New Zealand · 2 PLACES TO EXPLORE

A little more
of New Zealand.

Find places to visit in New Zealand. See what catches your eye, then save a few favorites for your trip.

New Zealand · NZ

Rangitoto ki te Tonga / D'Urville Island

Rangitoto ki te Tonga / D'Urville Island is the rugged outermost sentinel of New Zealand's Marlborough Sounds, a 163-square-kilometre landmass where ancient beech forest meets wild western seas and just fifty-two people live year-round. Named after French explorer Jules Cesar Dumont d'Urville, who nearly lost his ship Astrolabe threading the violent currents of French Pass in 1827, this island rewards visitors willing to trade a short water taxi ride for a genuine sense of remoteness. The Māori name Rangitoto ki te Tonga evokes a red sky, either from dramatic sunsets or an ancient fire, and the island sits at the intersection of deep human history and extraordinary natural recovery. Because the island is free of possums and ship rats, its native forests ring with birdsong that early European visitors described as impossibly beautiful. Joseph Banks, botanist aboard Cook's Endeavour, wrote of a nearby sounds' morning chorus as the most melodious wild music he had ever heard, almost imitating small bells. On D'Urville today, that dawn chorus is loud enough to wake the deepest sleeper, with tui, bellbirds, robins, weka, and kākā filling the canopy.

Tourist attraction

New Zealand · NZ

Kawhia Hot Water Beach

Kawhia Hot Water Beach is one of New Zealand's most delightful natural oddities: a broad sweep of black iron sand on the Tasman Sea coast where, at low tide, you can grab a spade, dig yourself a hole in the beach, and watch it fill with geothermally heated seawater. There is no pool, no ticket, no queue—just you, your own hand-dug spa, and waves breaking a few metres away. It is the west coast's quieter, wilder answer to the famous Hot Water Beach on the Coromandel. The springs—known locally as Te Puia, the underground geothermal source—bubble up through a roughly 100-metre stretch of sand near the low-tide mark on Ocean Beach, about four kilometres west of the small harbour village of Kawhia in the Waikato region. The window to dig is narrow: the hot zone is only exposed for around two hours either side of low tide, when the retreating sea uncovers the heated sand. Time your visit right, ideally so the falling tide coincides with sunset, and you get a steaming private bath while the sun sinks over the open Tasman. What makes Kawhia special is its unpolished, do-it-yourself charm. Far fewer people make it this deep into the west-coast Waikato than flock to the Coromandel, so even in summer the beach rarely feels crowded. You supply the effort and the equipment; in return you get solitude, striking coastal scenery and an authentic little slice of Kiwi beach-town life, set against the harbour that is the ancestral landing place of the Tainui waka.

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New Zealand · 2 PLACES TO EXPLORE

A little more
of New Zealand.

Find places to visit in New Zealand. See what catches your eye, then save a few favorites for your trip.

Island

New Zealand · NZ

Rangitoto ki te Tonga / D'Urville Island

Rangitoto ki te Tonga / D'Urville Island is the rugged outermost sentinel of New Zealand's Marlborough Sounds, a 163-square-kilometre landmass where ancient beech forest meets wild western seas and just fifty-two people live year-round. Named after French explorer Jules Cesar Dumont d'Urville, who nearly lost his ship Astrolabe threading the violent currents of French Pass in 1827, this island rewards visitors willing to trade a short water taxi ride for a genuine sense of remoteness. The Māori name Rangitoto ki te Tonga evokes a red sky, either from dramatic sunsets or an ancient fire, and the island sits at the intersection of deep human history and extraordinary natural recovery. Because the island is free of possums and ship rats, its native forests ring with birdsong that early European visitors described as impossibly beautiful. Joseph Banks, botanist aboard Cook's Endeavour, wrote of a nearby sounds' morning chorus as the most melodious wild music he had ever heard, almost imitating small bells. On D'Urville today, that dawn chorus is loud enough to wake the deepest sleeper, with tui, bellbirds, robins, weka, and kākā filling the canopy.

Tourist attraction

New Zealand · NZ

Kawhia Hot Water Beach

Kawhia Hot Water Beach is one of New Zealand's most delightful natural oddities: a broad sweep of black iron sand on the Tasman Sea coast where, at low tide, you can grab a spade, dig yourself a hole in the beach, and watch it fill with geothermally heated seawater. There is no pool, no ticket, no queue—just you, your own hand-dug spa, and waves breaking a few metres away. It is the west coast's quieter, wilder answer to the famous Hot Water Beach on the Coromandel. The springs—known locally as Te Puia, the underground geothermal source—bubble up through a roughly 100-metre stretch of sand near the low-tide mark on Ocean Beach, about four kilometres west of the small harbour village of Kawhia in the Waikato region. The window to dig is narrow: the hot zone is only exposed for around two hours either side of low tide, when the retreating sea uncovers the heated sand. Time your visit right, ideally so the falling tide coincides with sunset, and you get a steaming private bath while the sun sinks over the open Tasman. What makes Kawhia special is its unpolished, do-it-yourself charm. Far fewer people make it this deep into the west-coast Waikato than flock to the Coromandel, so even in summer the beach rarely feels crowded. You supply the effort and the equipment; in return you get solitude, striking coastal scenery and an authentic little slice of Kiwi beach-town life, set against the harbour that is the ancestral landing place of the Tainui waka.