New Zealand
Auckland is where almost every New Zealand trip begins, and it is usually given a night and dismissed. The city itself is spread out and unhurried, but the gulf on its doorstep — islands, volcanoes, vineyards, all a short ferry away — is what makes two or three days here worthwhile rather than one.
Auckland needs two days as the right minimum — one for the city and its volcanic cones, one for an island in the gulf — and a third for the west coast beaches or the wine region.
February and March — The most settled weather of the year. November and December — Late spring, warming and long.
Work out how many hours you will have in Auckland on your dates
Subtropical and maritime: mild all year, wetter in winter, and never extreme. The seasons are inverted relative to the northern hemisphere.
The most settled weather of the year
Late summer: warm, the sea at its warmest, and more reliable than December or January. The domestic holiday rush is over, so it is quieter and cheaper than the peak.
Late spring, warming and long
Long evenings, comfortable temperatures and the gulf coming into season. Book before the second half of December, when domestic holidays begin.
Autumn: mild, quiet, increasingly wet
Still pleasant and much cheaper, with more rain arriving. Fine for a city-and-islands trip if you can move a day around.
Winter: wet and windy rather than cold
Mild by northern standards but persistently wet, and the ferries are less appealing in rough weather. Cheapest time of year, and the city works fine — the gulf less so.
Two days is the right minimum: one for the city and its volcanic cones, one for an island in the gulf. A third opens the west coast beaches or the wine region north of the city.
The city is spread across an isthmus between two harbours, and it is not a walking city in the way Wellington or Melbourne are. Distances are real and a car or the ferries do most of the work.
The gulf is the reason to stay. Everything below is under an hour from the centre.
Auckland is built on some fifty volcanic cones and spread between two harbours, which makes it far more extensive than its population suggests. The centre is compact and walks well, but the real city stretches for kilometres in every direction.
For a two or three day trip, the centre or its immediate neighbourhoods make sense: they are beside the ferry terminal, which is the gateway to the gulf islands, and the buses heading west.
| Area | Who it suits | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| Centre (CBD and Viaduct) | The best base: beside the ferries, with restaurants on the waterfront. | An office and tower district; little charm and some night noise. |
| Ponsonby | The district with the most atmosphere: wooden villas, good restaurants and cafés. | It sits high; you walk down to the centre, and back up on the way home. |
| Parnell | Quiet and smart, beside the museum and the domain. | More residential, with less nightlife. |
| Devonport | Across the harbour, with a ferry and the best views of the city. | You depend on the ferry timetable, which is not continuous at night. |
The airport is to the south and has no train: you leave by SkyDrop bus or taxi, and in traffic the journey stretches considerably. It is one of the less impressive connections on this list.
What you actually need to decide, though, is not how to reach the hotel: it is whether to rent a car. Auckland is New Zealand's gateway and almost nobody comes for the city alone. The west coast beaches, the Coromandel peninsula and the caves to the south all need a car, and without one the trip shrinks a great deal.
Auckland's appeal is what surrounds it, and there is a geographic difference that surprises people: the west coast beaches have black volcanic sand and heavy surf, and the east coast ones have pale sand and calm water. They are under an hour apart and bear no resemblance to each other.
Auckland has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world, and that is the key to its food: here you eat Maori and Pacific Island cooking found nowhere else, alongside a very strong Asian scene from recent decades of migration.
Local produce is excellent and cheap for what it is: lamb, seafood, and a first-rate wine industry at the city's doorstep, on Waiheke and in Kumeu.
Auckland has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world, and that plus East Asian migration is what the food actually is. The seafood is excellent and the Pacific Island food is something you will not find at home. Practical notes: no tipping, the coffee standard is very high, and the good eating is spread across suburbs rather than concentrated downtown.
One neighbourhood that covers dinner
A ridge road west of the centre lined with restaurants, bars and small food halls, and the easiest single decision for an evening. It works because you can walk it and choose late rather than booking in advance. Vietnamese, Italian, Japanese and modern New Zealand cooking within a few hundred metres.
Check it on WikidataThe coffee, which New Zealand also claims to have invented
Espresso with steamed milk and minimal foam. Both New Zealand and Australia claim it and the argument is unsettled, which is a very Antipodean state of affairs. The standard here is consistently high; a café attached to a roastery is the reliable signal, and they open early.
Check it on WikidataThe thing to eat at the beach, done the local way
Battered fish and chips, wrapped in paper, eaten outdoors. Ask for it with a scoop of chips and eat it at Mission Bay or on the west coast beaches. The local fish to ask for is snapper or hoki; a shop that names the fish on the board rather than saying just fish is the better one.
Check it on WikidataThe national dessert, and the argument attached
Meringue, cream and fruit. New Zealand and Australia have disputed its origin for about a century, and the honest position is that the evidence points both ways depending on which archive you read. It is everywhere here in summer, and it is genuinely good when the shell is crisp and the middle is soft.
Check it on WikidataTwo or three days in Auckland is inside the free version. A longer New Zealand route, with the transport between stops, is Premium.
