travel guides

There is something extremely romantic about road tripping through the Coromandel Peninsula. Narrow piece of land (40 km at its broadest point!), surrounded by ocean, makes you feel like being lost in the middle of nowhere even if you know for sure where exactly you are going.

Tauranga lures tourists in with its magnificent beaches; Rotorua boasts extraordinary mud pools, geysers and colourful steamy lakes; Taupo relies on its giant lake as a great source of activities for tourists all year round… It might seem that despite being New Zealand’s fourth largest city, landlocked Hamilton will never be that attractive to visitors. But don’t be fooled by the first impression! It’s proximity to Hobbiton is definitely not the only reason to visit Hamilton.

We only had around an hour to whizz through the yet sleepy, early morning Arrowtown on our way to Tasman glacier, but you know what? It was enough to make us looking forward to another trip! The cutest lil’ town I have ever seen, that has that magical, enchanted feeling, as if you’ve accidentally took the wrong turn on the highway and found yourself in a new Universe, where everything is so familiar, yet a bit different, like in your favourite children’s book of fairy tales.

Rotorua reminds me of Hermione Granger’s beaded handbag: small from the outside, it was bottomless inside, so she could pack all the supplies she might need one day in it (those included Perkins’ tent, that easily accommodated seven Weasleys and Harry Potter – not sure I really need this detail here, but it’s Harry Potter, you know). Anyway, the population of Rotorua is only 71,700 people. Might look like a sleepy little place. But the truth can’t lie any further from that. You can never have enough time to explore all the activities and entertainments Rotorua has to offer! And I know what I’m talking about – we live in Tauranga. With Rotorua being located only an hour away, it has been our go-to choice for a cool weekend getaway for the last two years.

Visiting Moscow two years after we left was a pretty surrealistic experience, should I say. On one hand, you know every single corner and know for sure where to go and what places maybe not that worth spending the time and money. On the other hand, I couldn’t believe my eyes – so much has changed in such a short period of time! Of course, of course, there is FIFA World Cup 2018 going on right now and Moscow just couldn’t humiliate herself in front of so many foreign visitors. That’s what Russia was always really good at – shaking off her favourite sleepy mode and doing the impossible right before the deadline. Anyways, what I’m trying to say is that besides simply being impressed with all the positive changes, we’ve also really enjoyed visiting new places. After all, even if you’re traveling to the country you’ve spent the most part of your life in, you’re still traveling ABROAD and want to be a tourist for a while. New ‘Kosmos’ (Space) pavilion definitely stood out among them.