pudding was that we received absolute no written complaints from our trio of charioteers—no mean feat!
6. Domestic airport security
Did you know, you are allowed to carry an open bottle of wine through domestic airport security in New Zealand? Well, now you do. You can thank me later.
7. Open kitchens
During our trip, we visited 5 different homes and every single one of them had an open kitchen. It is something we lament loudly and often that our apartment in India has a closed, hot, galley kitchen. We understand why, of course. Most people who live in apartments like ours don’t do their own cooking and they don’t really give a second thought to the experience these kitchens deliver because they are never going to set foot in it. But in our household, I am the Maharaj (cook), and I have to suffer the lack of storage, counter space and air con alone. In New Zealand, however, everybody seems to have an open kitchen meaning the designated cook has a far more social time of it.
8. Pak-n-Save
The internet /AI-enabled definition of Pak-n-Save is: ‘not a high-end shop [...] known for its commitment to low, affordable prices and a no-frills, warehouse-style shopping experience.’ And yet, for those of us living in India, a visit to Pak-n-Save was like walking through a dream. There were frills everywhere! A wall of sandwich bread, a chest freezer full of lamb roasting joints, fridge after fridge after fridge after fridge of dairy products, an entire aisle dedicated to cheese biscuits and, because New Zealand was designed by children, a bargain bucket of Hot Wheels cars blocking the approach to the checkout. Call me easy to please, but I’d take a trip to a Pak-n-Save over almost anything, anyday: the range! The value! The luxury of being able to fit more than one shopping trolley down an aisle!
9. Food
Closely associated with the fun we had at Pak-n-Save is the, quite frankly, insulting quality of the produce in New Zealand. Even their budget supermarkets are stuffed with things we’d like to eat. 12 varieties of sausage here, tomatoes that taste of tomato there, a national 4.5:1 sheep to people ratio that directly translates into lamb being shrugged off as an everyday staple and cask (boxed) wine that would put the bottled stuff from many countries to shame. I am not 100% convinced I’ll be needing the recipe for Kiwi Dip in the near future, but it’s far from the worst thing I’ve been fed abroad. Beyond the shelves of a supermarket, we were even lucky enough to go foraging in our friends’ vegetable garden for homegrown ingredients and I swear the fragrances and colours were enough to make a plant-assassin like myself think I’d like the opportunity to grow my own salad.
10. Adventure Sports
Not that I really tried any adventure sports (unless I can count wine-biking or the child-friendly go-kart luge?), but New Zealand does indeed do this exceptionally well. So well, in fact, that they have a government-supported system that actively (see what I did there?) enables it. While operators are required to communicate the risks to their customers, in case of an accident or injury, the operators don’t have to pay out. Instead, there is a ‘no-fault accidental injury compensation scheme’ administered by the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) that covers the damage. I mean, a broken leg will still be a broken leg, but at least the malcoordination or recklessness of one adrenalin junkie won’t impact the opportunity for the next one to step up and take the same risk. Well played, New Zealand tourism, well played.
11. Bonus Item: Godparents
We came to New Zealand to introduce Jasper to his godparents. After 4.5 years of having a vague idea that these mysteriously distant people existed, it was high time Jasper got to know them and what better way than by following them around like a bunch of strays for 2 weeks? We descended on them, stole their car, ate their food and hijacked their lives. And boy did we enjoy it. Jasper’s godparents have excellent taste—not necessarily in godchildren, we forced that on them—but in other things, like places to live, places to visit, wine to drink and playgrounds to frequent. They also have 3 children, with whom Jasper had to learn to share and negotiate but also with whom Jasper had an absolutely incredible time. While godparents aren’t necessarily available to everyone who visits New Zealand, I’d highly recommend at least finding a trustworthy tastemaker who can point you in the direction of all the best public toilets and traffic cone displays.
12. Bonus Bonus Item: Not being full of things that can kill you
New Zealand is exceptional at being similar to (in some ways), but also not at all like (in other ways), its marginally less far-flung cousin: Australia. You can wander off, anywhere you like in New Zealand without the fear of death. I can’t really understand why the tourism department doesn’t use it more in their advertising. New Zealand: Not full of things that can kill you.
So, there you have it. A few more than ten excellent reasons to visit New Zealand. The only downside to visiting is that you will almost certainly have to leave again. And saying goodbye to those islands was not something any of us enjoyed doing.
A wonderfully cheerful blog: if tourist bookings to NZ don't increase as a result, I'll eat my hat!