Discover how to make the most of a visit to this outdoor adventure mecca (whether you're hiking, kayaking, rock climbing, skiing, snowboarding, sailing, caving, biking, or simply strolling). This guide provides a 20-page, full-color flora and fauna section, as well as listings on where to stay (from farms to resorts), background on the Maori people's history and culture, and 113 maps including national parks and ski areas. --Kathryn True

Product Description

Experience the infinite variety of New Zealand: Sample the cafés and bars of Auckland, take a gravity-defying bungy jump pr tramp through some of the world's most spectacular wilderness areas with this bestselling guidebook.

• over 120 detailed maps
• colourful guide to New Zealand's unique wildlife
• special section on Maori culture and art
• fully extreme Activities chapter – don't zorb without it
• insider tips for an aspiring hobbit spotters
• exhaustively researched accommodation listings

Quite frankly, our initial impression of the Lonely Planet book was too dense to be useful to us. The Frommer's guide was more helpful and the author, Elizabeth Hansen, was available to "consult" on the trip on an hourly basis. Because we'd be toting our 18-month old, we used her services and pre-booked the entire trip.

Once there, we found the Lonely Planet book much more useful. The Lonely Planet guide excels at providing abundant information about towns, including attractions, restaurants and maps giving a rough layout.

For example, one of the folks at a Visitor center clued us into Farewell Spit, an area we were going to forego because it was well off our chosen route. As it turned out, Tahuna Park, our campground in Nelson was pretty bad (right under an airport takeoff path; lots of people permanently living there; undermaintained kitchens), and we didn't relish the idea of spending three days there as originally planned.

The side trip to Farewell Spit was long and we'd have to find some place relatively nearby to the Spit to make it a reasonable trip.

This is where the Frommer's guide was very weak. It caters more to the B&B crowd, and there isn't that much north (or west) of Nelson. The Lonely Planet book, however, paid for itself by suggesting a lot of options, providing maps of the little towns, and listing restaurants where we might stop at for "snack time."

If you do intend a trip to New Zealand, you'll definitely appreciate the Lonely Planet guide.


Indispensible for a trip to New Zealand   April 30, 2000
Gerrit Ruitinga (Antwerp)
75 out of 76 found this review helpful

There are probably countries you can visit without a Lonely Planet Guide. New Zealand is not one of these countries.The way to enjoy New Zealand is to travel from place to place and not to pre-book everything ( you are too dependent on the weather to do that and also it takes away the feeling of freedom this country has to offer). The more flexible you want to be on a trip the more important it is to have a good guide. We arrived in Auckland with only a general idea what we wanted to do in our three weeks and we found that we left all other guidebooks in the suitcase and relied exclusively on the Lonely Planet to plan our trip. The guide contains all necessary information and is surprisingly up to date. The most important is that it is not a commercial tourism promoter but that it gives you an honest impression on what there is that you can do.

E.G. it was pretty clear after reading the relevant chapters that for our family it was more appropiate to go to Wanaka instead of Queenstown because the children were not yet at an age that they could enjoy all the thrills of the latter and that Wanaka, whilst offering jetboating and biking was more appropiate.

We had the book continuously with us during the driving and it made the journey so much more interesting through knowing always a couple of KM ahead what the interesting sites and spots were.

The book could have been priced at a much higher level; we still would have bought it.

Highly recommended for every would be traveller to New Zealand


Lonely Planet New Zealand (9th edition)   April 4, 2000
James McConnell
26 out of 26 found this review helpful

We just returned from a one month excursion through Nea Zealand with this guide book constantly at our side. We found it invaluable in our daily selection of things to do and places to stay and eat. During our travels we also noted this guide being used by many other travellers and particularly in the hands of the hikers and backpackers. It was the most prominent of guide books available in the book shops and information centers throughout the country. Should be required reading by anyone preparing an unescorted visit to New Zealand and even for anyone on an organized tour it would be most helpful.


New Zealand--or bust!   October 24, 2002
magellan (Santa Clara, CA)
45 out of 49 found this review helpful

I looked at and compared this to all the other guides from Frommer's, Eyewitness, Footprint, Rough, Insight, Moon, and Fodor's, and I thought this one was the best.

I used this guide on an intensive, 3-week trip to New Zealand several years ago in which I drove over 6000 kilometers and got to just about every part of the country except Ninety-Mile Beach on the tip of the north island. I visited spots ranging from Stewart Island, Doubtful and Milford Sound, and Queenstown in the south, to the Coromandel Peninsula in the east, to the Franz-Josef glacier and the small western town of Greymouth in the west, to Lake Taupo and the capital city Auckland in the north. I crossed the southern Alps several times, and got to just about every major city and town, and I found the book very useful and accurate and a very valuable resource on my trip.

New Zealand is one of the most beautiful and delightful places you can visit, and there is something here for everybody. There is still quite a lot of wildlife, and in the south I saw lots of Tui birds, who are like myna birds in that they can immitate just about any noise, and shellducks, which are larger than any American ducks I've seen. One of them even raced me in my car on a road crossing the Alps for a while, until he surprised me by flying under my car and losing all his feathers. Oh well, I hope he grew back those feathers.

If you're into wildlife, another fun activity is to see the little blue penguins and the yellow-eyed penguins in the southeast coastal town of Oamaru. But watch out for those big shellducks. The big Kea parrots in the southern mountains are surprisingly bold. They come right up to you and you can get great pictures. A famous kea was the one that lived in a park in Sydney, Australia. This might be the only world-famous bird I've ever heard of. He would let the air out of automobile tires while people watched and laughed, which he seemed to do for the fun of it. As the New Zealanders say, they're cheeky little buggers.

Another thing not to miss is the New Zealand Wildlife Refuge on the main road north of Wellington on the way to Auckland. Several of the other things that I enjoyed that I learned about first from the book were (on the south island) the Te Anau glow- worm caves, the big boat tour of Doubtful Sound, the boat tour of Milford Sound (the wettest place on earth at sea level, with 25 feet of rain per year), and (on the north island) the Maori cultural town of Rotorua, which smells like rotten eggs everywhere because of all the volcanic steam vents containing sulfur dioxide. In fact, the steam comes out of the ground just about all over the city.

If you're the adventurous type, don't miss Queenstown in the south, the self-styled (and rightly so) adventure capital of the world. There you can do things like bungee-jump from a helicopter, and fly this interesting plane around which is tethered to a central pole. I don't know how many people do those things, but a popular attraction here is a jet-boat tour up one of the rivers. The aerial tramway in Queenstown up to the top of a local mountain gives you a spectacular view of the entire area. There is a decent restaurant at the top, which makes for a popular dining spot with a great view in the evening.

On the north island, another interesting and fun thing I did in Auckland was to take the Rangitoto Island tour in Auckland Bay on my last day there, which takes you around this small, volcanic island in the middle of the bay. Also Waiheke Island made for an interesting overnight stay in Auckland bay before flying out the next day. Kelly Tarkington's Arctic Experience is worth seeing. And last but not least, Auckland has some surprisingly good restaurants and dining.

Overall, an excellent and well-written guide and worth the price. New Zealand is one of the best and most enjoyable countries I've ever visited, and this guide was an important part of that experience on my trip.


Dense, Informative, Indispensable, and a dash of humor   October 21, 2001
J. Turner (Houston, Texas United States)
26 out of 27 found this review helpful

I used the Lonely Planet travel guides in my other adventures again and again, and love the pithy, been-there-done-that tone. This guide did not disappoint me. When I booked my flight to New Zealand, I did as I always did - a round trip ticket, a reservation for one night at a hotel (to get over the jet lag), and a desire to see the country. For the first two weeks I relied on the LP guide exclusively, and referred to it periodically whether I was on the North Island or the South Island.

I had the added benefit of a local friend to make suggestions, as well as the guidebook. Some destinations (which are well worth a visit) are not included in the book, but it didn't stop me from shark diving, whale watching, hiking (tramping as the locals call it), and otherwise running around the country.

This guide gives a fundamental, non-commercial impression on what, where, and how to get there. It also offers some historical/cultural information, and a lot of information about towns, attractions, restaurants, hotels (of various price ranges), and a few rough maps.

As an added bonus, when I got back, the book became a memento of the trip. My bookcase contains LP travel guides from the countries I have visited, and when nostalgia strikes, I have been known to pull it down.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who is about to travel to New Zealand for the first time, or anyone planning a trip.