u/LoveFoolosophy12

Hi all,

My wife and I are finally taking a dream trip to New Zealand in December. We land in Auckland early morning on December 13th from LAX and we fly back out of Auckland in the mid-afternoon on December 30th. We're in our mid-30's and love day hikes of all difficulty levels, road trips, nature, scenic views, seeing animals in the wild, and great food. We are currently planning to immediately fly to Queenstown about 3-3.5 hours after our plane lands in Auckland, with the Air NZ flex fare that will allow us to change flights day of for no fee if needed.

Our current thought process is to focus mostly on the South Island (13-14 nights) and do a few days on the North Island (3-4 nights) at the end of the trip. We will rent a car for each island. I'd love some itinerary advice, and thank you all in advance for any suggestions.

Currently, our rough outline is:

Queenstown - 2 or 3 nights - get over jet lag, settle in, gondola + luge looks fun, what else is recommended around Queenstown?

Te Anau - 3 nights - very excited for this portion of the trip, Milford Sound boat tour one morning, Doubtful Sound day tour one of the days (we really want to do the overnight tour but my wife deals with some sea sickness and is concerned she won't properly enjoy it given the cost), we'd like to do a couple hikes between Lake Marian, Key Summit, Gertrude Saddle. Is this all overkill?

Wanaka - 2 or 3 nights - Roys Peak hike is priority, have friends who have lived in Wanaka and say wonderful things about the town/area, would be into mountain biking or kayaking or another similar activity

Aoraki/Mt Cook - 1 or 2 nights - Hooker Valley Track and Sealy Tarns

West Coast - 3 nights - include Franz/Fox Glacier (we dislike helicopters and small planes so would stick to the walks), Haast Pass, Hokitika, Punakaiki, Blue Pools Track

Arthurs Pass - 1 night or drive through and spend a few hours?

Fly out of Christchurch the day we arrive there to either Rotorua or Auckland for the last 3-4 nights. Tongariro Alpine Crossing is pretty high on our list for this trip so we figured if we fly in on Dec 26 (and give ourselves 13 nights South Island in that case) we can plan to do that hike on Dec 27 with Dec 28 as backup if the weather fails the first day. We've already booked Hobbiton for our last full day, Dec 29, as we are big LOTR fans. We would also like to see glow worms if there's time, possibly on the 28th. Nikau Caves looks like a slightly less touristy option that we're intrigued by. Otherwise, Spellbound looks great for what it is.

How does all of this sound? Are we missing anything substantial that we may really enjoy? Underestimating or overestimating certain portions? Truly open to suggestions. Thank you! We cannot wait to experience this beautiful country.

Hi all, my wife and I are mid-30's well-seasoned travelers and visiting Italy from September 4th-September 20th. We have not booked our flights yet but we will land in Italy on the 4th and we will depart on the 20th.

We love outdoor, nature-based areas as well as scenic towns/views. We're big hikers (although have no interest in backpacking this trip, an epic day hike or two would suffice). My wife is an actual cook so we love love love food. And we adore animals. These are the main components of most trips for us.

We have zero interest in museums, guided tours, or history in that sense. We're not big wine drinkers although we can appreciate a nice glass here and there. We love wandering cities for the food, the random shops, fun cocktail bars, etc.

I've been to Rome before but nowhere else in Italy and it's my wife's first time. Some of her family is from the town of Reggio Emilia (she's half Italian), so stopping there for at least a day is mandatory (none live there currently so this is more for us to see the area they grew up in). After a good deal of research, areas that look appealing to us are the Dolomites, Venice (for a night or two), the Amalfi Coast, and Sicily. She'd like to do a night or two in Rome if possible but it's not top of the list.

We realize these are areas spread all throughout the country and that slow travel is the preference for many. We focus on slower travel for certain trips and faster on others. This is going to be a faster/moving around trip and we're ok with that. The pacing doesn't bother us. We are definitely going to rent a car for the Dolomites/would be happy to drive around for portions of this trip. We are set on the Dolomites for 3-4 nights, Venice for 1-2 nights, and Reggio Emilia in some capacity, even for just a day.

Does anyone have advice for us on how we could shape the rest of our itinerary, what seems aligned with our tastes, and if skipping cities/areas like Florence and Tuscany feels like a mistake? We have not decided where we will fly into or out of yet so we are happy to take suggestions there too. Thank you for any advice you can offer!