Tag Archives: mountains

Spending a week and a half on a New Zealand South Island road trip we found the best places of the remote island. This post lets you join our spectacular drive across this long island in the Pacific Ocean, close to Antarktis. To make the trip, we bought flights to Christchurch and rented a campervan right at the airport. Leaving ...

This post will show you the drive from Mount Cook to Christchurch across the New Zealand South Island. The highlights of the Mount Cook to Christchurch drive are the two glacier lakes of Pukaki and Tekapo, the rows of snow-capped mountains and the Rakaia gorge with deep turquoise waters. This is the last (number 9) of our New Zealand South Island ...

Our New Zealand campervan trip now takes you from the South Island’s West Coast to Queenstown. We will follow the Haast River to Mount Aspiring National Park and see the amazing Blue Pools. What else is there for travelers? The majestic Southern Alps with the turquoise mountain lakes Hawea and Wanaka. From Wanaka we will take the Cromwell road to ...

The Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers are the two biggest of the 140 existing in New Zealand, but the easiest to reach on foot. I will tell you how to get to these two glaciers and show what they look like.  Normally you can only get to glaciers on guided tours and helicopter rides but Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers ...

This post will show you a scenic drive in New Zealand, down the South Island West Coast. We will take the State Highway 6 from the Pancake Rocks and drive south towards Lake Matheson and the glaciers of Franz Josef and Fox. Further south on our 370 km drive we will come to Haast, the place where to turn inland.  ...

This post on the scenic route from Christchurch to Greymouth begins a series of posts on our campervan trip around the New Zealand South Island. We bought flights to Christchurch, rented a campervan at the airport and set off from Christchurch to Greymouth and down the West Coast.  The Alpine road from Christchurch to Greymouth takes you across the Southern ...

Curral das Freiras, the Valley of the Nuns, is a hidden valley in the mountains north of Funchal, Madeira. You can easily visit this stunning valley by car from Funchal, it’s just a half and hour’s drive.  The nuns found the place in 1566 and lived there in isolation. The only connection to the outer world was a winding footpath ...

This post will show you a drive through the green island of Madeira as we are making a Santana day trip from Funchal. We will first take the steep road up to Monte and visit Monte Palace Tropical Gardens from where we will continue to the top of Madeira, Pico de Arieiro, 1818 m.  Pico de Arieiro is a fantastic ...

This post will show you a road trip to Western Madeira along good Madeira roads and through many tunnels. Madeira’s west is very much worth visiting. It’s a dramatic area with high sea cliffs and terraced banana plantations on mountainsides. West Madeira is a less touristic area and has always been hard to reach – until the new Via Rapida ...

The beginning of the year is the time to start planning your vacations and trips the coming year. Where would you like to go this year? Where should you go for new, fresh trip ideas?   Should it be sun and beach this year, or should it be nature travel and hiking? Or a short city break including city life, art and culture? ...