New Zealand adventure vacations are always a unique experience, and many guests don’t realize that they are also synonymous with first-class luxury for the discerning traveler. In particular, there is the vacation experience of touring the many beautiful islands of New Zealand, be they the main north and south islands, or the numerous smaller ones sprinkled along the coastlines. Each is beautiful and exciting in its own way, offering new experiences for every visitor. The only difficult part about the trip is figuring out which of the islands to experience first.

The luxury side of things comes in the travel arrangements. One could easily take the ferries to islands such as Great Barrier or Waiheke, but there are much lovelier options on hand as well. Luxury catamaran sailboats can be chartered out for several days at a time, offering complete comfort and the joy of sun and waves during the journey between destinations. Many such trips come complete with diving experiences as well, allowing visitors a peek at the beautiful undersea life around New Zealand.

Waiheke is a unique place, showcasing the variety of experiences available to New Zealand vacationers. Home to both olive groves and vineyards, it has a unique food culture that is a delight to explore, with wine tastings and olive samplings for guests to participate in as they come by to visit.

Alternatively, there are islands such as Great Barrier, with rugged forest terrain that allows for an invigorating hike or adventure bicycling tour. These are often an exciting counterpoint to the comfortable decadence that comes from the sailing experience. Guests can explore the island ’til their hearts are content, then return to their ship and collapse into easygoing relaxation once again, enjoying a fine wine as they leave the adventure behind them for another evening.

Matakauri Lodge in Queenstown represents the kind of luxury New Zealand vacation that has become famous over the years. Proudly calling itself a small, luxury, five-star boutique hotel, the lodge emphasizes a quiet, personal vacation experience with all the things that make getting away from it all so worthwhile.

The rooms are well-appointed, decked out with the best in comfortable furnishings. There are accommodations for every taste, from small and intimate Lodge Rooms to the expansive Deluxe Suites with their commanding views of the local scenery. Rooms can be had in locations either distant from the main facilities in order to maintain privacy or closer in for a chance to mingle with the other guests and take advantage of the group amenities.

The common facilities are quite versatile, able to fulfill just about any traveler’s wishes. There’s a gym for those who enjoy a good workout to get the blood flowing. A full luxury spa is set among the beautiful pine forests, offering all manner of full body treatments ranging from pedicures to total body wraps to draw out any lingering tensions from before the vacation. There is even a spectacular outdoor swimming pool and Jacuzzi, both heated for enjoyment year-round.

Fine dining is taken to its most artistic and refined form at the lodge as well. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are offered with menus that change daily and showcase the very best in New Zealand’s native ingredients. Guests also can also schedule pre-dinner drinks if they wish to mingle with their fellow vacationers, as many of the region’s famous wines, cocktails and beers are ready for sampling. Picnics and private dining experiences also can be set up with the hotel staff, allowing for total control of your vacation interactions.

The Matakauri Lodge is a fine example of what a small operation can achieve in terms of complete and unrestricted luxury for a discerning traveler, and should be high on any list for accommodations during a vacation to New Zealand.

Matakauri Lodge is a luxurious, five-star resort in historic Queenstown, New Zealand. From the moment that you arrive in Auckland, you can charter a plane or car to take you to Queenstown and your opulent lodgings. While the car ride will allow you to admire the breathtaking scenery as you seek your destination, the plane will give you an aerial view of some of the most spectacular landscape in the natural world, making a stay at the lodge a much-desired part of New Zealand luxury vacations.

The lodge is located at Lake Wakatipu. From the moment that you arrive, you will witness the remarkable Cecil and Walter Peak mountain ranges just outside of your window. The lodge, being only 7 minutes away from Queenstown, also offers you a virtual alpine lakeside retreat that is perfectly situated in one of the world’s most tranquil and exquisite landscapes. As soon as you arrive, you will be glad that your New Zealand luxury vacation began at the lodge.

You will gain access to beautiful living and dining areas as well as a full-service luxury spa, swimming pool and fitness center. The rooms are bright, colorful and spacious as well as tranquil and serene. Each room is decorated with a fresh and contemporary style and just a hint of glamour that will make you feel like royalty.

For meals, you will be privy to some of the region’s best gourmet foods and the finest local wines. Should you have used one of your excursions out of the lodge to go fishing on the lake, the chefs will even prepare your catch for you by turning it into one of their mouthwatering gourmet creations. You can enjoy your meals in the dining room with other guests, or you can eat your meals privately. Room service is available with just a mention.

If you are looking for a five-star experience and a panoramic view of some of the best mountain scenery that you will ever see just outside of your rooms during your New Zealand luxury vacation, the Matakauri Lodge will certainly provide it.

If you love golf and are thinking of taking a New Zealand luxury vacation, why not do both? The golf opportunities that you can get in New Zealand are spectacular — you will never find golf as breathtakingly beautiful as when you hit the fairway on any of the exquisite courses in New Zealand.

For the real golf connoisseur, there are many different vacation packages to choose from. You can take both the North and South Island tours. Each has its own unique panoramic scenery to make your New Zealand luxury vacation a golf excursion for the ages.

Should you choose to go with any of the golf packages for your New Zealand luxury vacation, depending on your location you will be privy to long range mountain backdrops in the North while you line up your drives and you can stare in awe at the amazing forestry that surrounds you as you ride from hole to hole. If the landscape in South Island can’t put you “in the zone,” nothing can. The air in the fabulous South Islands is crisp and clean and unlike any place else on Earth. You also can sample some of the region’s best gourmet foods at the country clubs and enjoy the area’s famous wines.

This country’s golfing is just superb. The many 18-hole courses are absolutely rich with greenery and posh luxury at every hole. Many of the luxury vacation packages in North and South Island come complete with lodgings, full-day golf and scenic tours. You also have the option of venturing out and exploring some of the country’s best attractions on your own or with a guide. New Zealand golf resorts and country clubs are so opulent that you will even enjoy time spent in the bunkers.

With so many regions to choose from for your golf vacation package, the only real question will be which one of the many beautiful locales will you choose? Areas include Queenstown, Auckland, Rotura, Cape Kidnappers, Paraparaumu Beach and many more, each of which offers its very own specialized golf vacation packages. Each area offers its region’s best in gourmet food and wines and cultural experiences, but you will also enjoy luxury accommodations with every amenity. Besides great golf, you can expect adventure and excitement should you decide to go exploring into the country. You’ve never taken a golf vacation like this before!

If you are craving some excitement during your Southern New Zealand luxury vacation, you will not want to miss out on your chance to take a glacier heli tour.

Southern Glacier Helicopter Tours can give you a bird’s eye view of Queenstown and Milford Sound. These spectacular scenic tours will guide you over some of New Zealand’s most famous mountains, lakes, glaciers and fiords. These luxury travel tours will bring you over Fiordland National Park as well as Mount Aspiring to see some of the world’s most beautiful landscape. One of Glacier Helicopter Tours’ most popular experiences is landing on a glacier just so that you can get the feel of a real-life glacier to take into your memory and share with friends.

You can take a private charter or meet up with some other travelers that share the same interests with you. These tours get more and more exciting as you go along. Some of the extreme experiences that you can have with Glacier are:

• If you think you can handle it, you can take a wild ride while going heli skiing over some of the most rough and tumble terrain imaginable;
• Witness a different side of the beautiful Queenstown alpine resort by enjoying an aerial perspective of Lake Wakatipu, Coronet Peak, the Kawarau Gorge and Skippers Canyon; and
• Let Glacier Helicopter Tours take you to remote locations to go hunting and fishing that regular travelers just can’t reach.

It doesn’t matter if you want to relax and enjoy the scenery from above or if you want to actively explore the area. The best luxury travel that money can buy is through helicopters because you can access private regions that other people can’t access and heli tours offer you the kind of adventurous travel that even off-road driving can’t match. Glacier Helicopter Tours are only for those elite travelers that are willing to pay top dollar to gain private access to some of New Zealand’s premiere vacation spots. With these tours, you will gain bragging rights for life.

Blanket Bay is one of the most-sought-after accommodations for travelers who are looking for an unforgettable New Zealand luxury vacation.

From the moment that you arrive in Queenstown, you have your choice of being picked up by a chauffeur-driven luxury car or letting a private jet or helicopter whisk you to Blanket Bay. As this luxury travel service offers you some of the most breathtaking views during your trip, the privacy you will have will give you time to fully enjoy the tranquil journey and think about the grandeur that awaits you at the lodge.

Each of the fully-equipped lodges, chalets and staterooms are packed with some of New Zealand’s most elegant designs in architecture and art. You will be surrounded in opulence as you gaze outside of your windows to see absolutely breathtaking landscapes and forestry. With an on-site gym and spa services, you will be able to relax in a way that seems almost surreal. As if the spectacular grandeur of the inside of the accommodations weren’t enough, the activities outdoors are even more exciting. Here is a list of just some of the exciting activities you can expect to do during your New Zealand luxury vacation at Blanket Bay:

• Relax in silent seclusion while fly fishing;
• Fish some of the area’s most remote and unvisited areas while heli-fishing;
• Explore the famous landscape while hiking;
• Experience the extreme adventure of heli-skiing;
• Take advantage of the solitude while horseback riding;
• Go par for the course at Jack’s Point golf course; and
• Sample some of the region’s best during the wine and arts trail tour.

All of these amazing activities will certainly work up a hunger during your New Zealand luxury vacation and Blanket Bay offers you some of the region’s best food to help cap off your day. You can dine privately or in the main dining hall. Here you will dine on some of the best gourmet foods that New Zealand has to offer. New Zealand is famous for its contemporary style of cooking foods with enriched flavors that you can’t get any place else. It’s the perfect way to experience your time in a country that is rich in culture and absolutely unsurpassed in beautiful landscapes.

When most people think of New Zealand luxury vacations, they immediately think of snow-capped Alps and icy mountainsides. While these can be seen in Queenstown and North Island, Kiwi Dundee Adventures offers luxury travelers a different side of the real New Zealand that is rich in forestry and coastal wonders.

From the moment that you arrive in the Coromandel Peninsula, you will see that South Island and Queenstown is a virtual paradise of native forests, breathtaking mountains and tranquil national parks that offers travelers the chance to see horticulture and farming at its richest. This is where you can find glowworms along with the friendliest people that you can meet. When Kiwi Dundee is your guide through all of this, you know that your journey will be unforgettable.

There are different tours and activities to suit your every need, along with professional staff to satisfy your every whim. Adventurers can choose from one- to three-day tours that will travel through the North Island Highlights. You can go hiking on the mountains if you’re hard core, or you can just stroll at your own leisurely pace so that you have time to truly take in the wonders all around you.

Should you prefer to take an educational tour so that you can learn all about the history and culture of the area, Kiwi Dundee also has a tour perfect for you. The educational tour is wonderful for the New Zealand luxury vacation traveler and hobbyists such as bird watchers, gardeners, horticulturists and photographers who are looking to expand their knowledge while viewing some of the species that are indigenous to New Zealand.

This is one luxury travel company that truly keeps the traveler in mind. Kiwi Dundee adventures are designed to be the best in luxury travel. The landscape is not only rich in beauty but informative. When you leave any of these tours, you can rest assured that you will have a story to tell that will be unmatched by any you’ve heard. I guarantee that you’ve never seen North Island and Queenstown like this before!

As if taking a spectacular New Zealand luxury vacation wasn’t enough to give you an unforgettable lifetime experience, Limousines South is there to take you all around Queenstown in state-of-the-art style.

Limousines South is a luxury travel company that offers you the best luxury travel for your money. Based in Queenstown, this travel service takes full advantage of their fleet of limousine sedans, luxury people-movers and small tour coaches so that they can ensure that you will get where you want to go surrounded by informed guides that can answer almost any question that you may have.

It doesn’t matter where travelers want to go as they begin their travels in New Zealand because most travelers prefer to make Queenstown their home base. That is why this premiere luxury travel company set up shop in this amazing little hotspot. Set high in the Southern Alps, Queenstown is world-famous and viewed by the rest of the world as the country’s scenic gem. Appropriately, there are a lot of tourist activities available here that you can’t get any place else in the world.

Some of the services that you can expect to receive from Limousines South are:

• Airport and hotel transfers to ensure that you reach your accommodations in style;
• Customized full- and half-day scenic tours complete with a guide to give you information on the region that you are visiting;
• Customized South Island tours to guide you through the snow-capped mountain view of the region;
• Foreign language drivers to help those travelers that don’t speak English; and
• Tours around Queenstown that are fully-guided and with scenery that you will not see anywhere else.

There is a reason why Limousines South is considered by many to be the best luxury travel service in Queenstown. With unsurpassed quality and a fully-knowledgeable staff to fulfill your every whim, why would you need to go to any other luxury travel company?

Some of the more popular New Zealand vacation packages are centered around the country’s famous and numerous music festivals, of which the Queenstown Jazzfest is most noteworthy.

Scheduled to begin October 21st this year, the Jazzfest is a massive event. First held in 1978 as a fairly small, local celebration of New Zealand’s jazz culture, it has grown to an international clearinghouse that serves as a starting point for emerging and young talent in the music field. In 2008, the festival hosted more than 50 bands and 200 artists, and this year it will host the traditional youth and non-emerging talent competitions, giving a sample of all that’s new and vital in the world of New Zealand jazz.

Traditional jazz, if one could ever call jazz traditional, won’t be the only style on display either. Blues, Latin fusion music, R&B and Dixie tunes brought all the way from the United States will be present, as well. Anything goes as far as musical style is concerned, and the sheer number of concerts means that the entertainment will continue morning, noon and night.

Of course, Queenstown is an excellent venue for the concert series. Set amid the mountains around Lake Wakatipu, the city is home to some truly gorgeous vistas and traveling experiences. Between events at the festival, guests of the city can explore its vibrant artistic district or sample the local cuisine in one of the many cafés and artsy diners. Alternatively, they can take a trip up the hills and experience the famous Queenstown Bungee jump, or simply enjoy a relaxing picnic in the forests on the mountainsides. The coal-fired steamship TSS Earnslaw provides a unique experience for those eager to see the lake, offering tours around the body of water. And the city is home to some outstanding hotels and accommodations for tired travelers to return to at the end of a night of music, mirth and mystery.

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Established on the principle that tourism need not conflict with ecological responsibility or damage a region’s natural resources, the Wilderness Lodge at Lake Moeraki is an outstanding example of a destination that combines luxurious, adventurous travel with environmental responsibility to create an amazing, unforgettable New Zealand vacation package.

The facilities are comfortably appointed for guests of the lodge. There are two sets of rooms, the Rainforest and Riverview rooms. Rainforest rooms are set up for travelers on a budget or for small families, capable of serving two adults and one child up to 12 years of age. Each Rainforest room has a full bathroom, as well as fresh fruit delivered daily along with tea and coffee making facilities. Riverfront rooms are the higher-luxury option, with decks overlooking the Moeraki river rapids. They also include their own spa baths, along with separate shower units.

The menu fare at the lodge is as outstanding as the living accommodations, of course. Delicacies such as red wine mushroom soup, old dark beer ice cream with pecan pie and a delicious venison dish are available, as are special vegetarian creations per request. The lodge also has an exceptional wine list, as well as a variety of teas and coffees sure to match the palette of any connoisseur.

Of course, there are reasons to vacation beyond the immediate place one is staying. The lodge has a number of activities available for the adventurous. First are a number of nature walks, including the Lodge Signature Penguin and Seals tramping adventure, which includes views of the aforementioned creatures along with wine and refreshments on the beach following some boulder climbing. There is also the option to take an invigorating canoe trip down the Moeraki River, with one course for those who want a comfortable and leisurely afternoon and another for experienced boaters who demand a good, vigorous ride.

So whether you’re looking for a peaceful and quiet getaway amid beautiful, responsibly-tended surroundings or a clothes-soaked river-riding getaway, the Wilderness Lodge Moeraki is sure to deliver on your expectations.

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