New Zealand

The largest national park in New Zealand and one of the most spectacular wilderness areas on earth, Fiordland's fiords — carved by glaciers over two million years — are among the most dramatic coastal landscapes in the world. Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound are the most accessible and most famous, but the park's inner fiords — Dusky Sound, Breaksea Sound, Preservation Inlet — are accessible only to those who commit to expedition-level journeys by helicopter or small ship.

The most visited place in New Zealand and one of the world's great natural spectacles, Milford Sound is a 15-kilometer fiord flanked by granite walls rising 1,200 meters directly from the water, with Mitre Peak — the country's most photographed mountain — emerging from the sea. The fiord receives over 7 meters of rain annually, creating dozens of ephemeral waterfalls that appear and disappear with each weather system, and the wildlife — bottlenose dolphins, fur seals, Fiordland penguins — is encountered at close range year-round.

The self-styled adventure capital of the world, Queenstown sits on the shores of Lake Wakatipu beneath the jagged peaks of The Remarkables, offering the widest concentration of adrenaline activities in the southern hemisphere alongside some of New Zealand's finest restaurants and wine. Heli-skiing on the Harris Mountains, bungy jumping at the original Kawarau Bridge site, and jet boating through Skippers Canyon are the classic Queenstown experiences.

New Zealand's oldest national park and the first in the world to be gifted to a nation by its indigenous people — the Ngati Tuwharetoa gifted it to the Crown in 1887 — Tongariro's volcanic landscape includes three active volcanoes, one of which (Mount Ruapehu) last erupted in 2007. The Tongariro Alpine Crossing, widely considered New Zealand's finest day hike, traverses lava fields, emerald crater lakes, and active steam vents in a landscape that served as Mordor in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films.

New Zealand's smallest and most visited national park, Abel Tasman occupies a golden-sand coastal strip on the northern tip of the South Island where the sea shades from green to cobalt to turquoise in rapid succession. Sea kayaking between sheltered coves, swimming with New Zealand fur seals at Tonga Island, and walking the five-day Abel Tasman Coast Track — with water taxi support so you never carry more than a day's supplies — make this the country's most accessible wilderness experience.

A subtropical cruising ground of 144 islands two hours north of Auckland, the Bay of Islands is where New Zealand's colonial history began — the Waitangi Treaty, signed here in 1840, remains the country's founding document. Sailing the bay by private yacht between fishing villages, Maori pa sites, and deserted beaches, with swimming with wild dolphins as a daily possibility, makes this one of the finest sailing destinations in the southern hemisphere.