If you are an eager, fairly adventurous traveler then Australia and New Zealand are probably destinations that have been swimming in some subdirectory of your travel ambitions.Down under has lots of appeal. It’s English speaking, exotic, remote, filled with crazy looking plants and animals. Many Australians combine the best character qualities from around the globe: hardiness, humor and cordiality. Aussies are justifiably famous for outgoing character, and New Zealanders follow suit in their slightly more reserved manner. The Australians are masters of a vast, isolated, largely desert continent and their outlook shows independence of spirit and loads of aptitude. When the vast interior of your country is an inhospitable outback, then your ring of vibrant coastal cities are treated like causes for celebration, and for visitors this feeling is infectious.Like America, the Australian national history is short (and rowdy). Perhaps for this reason the Australians, like many Americans, are a people ready to welcome strangers with an open hand and broad smile, no questions asked. They like to play around with their own lively disposition and vernacular (Australian slang dictionary). One afternoon down under amongst friendly, helpful, vigorous Australians is usually enough to charm any visitor.The Kiwis (New Zealanders) typically have a slightly more gentrified, English disposition than the maverick Australians. The New Zealand outlook perhaps reflects that they are the smaller cousin in the Australian-New Zealand sphere of influence, and that they have more to show and more to lose than the desert-baked, walkabout Australians. Unlike the arid vastness of Australia, the Kiwis enjoy two main islands of incredible lushness that combine much of the topographical grandeur of Europe with the stunning, tropical features of the south Pacific islands.The natural abundance of New Zealand can stop you cold: tropical beaches, rain forests, boiling hot springs, towering Alps and blocked, English-like farmland. From half a world away it is easy to generalize the differences between New Zealand and Australia, but they are essentially different transplanted peoples making their home in similar geographic area. Australia is the land of the kangaroo, a hardy, indigenous animal that can survive traveling over deserts using the most energy conservative locomotive method known to any species on earth. By contrast, New Zealand is the land of the sheep, reliant on lots of water and grass, and transplanted wholly from the mother country (in New Zealand sheep outnumber people). Australia seems resolved with itself and its indigenous aboriginal peoples, where New Zealand seems to be looking over its shoulder back at England (and modern New Zealand has a somewhat awkward relationship with its native Maori peoples).What finally made me visit Australia and New Zealand was the record summer heat in Europe during 2003. I had two precious weeks to use in August, but where would I go? Based on the news of heat-related deaths in Europe the southern hemisphere looked like a great solution (it is winter there when it is summer in the northern hemisphere).European ski enthusiasts have long known the trick of turning summer into winter by training in the ski slopes of Queenstown, New Zealand. Reversing the seasons is not a motive calculated into many recreational travel plans, but it should be. What you are looking for, after all, is the chance to get away, change the scenery, to see something new. There can be no more profound change than traveling to the other side of the earth while reversing your seasons. On top of this, you find a new world of plants and animals. School kids know about wallabies and echidnas, but those animals are just the headliners. Imagine a world where green and red parrots fly around in pairs and land in a tree above you. Imagine being awakened in the morning by a bird that sounds like a bell, or another that makes a complicated, resonant call like a concerto played on a whistle flute (birds down under page).In short, it’s completely different, yet comfortably similar to visit Australia and New Zealand.The people are different (but familiar).The food is different (but familiar). Local chefs train in Europe but insist on returning to open their own restaurants in their own home towns.A burgeoning wine industry provides a glorious, sassy collection for you to sample at a fraction of the price of these same labels offered by New York?s biggest liquor importers.

If you are an eager, fairly adventurous traveler then Australia and New Zealand are probably destinations that have been swimming in some subdirectory of your travel ambitions.Down under has lots of appeal. It’s English speaking, exotic, remote, filled with crazy looking plants and animals. Many Australians combine the best character qualities from around the globe: hardiness, humor and cordiality. Aussies are justifiably famous for outgoing character, and New Zealanders follow suit in their slightly more reserved manner. The Australians are masters of a vast, isolated, largely desert continent and their outlook shows independence of spirit and loads of aptitude. When the vast interior of your country is an inhospitable outback, then your ring of vibrant coastal cities are treated like causes for celebration, and for visitors this feeling is infectious.Like America, the Australian national history is short (and rowdy). Perhaps for this reason the Australians, like many Americans, are a people ready to welcome strangers with an open hand and broad smile, no questions asked. They like to play around with their own lively disposition and vernacular (Australian slang dictionary). One afternoon down under amongst friendly, helpful, vigorous Australians is usually enough to charm any visitor.The Kiwis (New Zealanders) typically have a slightly more gentrified, English disposition than the maverick Australians. The New Zealand outlook perhaps reflects that they are the smaller cousin in the Australian-New Zealand sphere of influence, and that they have more to show and more to lose than the desert-baked, walkabout Australians. Unlike the arid vastness of Australia, the Kiwis enjoy two main islands of incredible lushness that combine much of the topographical grandeur of Europe with the stunning, tropical features of the south Pacific islands.The natural abundance of New Zealand can stop you cold: tropical beaches, rain forests, boiling hot springs, towering Alps and blocked, English-like farmland. From half a world away it is easy to generalize the differences between New Zealand and Australia, but they are essentially different transplanted peoples making their home in similar geographic area. Australia is the land of the kangaroo, a hardy, indigenous animal that can survive traveling over deserts using the most energy conservative locomotive method known to any species on earth. By contrast, New Zealand is the land of the sheep, reliant on lots of water and grass, and transplanted wholly from the mother country (in New Zealand sheep outnumber people). Australia seems resolved with itself and its indigenous aboriginal peoples, where New Zealand seems to be looking over its shoulder back at England (and modern New Zealand has a somewhat awkward relationship with its native Maori peoples).What finally made me visit Australia and New Zealand was the record summer heat in Europe during 2003. I had two precious weeks to use in August, but where would I go? Based on the news of heat-related deaths in Europe the southern hemisphere looked like a great solution (it is winter there when it is summer in the northern hemisphere).European ski enthusiasts have long known the trick of turning summer into winter by training in the ski slopes of Queenstown, New Zealand. Reversing the seasons is not a motive calculated into many recreational travel plans, but it should be. What you are looking for, after all, is the chance to get away, change the scenery, to see something new. There can be no more profound change than traveling to the other side of the earth while reversing your seasons. On top of this, you find a new world of plants and animals. School kids know about wallabies and echidnas, but those animals are just the headliners. Imagine a world where green and red parrots fly around in pairs and land in a tree above you. Imagine being awakened in the morning by a bird that sounds like a bell, or another that makes a complicated, resonant call like a concerto played on a whistle flute (birds down under page).In short, it’s completely different, yet comfortably similar to visit Australia and New Zealand.The people are different (but familiar).The food is different (but familiar). Local chefs train in Europe but insist on returning to open their own restaurants in their own home towns.A burgeoning wine industry provides a glorious, sassy collection for you to sample at a fraction of the price of these same labels offered by New York?s biggest liquor importers.