Many travel and expat forums will tell the entrepid traveller that if they visit only one place in New Zealand, make sure it's Queenstown.
There is so much material on the internet - tourism, activity marketing and personal travel stories - that it would be like throwing a match on a bonfire to make an inadequate attempt to add to the mass of excellent material available. There are also so many pictures of the unbelievably endless majestic beauty that surrounds the whole area and which will simply engulf any visitor so I have just added a few personal snaps of my experience.
What I can say is that from personal experience, it is an absolute "must do" on anyone's travel agenda - for both tourists and kiwis alike. It has a magical air and at once conjures up a sense of being in the company of the great travel destinations such as Zurich, Vancouver or the Alps but likewise a surreal sense of being on an epic movie set.
I am here at the end of winter and the snow still blankets the ski fields and, while I love the experience of snow, soft drizzle and misty mountains, my senses are attuned to imagine this beauty in dryer weather that can be enjoyed and consumed on my motorbike with my wife and other close riding buddies. The roads snaking through mountains and valleys beside rivers and lakes seems a dream for any biker and I'm planning to make this the pinnacle point of a South Island trip which is fast becoming more exciting to me than most other holiday options. Apart from the surrounding scenic options, Queenstown city itself is pretty with all the quaint picturesque options that make this a premier holiday spot.
Many kiwis say Queenstown is too expensive and has become a playground only the wealthy can afford and would sooner head off from Auckland International Airport to the Gold Coast in Australia, Thailand, Fiji or one of the many other foreign destinations available through travel packages offered so cheaply. I'm guessing that with so many foreigners flooding Queenstown the locals don't mind that kiwis feel that way.
We've had $10 all day breakfast special offers with $2.50 coffee in Arrowtown and a $15 all day steak special in central Queenstown. Yes, every adventure activity is pretty costly but then I'm easy to please. I'm quite happy driving around and admiring the scenes and sites. Call me old but I just don't need my thrills arranged for me as I would being a foreign visitor. I get my adrenalin fix from opening the throttle on my Hayabusa - and it's why I can't wait to be here on my "baby" combining my passion for riding and soaking in the most amazing scenery on offer which arguably would rank as some of the finest rugged, unspoilt available anywhere today.
Queenstown
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