For the fifth year running, New Zealand has been declared the best in the world in the UK Daily Telegraph’s travel awards. It has also been named as one of the top 10 countries in Lonely Planet’s 2018 Best of Travel.
Almost 90,000 Daily Telegraph readers voted on the British newspaper’s annual list of the world’s 50 greatest countries. The voters gave abundant urban adventures and wilderness activities as reasons for their choice, along with scenery on a Lord of the Rings scale, living Māori culture, having family and other connections, and New Zealand’s mild climate, fine wine and food, low rates of crime and pollution, and lack of creepy crawlies. Air New Zealand came fourth in the top 10 long-haul airlines.
Lonely Planet placed New Zealand fifth on its roll call of the top 10 countries to visit in 2018. It’s the country’s second time on the list, after first appearing on it in 2010.
The global travel authority focused on New Zealand’s nine Great Walks through pristine landscapes, and its natural effervescence – volcanoes, glaciers, Rotorua’s geysers and bubbling mud pools, and geothermally heated beaches like Hot Water Beach on Coromandel Peninsula.
It referred to drawcards such as the beaches of Abel Tasman National Park, the mountains of Tongariro and Aoraki Mt Cook National Parks, and Route 6, the state highway running the length of the South Island’s west coast.
The vitality and character of Auckland and Wellington also received honourable mentions by Lonely Planet. Travel & Leisure magazine named both cities, plus Queenstown, among the top five cities in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, and Waiheke as the region’s best island.'
Source: Tourism New Zealand
