New Zealand (Moon Guides), by Jamie Chistian Desplaces

There ae a few things that one learns when one reads a travel guide about New Zealand that is this extensive, so much so that it runs over 600 pages in length. Admittedly, some of these things had already been learned, such as the fact that a lot of what is most compelling to do in New Zealand is either time-consuming or expensive, and often requires a fairly large amount of physical effort, including hiking for days in remote parts of the country or trying to hide from psychotic kiwis. Speaking of the kiwis, there is a massive amount of places in New Zealand that are dedicated to helping kiwi numbers improve despite the fact that kiwis are psychotic enough birds that they chew through the rubber around car windows. That said, I think it would be good to see yellow-eyed penguins as well as kiwis from a point of safety, and it’s good that people want rare birds to live. This book not only captures the physical beauty of New Zealand but also comments that even those cities in the country that aren’t as beautiful still have worthwhile qualities, often history, museums, and access to other places like fjords or mountains or glaciers, some of which would be lovely to see if one got the chance to do so.

One of the advantages of making a book the size that this one is that there are a lot of details that one can include. Surprisingly enough, among the details that this book includes are that there are a lot of places that are compelling to visit but not particularly close to hotels. Some of the places that would be best to visit (especially towards the southern end of the South Island and Stewart Island, which is to the south of the South Island) are those that have the fewest places nearby to stay. The places that have a lot of places to stay tend to include the large cities and vacation places that are the most accessible. Still, there are still a lot of places that are worth exploring and the book gives plenty of ideas for the sorts of places that one would want to see based on one’s time, physical activity level, and budget. Whether that means helicopter tours of glaciers or bus trips from city to city to car ferries between islands, there are a lot of choices, and it certainly gives the reader something to think about when it comes to exploring the country of New Zealand.

This book is more than 650 pages long. It begins with a discussion of the sorts of things that one should discover in New Zealand (frequently and lamentably called Aotearoa New Zealand throughout the volume) if one has a couple of weeks to hit the highlights. This is followed by a regional discussion of various sections, starting with Auckland and its surrounding areas, which makes sense as the largest city of the country. This is followed by a discussion of what sights are present in the Northland (including some long voices). After this the book focuses on the rest of the North Island, starting with Waikato, Bay of Plenty, and the Coromandel, Rotorua and the volcanic heartland (including Taupo), the East Cape and Hawke’s Bay areas, Taranaki and Whanganui, and then Wellington, the southern end of the North Island and the nation’s capital. The book then turns its attention to the beauties of the less populated South Island, starting with Marlborough and Nelson Tasman, Christchurch and the rest of the Canterbury area, the sparsely populated West Coast, Queenstown and the Otago Peninsula (including Dunedin), as well as Fiordland and Southland and Stewart Island. After this the author discusses the background of New Zealand, essential information, resources, an index, and a list of maps.