Waikato

Waikato accommodation spreads from Raglan’s surf coast to the Coromandel’s beach towns, with baches, farm cottages and townhouses in between. The region covers more ground than first-time visitors expect, following New Zealand’s longest river through dairy paddocks and limestone hills.

Raglan owns the west coast, where the left-hand breaks run long and the harbour turns gold at sunset. Hamilton earns an afternoon for its themed gardens, and Cambridge mixes antique shops with horse-stud country. Waitomo’s glowworm caves and the Hobbiton film set both sit within an hour of the river valley.

At the eastern edge the road over Kōpū opens onto the Coromandel, whose beach towns and coves fall inside the region’s wider reach; Taupō’s lake country waits just over the southern boundary.