Mar 21st, 2012 at 9:00AM:
As I hope I've exhibited in penning the series "Freedom to Roam," there are few better travel experiences than touring New Zealand by campervan. Trekking through the Southern Alps, exploring hidden wine regions, sampling freshly caught seafood, basking on lazy beaches -- all are accessible by simply putting four wheels beneath your feet and hitting the open road.
That being said, all of ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
freedomtoroam posts
How to sell a campervan in New Zealand
Mar 21st, 2012 at 9:00AM:
As I hope I've exhibited in penning the series "Freedom to Roam," there are few better travel experiences than touring New Zealand by campervan. Trekking through the Southern Alps, exploring hidden wine regions, sampling freshly caught seafood, basking on lazy beaches -- all are accessible by simply putting four wheels beneath your feet and hitting the open road.
That being said, all of ...New Zealand's King Country: Historically off limits, still beautifully empty
Mar 9th, 2012 at 12:00PM: It isn't often you are able to pet a stingray while firmly standing on land. Somehow, however, this is exactly what I found myself doing while watching the sunset in New Zealand's Aotea Harbor. A little visited eco-outpost on the west coast of the North Island, the coastal estuary, which creeps inland, has created a sheltered harbor reputed to be the final resting place of a waka, or canoe, ...Guide to the ultimate "man day" on New Zealand's Coromandel peninsula
Mar 1st, 2012 at 11:00AM:
Caution: In this article the author makes wildly general, mildly controversial, and borderline sexist remarks, none of which are meant to be offensive. Any abrasive remarks can be attributed to an obscene adrenaline rush derived from an extended period of time in the great outdoors. And maybe the feijoa juice.
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Don't get me wrong, the Coromandel Peninsula on the North Island of New ...The two worlds of Waiheke, New Zealand's paradise island
Feb 20th, 2012 at 9:00AM:
Sipping a succulent syrah inside of the beachfront tasting room at Man O' War winery, a quick glance of the room is all it takes to confirm I'm out of my element.
To my left, a middle-aged man sporting crocodile shoes and hair of a dubious authenticity casually flashes a credit card for $500 of the vineyard's finest vintage. To my right, a suntanned yachtie with a bushy white mustache ...Hiking across Mordor in Tongariro National Park
Feb 10th, 2012 at 11:00AM:
There aren't many places where you feel the urge to wear your wedding ring around your neck and begin dodging fictional forces of evil.
New Zealand's Tongariro National Park, however, is exactly one of those places.
As anyone who has been to a movie theater in the last ten years probably knows, New Zealand was the setting for the epically popular Lord of the Rings trilogy which ...Stand up paddling with stingrays in New Zealand's Murderer's Bay
Feb 3rd, 2012 at 10:00AM:
Though Captain James Cook was the first European to set foot on the islands of New Zealand in 1769, he was not the first European to "discover it". That honor would belong to Dutch explorer Abel Tasman who sailed past the country while navigating the Southern Ocean for the Dutch east India Company in 1642.
Blown off course by a strong easterly wind, Abel Tasman first sighted the northwest ...Kaikoura, New Zealand: Surfing, seals, and seafood
Jan 27th, 2012 at 12:00PM:
"The chowder isn't the type you have back in the States" I am warned.
The brunette woman working the oceanfront seafood cart has detected my accent and is concerned I won't like her steaming bowl of mollusks.
"There isn't much cream, just freshly made broth mixed with massive chunks of crayfish and mussels."
Facing the kelp strewn waters of the Kaikoura Peninsula, a popular hamlet on ...Franz Josef glacier: Big icy tongue of the rainforest
Jan 25th, 2012 at 9:00AM:
"The Franz Josef Glacier is so singularly beautiful, so beautiful indeed, and centered amongst such vivid, exceptional, and picturesque surroundings that if it were situated in any other country than New Zealand it would have long ago been acclaimed 'The Most Beautiful Thing in the World'"
–E.E. Muir (1929)
Don't look now, but in New Zealand there are currently two icy tongues ...The best walk in the world? Tackling New Zealand's Routeburn Track
Jan 19th, 2012 at 9:00AM:
"I keep wondering whether I really like tramping...the cold and the loneliness and the fear--do they outweigh the magnificence, the terrible impersonal glory of the mountains?"
-Charles Brusch, Poet-
14 miles is too far to walk when you're on vacation. And in the mountains. And carrying a pack. And with your wife, who, to be fair, is a trooper.
14 miles in a day is brutal, ...Growing on the edge: Wine tasting in the southernmost wine region of the world
Jan 16th, 2012 at 11:00AM:
On a morning in which I had no intention of drinking alcohol (yes, morning) I somehow found myself having a glass of what has officially been called the best wine in the entire world.
This is what happens when you take road trips, you stumble upon things. In this particular instance I happened to stumble upon a region I originally had little intention of exploring, only to find out it's one ...Freedom to Roam: The Southern Alps by helicopter
Jan 13th, 2012 at 11:00AM:
No, the Southern Alps aren't in the south of France or Italy as the name may lead you to believe. Rather, they are 12 time zones away in a remote corner of the Pacific Ocean and form the spine of the rugged South Island of New Zealand. Home to National Parks such as Mt. Aspiring, Mt. Cook, Arthur's Pass, and Fiordland, the similarities to their European counterparts are so similar, ...Bullriding Kiwis: Rodeo at the bottom of the world
Jan 6th, 2012 at 11:00AM:
"These riders aren't some dope smokers from the local pub. They aren't some hippie who's trying to molest your grandmother. These are real riders here. And they are men."
-Wanaka Rodeo announcer-
As friends back home in the United States nursed a New Year's Day hangover by sipping lemon lime Gatorades and watching Comedy Central movie marathons, the campervan had already driven straight ...Freedom to roam: New Zealand by campervan
Jan 4th, 2012 at 10:30AM:
Well. It's official. For the next three months I am officially living in my car.
No, this vagabond hasn't fallen on hard times (yet), but rather, I am going to be embedded in the back of a 1995 Toyota campervan in the magnificent country of New Zealand, where, for the record, summer is just beginning.
While this isn't my first campervan endeavor around "The Land of the Long White Cloud", ...
