New Zealand

Discover New Zealand

In 1893, New Zealand became the first country in the world to give women the right to vote. A woman named Kate Sheppard led that fight for years, collecting thousands of signatures and delivering them to Parliament. Her face is now on the New Zealand ten-dollar bill.

The Māori people arrived in New Zealand around 700 years ago, sailing from East Polynesia in large double-hulled canoes. They used the stars, ocean currents, and wind patterns to navigate thousands of miles of open ocean. They called the land Aotearoa, which means "Land of the Long White Cloud."

When British settlers arrived in the 1800s, wars broke out over land. Māori communities lost huge amounts of territory, and many were forced off land they had lived on for generations. New Zealand has been working to acknowledge and repair that history ever since.

New Zealand sits in the South Pacific Ocean and is made up of two main islands. It has active volcanoes, bubbling mud pools heated by underground geothermal activity, and glaciers you can walk right onto. Before humans arrived, the only native land mammals were bats, which is why so many of its birds, like the kiwi, never needed to learn how to fly.

In Rotorua, you can stand next to pools of boiling mud and watch steam rise out of the ground. It's also the best place to see a kapa haka performance, a traditional Māori show of song, dance, and storytelling that has been passed down for centuries.

For the adventurous, the Tongariro Alpine Crossing takes you across an active volcanic landscape in a single day. It is considered one of the best day hikes in the world. And if dessert matters to your family, try a pavlova: a crispy meringue shell filled with whipped cream and fresh fruit that both New Zealand and Australia claim to have invented.