Own a mountain village in New Zealand!

by Kraig Becker on

Budding real estate moguls listen up, as I’ve got quite the deal for you. The New Zealand mountain village of Otira is up for sale, and is currently seeking new ownership. The asking price of NZ$1 million (roughly $690,000) gets you all kinds of amenities, including a hotel, town hall, fire station, and 18 houses, although the location may be ideal for everyone.

Otira is located at an altitude of 3445 feet in a remote corner of New Zealand’s Southern Alps. The mountains offer a beautifully scenic backdrop and a near by national park provides plenty of outdoor adventure. But in the winter months, heavy snow can hit the region, and the little town is regularly cut-off from the outside world, sometimes for days at a time, thanks to an untimely blizzard.

The village boasts a population of just 44 residents, most of whom rent the houses that are found there. Many of those work for the TranzAlpine railway which rolls through town twice a day, bringing tourists to the area. The local hotel, which is not much more than a bed and breakfast, is the only place to stay for miles around, and offers up a hot meal and a cold pint of beer to wash it down with. The fire station has been re-purposed as a workshop for the local mechanic, and the school hall has been abandoned for more than a decade.

The current owners, Bill and Christine Hennah, bought the town back in 1998, and have been running, and renovating, it ever since. They are now approaching retirement age, and although they have no plans to leave Otira, the do feel it is time to pass it along to a new owner. They have listed the town on the New Zealand auction site Trade Me, where you can place your bids for this prime piece of real estate.

Who knows, perhaps you’ll be retiring there one day too.

[Photo credit: ALAMY]

Top five weekend travel media stories

by Grant Martin on

Among the travel stories in this weekend’s newspaper travel sections, the following articles were especially inspirational.

1. Peter Frick-Wright writes a lip-smacking ode to the Cowboy Dinner Tree steakhouse in Silver Lake, Oregon in Portland’s Oregonian.

2. In an article in Melbourne’s The Age, Jewel Topsfield cruises down the Mekong, through Cambodia and Vietnam. She eats a tarantula, too.

3. In the Times of London, Tom Chesshyre lists the world’s 20 best art hotels. There are some remarkably inexpensive hotels among the lot, including Amsterdam’s Hotel Winston, with double rooms starting at €70 per night.

4. In the New Zealand Herald, Jim Eagles goes birdwatching in Miranda, in New Zealand’s Waikato Region. Miranda is an hour from Auckland by car.

5. In the Independent, David Leffman provides a great traveler’s Iceland primer. Full of good consumer information, it also provides a handy historical snapshot.

(Image: Flickr/Fredrik Thommesen)

Exciting Repositioning Cruises for the Fall

by Alex Robertson Textor on

Repositioning cruises are the leftovers of cruising. When cruise ships need to move from one port to another at seasonal cusps, they take less conventional itineraries to get from one home port to another. Repositioning cruises can often be booked for less than more conventional cruises on a per-night basis.

Repositioning cruises are also, somewhat ironically, a good option for independent (even round-the-world) travelers. A well-priced repositioning cruise can deliver travelers from one continent to another, sometimes for not much more than an airline ticket, and also permit visits (however short) to many ports in-between. While RTW travelers seldom look to repositioning cruises for inspiration, they should.

One of the more exciting repositioning cruises on the schedule this fall is Holland America’s 43-day Vancouver-Sydney crossing on the Volendam, which will take in Seattle, four ports in Hawaii, American Samoa, Fiji, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, several ports in New Zealand, and several ports in Australia. It leaves September 22. The least expensive stateroom on offer comes to $3899 per person.

Holland America is also selling the above cruise with a termination in Auckland (29 days in total) for $2399.

For less ambitious prospective repositioning cruisers, Cruise Critic has published a useful list of some of the more intriguing shorter repositioning itineraries for the fall: 17 nights between Copenhagen and New York on Costa, leaving September 4; 18 nights between Vancouver and Fort Lauderdale on Holland America, leaving September 25; and 16 nights between Rome and Rio de Janeiro on Princess, leaving December 4.

(Image: Flickr/pmarkham)

Fly to New Zealand and back this month for only $480

by Grant Martin on

Got some free time later this month? Air New Zealand just put a giant swath of seats on sale for travel between California and New Zealand. Round trip, the entire journey only costs $399 with tax, or just about $490 all in. That’s less expensive than half of the transcontinental US flights and than all of the flights to the EU this spring.

In short, it’s a fantastic deal, and combined with the strong dollar (against the NZ dollar) and Air New Zealand’s superior transpacific service, this is a once in a lifetime experience.

If you’re interested in booking tickets, check out Air New Zealand’s website for more details. Tickets need to be purchased by day’s end Friday, May 14, 2010 for travel between May 21 and May 30.

And if you’re looking for inspiration to make your journey, check out Gadling’s series In the Corner of the World where we road trip from the tip of the north island through the heart and soul of New Zealand in a two-week-long fiesta of adventure, excitement and wide angle photos.

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Travel company rediscovers seabird thought to be extinct

by Kraig Becker on

Seattle based travel company Zegrahm Expeditions specializes in eco-sensitive travel, organizing trips to all corners of the globe. The company promises to give clients the “ultimate expedition travel experience”, whether they’re taking part in one of Zegrahm’s trekking adventures or small-ship cruises. Zegrahm’s strives to give their customers a sense of discovery, no matter which trip they go on, but on one recent expedition that sense of discovery took a very real turn when team members sighed a rare seabird that hasn’t been recorded in the wild for more than 83 years.

The expedition, which was led by seabird expert Peter Harrison, took place this past February. The journey entailed a small-ship sailing adventure from Auckland, New Zealand to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. Along the way, the ship stopped at several remote, and seldom visited, islands on the Vanuatu archipelago. While there, Harrison, and a number of other members of the group, spotted and photographed, 21 individual Vanuatu Petrels, a seabird that hasn’t been seen in the wild since they were first discovered by ornithologist Rollo Beck back in 1927.

Zegrahm is already planning a return trip to the region in November of this year, and again in 2012. Both expeditions are expected to be very popular with bird watchers hoping to get a glimpse of this rare and unique seabird, that until now has only been seen in museums. Known as the Faces of Melanesia expedition, this cruise is generally noteworthy because it routinely visits remote South Pacific islands that few people ever see. But with this recent discovery, it will probably become well known in the bird watching community as an opportunity to add another species to their list.