New Zealand

New Zealand earns the long flight. The variety of landscapes per kilometer is unlike anywhere else: Fiordland's sounds, the Southern Alps and glaciers, Tongariro's volcanic crossing, the Bay of Islands' beach country. Plan three weeks minimum if you want both islands; six is better.

This is a road trip, full stop. Most people take a campervan or rental car and string together the South Island — Queenstown, Wanaka, Mount Cook, the West Coast glaciers, Fiordland — with days that run hike, scenic drive, petrol-station meat pie, repeat. The Great Walks and Milford-area beds book out months ahead in summer. Your money disappears into the vehicle, fuel, and activities: bungy jumps, heli-hikes, and Milford cruises add up brutally fast.

The honest part: it's expensive, it's far away, and the weather answers to no itinerary — Milford Sound gets rained out regularly and the Tongariro Crossing closes in high wind. Towns are small and shut early; if you want nightlife, museums, or a serious food scene, you're in the wrong country. Fiordland's sandflies are a plague with wings. But for three weeks of landscapes that change completely every two hours of driving, nowhere else delivers.