New Zealand’s food story is worth travelling for. People often ask me what New Zealand food actually is, and I never have a tidy answer. France has a cuisine. So does Italy, so does Japan. Say the name and a whole tradition arrives with it, based on centuries of tradition and culture, and instantly recognisable. […]

A client once asked me, on the 14th tee at Cape Kidnappers, why nobody had mentioned his handicap all week. I told him I had stopped listening for it around day three. He looked almost relieved. That doesn’t mean golf is incidental on these trips. It isn’t. Tee times, slope ratings, signature holes all matter […]

It restores people without trying to. The wellness travel industry has become extraordinarily good at packaging the one thing that cannot be packaged. Rest. Genuine, unscheduled, nervous-system-level rest. Walk through any luxury travel fair and you will find sleep retreats, breathwork itineraries, cold plunge protocols, and anti-inflammatory meal programmes layered into every second proposal. There […]

I have always thought New Zealand’s wilder places work best when people are given time to meet them properly. Not in a rushed, heroic sort of way, and not with the expectation that every hour outside has to become a story. More often, it happens quite quietly. Someone steps out of the vehicle in Fiordland […]

What gives a place its identity? A few years ago, while hosting a couple from the US for Aroha Luxury New Zealand Tours, I took them to see a glassblower in Whanganui; it wasn’t on their itinerary, but it happened to be on the main route we were following. I had a sense that they […]

When different generations in the same family travel together, there are multiple considerations to take into account, and it significantly changes the feel of the trip. When parents, children, and grandparents explore a foreign destination together, the experience becomes extraordinary and magical. It becomes less about seeing everything and more about sharing the time. New […]