travelFREAK

This past New Years I attended the Rhythm and Vines music festival in Gisborne, New Zealand. Gisborne is the most easterly city in the world, meaning it’s the first city to welcome the sun every day, and the New Year every year! From Wellington, Gisborne is about a seven hour drive. Hitch-hiking, though, turned this [...]

It happened quickly and was over before I even had a chance to process what had just happened. It didn’t ripple through Wellington, splitting sidewalks and battering buildings, but the earth literally shook underneath me. And I felt it. Ever since the big New Zealand earthquakes earlier this year, I’ve been a bit fascinated, perhaps [...]

Many countries are known for their cities. London, Beijing, New York. New Zealand was put on the map by its  stunning scenery and Peter Jackson’s usage of it in his movies. (Side note: I ran into Peter Jackson in a kebab shop last week!) Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand, is a lovable place [...]

Ah, the hostel life: living out of a backpack, turning dirty underwear inside out and sharing ten-bed dorms with other smelly backpackers. It’s times like these that amplify the comfort of small luxuries. Expensive internet, broken stove-tops and two-minute noodles are a very important part of the backpacker life that many of us have come [...]

Who knew that a city could actually have scenery? That’s the great bit about New Zealand, though–there’s no escaping it! The summit is host to 360-degree views of Wellington, surrounding suburbs and the Wellington Harbour. Wellington became New Zealand’s capital in 1865 and, though built on land shaken by earthquakes, the benefits of having a [...]