The places we’ve been to in New Zealand are ALL beautiful, but it was in Queenstown where we kept saying “Ang ganda! Ang ganda! Ang gandaaa!” the moment we touched down and as we turned every corner in this little town. It’s like a big theme park come to life! It’s almost too good to be true. Lol.

Queenstown is a resort town situated by the lake with a spectacular view of the mountains, which makes it the perfect tourist destination in New Zealand. It is where most backpackers fly to directly to experience not only the scenic views but also extreme activities such as skiing, bungy jumping, sky diving, river surfing, para gliding, etc. Sadly, trying out these activities will make a third-world tourist like me consume all of my pocket money on just the first few days of the trip, so we had to choose only one activity, and that is sky diving — but I’ll save this for another post!

We stayed three nights in Nomads Backpackers (because we’re cheap like that), and the highlights of our stay in Queenstown were: strolling around town every night (because you just have to), trying their local food (fish & chips, pies, and NZ burgers), sky diving at the NZone, and a day trip to Milford Sound.

Milford Sound

Milford Sound, a 4-hour drive from Queenstown, is said to be New Zealand’s most famous tourist destination. On a whim, we booked our tour with Jucy Cruize which was the cheapest one we found at $113. Since we’re already in the area, we had to see what the fuss is about.

To be honest, the place looks somewhat like our very own Palawan, but what makes it more interesting is seeing the big mountains, vast lakes, and lots and lots of waterfalls! It’s raining 180 days a year in Milford Sound so that gave us a 50% chance of visiting the place on a sunny day, but no, it was raining hard!

Half the fun of the Milford Sound Tour is on the journey going to the place where we stopped every few kilometers to capture the great outdoors. And of course, we passed by thousands of sheep and cows as we have almost everyday during this trip. Not that I’m complaining, they’re so adorable! Haha :)

If you’re going to New Zealand and you have to choose just one place to see, I highly recommend Queenstown! As we have observed though, commodity prices are higher there compared to other places in NZ. But the breathtaking views are so worth the extra bucks. <3

Next stop: The West Coast

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