Rotorua, NZ

The sister-run sharing-plates restaurant on Eat Streat that locals send out-of-towners to first. The menu drifts around the Mediterranean with a heavy fire-grill influence, and the cocktail list is the best on the street. A reliably good dinner that does not require an occasion.

Hidden inside the Scion forestry research campus on the edge of the Redwoods, this is Rotorua's best brunch by a wide margin. Dog-friendly deck, a menu of waffles and rice pudding and shakshuka, and the prettiest cafe building in town. Locals plan their forest walks around it.

The 1940 former police station turned pub, with the courtyard that fills with locals on warm afternoons. Pub menu of burgers, ribs and fish and chips done properly, plus a long beer list. The most reliable casual dinner in town for a group.

A long-running cafe-deli on Te Ngae Road that locals treat as their daily kitchen. Hot counter changes daily, fresh seasonal salads, and a deli wall of NZ artisan goods to take home. Best lunch in town that is not on Eat Streat.

A locals' brunch spot on the eastern side of town from a hunter-couple, with a menu that leans into wild game and bold flavours alongside the standard eggs. The venison sausage hash gets ordered by the table next to you about half the time. Worth the short drive from the centre.

A tiny Latin American restaurant a block off the main strip, run by a Chilean-Kiwi couple who do empanadas, ceviche and Cuban-style pork right. Not large, not glossy, but the most distinctive cooking in town and rightly cult.

Family-run Italian on Tutanekai Street that has outlasted every glossy newcomer because the pasta is hand-rolled and the chef makes the gnocchi like his nonna did. Old-school red-sauce friendly menu, generous portions, and the kind of staff who remember you the second time.

The veteran Indian in town, on Tutanekai Street, with the deepest tandoor menu in the region. Locals order takeaway for Friday nights and use it for special-occasion family dinners. The lamb roganjosh and the garlic naan are the test orders.

Wood-fired pizza and small-plates spot on Eat Streat from the same team behind Atticus Finch, leaning a bit more casual and family-friendly. The Neapolitan-style pizzas are the best in town and the open kitchen is fun for kids.

A small bright cafe on Eruera Street with the best coffee in central Rotorua, paired with a tight rotating cabinet of pastries from a local baker. Where the city's coffee-snobs land before work. Order at the counter, stand at the bar if seats are tight.

An old-school ice cream parlour on Eat Streat with more than forty flavours scooped over a marble counter. After-dinner queues curl down the strip in summer. The local tradition that even people who do not eat dessert end up in.

Tasting room at the top of the Skyline gondola pouring small-batch wines made from grapes trucked in from Marlborough and Hawke's Bay. The view through the windows is half the experience. The most unusual aperitif in town.

Eat Streat's craft-beer pub from local brewery Croucher, with the deepest tap list in the city and a menu of share boards and serious burgers. The locals' choice on the strip when the rest of Eat Streat feels too restaurant.

All-day cafe on Eat Streat with one of the best brunch menus in town and a respectable dinner offering as the day rolls on. Big windows, fast service, generous plates. The wide-net option for a group that cannot agree.

A long-running Moroccan-flavoured restaurant on Amohau Street with a hippie-lounge vibe, low tables, tagines, and one of the few patios in town with a real heater for winter. The atmosphere does as much work as the food, and the food is solid.

Twenty-eight suspended platforms strung through the giant Californian redwoods at canopy height, with optional after-dark Nightlights installation by NZ designer David Trubridge. The walk takes 40 minutes and is the city's signature paid experience. Worth it once, especially at night.

The free flat loop through the cathedral of Californian redwoods that everyone walks first. Pram-friendly, well marked, and the trees are genuinely jaw-dropping at any time of day. Locals walk it before work.

A 5.5km loop around the small bright-blue lake just east of town, mostly through native bush with a couple of beach openings to swim. The most family-friendly lake walk in the area, and one of the few you can finish in under two hours.

The classic Redwoods harder walk, climbing through forestry blocks to a ridge with the best lookout in the area: the city, the steam clouds and Lake Rotorua all spread out below. About 7.5km loop and 2 hours if you push.

A short shaded walk along the Kaituna River past Tutea's Caves and the falls where the rafting commercials get filmed. The viewing platform looks down on a wall of green water and the rafters dropping over it. Twenty minutes of effort for one of the best riverside scenes in the country.

A flat 1.4km loop past New Zealand's deepest natural spring, with crystal-clear blue water and a redwood-lined avenue at the start. Very gentle, mostly pram-friendly, and the kind of walk you tag onto a half-day rather than build one around.

A guided 4WD-and-walk into the crater rift of the 1886 volcano, with scree-running back down through volcanic ash. Half-day of effort, not a wander, but a once-in-a-lifetime walk and the closest most visitors get to a recent eruption site.

A free flat walk straight out the back of the Government Gardens onto a steamy peninsula in the lake, where black swans and ducks gather around hot inlets even in winter. Two kilometres there and back. The town walk locals do at dawn.

The South-of-Wai-o-Tapu walk that climbs through coloured volcanic terrain to a ridge with a panoramic view across the central plateau. About 90 minutes up and 60 down. Best done on a clear day; the colours fade in cloud.

The flat paved loop along the city's lake edge from Government Gardens through Ohinemutu and out toward the airport, used by locals for runs, prams and morning walks. Pick any stretch; the views shift but the path stays easy.

Twenty-eight mineral hot pools on the lake edge fed by two springs, ranging from family pools to private lake-edge tubs at the deluxe end. The original Rotorua thermal-bathing experience and still the best-run. The Deluxe Lake Spa is the splurge worth doing.

An adventure park bundling several of the city's adrenaline rigs onto one site: bungy-like Swoop, the Shweeb monorail race, a freefall bag drop and a jet-boat. Best as a half-day pick-three pass rather than queuing for each.

Half-day zip-line and swing-bridge tour through old-growth native forest in a private DOC-leased conservation block, with full guide commentary on the kiwi recovery happening underfoot. Probably the most genuinely educational adventure activity in town.

The original Rotorua Zorb hill, where you roll down inside a giant inflatable ball, plus a couple of side rigs. Genuinely dumb and genuinely fun. Wet (with water inside) is the better option in summer; harnessed is the dry-day pick.

Evening cultural village just outside town with a stream show where warriors paddle a war canoe through torchlight, a haka performance and a hangi dinner cooked underground on site. More polished than Whakarewarewa and more atmospheric than Tamaki.

Forestry-block adventure park with a self-drive 4WD circuit, a monster-truck ride and a mud-buggy track. Less polished than the headline activities in town but a great half-day if you have a family of mixed ages and tolerances.

Thursday-evening street market down the centre of Tutanekai Street where the whole town turns up for hot food stalls, craft beer and live music. The most reliable midweek night out for a few hours of grazing and people-watching.

The country's leading kiwi conservation facility, now in a purpose-built hatchery on the Agrodome farm ten minutes from town. A guided tour takes you behind the scenes of the incubation and rearing work, then into a nocturnal house where you can watch live kiwi foraging in the dark. The most reliable place in the country to actually see a kiwi.

A small wildlife park with a working trout-stream walk and a closely-managed lion enclosure with feeding shows. Old-school, family-run, and unfussy in a way the newer adventure parks are not. Real-feeling for kids.

Half-day commercial raft trip down the Kaituna, finishing with the seven-metre drop over Tutea Falls, the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world. Slick safety briefings and the kind of adrenaline shot you talk about for years.

Paddle-steamer-style cruise on Lake Rotorua, doing breakfast, lunch and dinner sailings around Mokoia Island. Touristy and unapologetic about it; the best low-effort lake outing if you want to be on the water without getting wet.

Floatplane and helicopter scenic flights from the lakefront downtown, the most direct way to see Tarawera, White Island steam and the surrounding lakes from the air. The floatplane takeoff from the lake is the best part.

The cultural and geothermal anchor of Rotorua, set in the Whakarewarewa Valley where Pohutu geyser blasts skyward up to twenty times a day. Beyond the geysers you get the New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute with live carving and weaving, plus a kiwi house. The combo of culture and steam in one fenced reserve is what people remember.

A working village where Tuhourangi-Ngati Wahiao families have actually lived on top of the geothermal field since the 1800s, using the steam to cook and the pools to bathe. Guided walks pass meeting houses, steam vents and corn cooked in mineral water you can buy at the gate. Much more lived-in than the show villages.

Half an hour south of town, this is the geothermal park with the postcard colours: the orange-rimmed Champagne Pool, the lurid green Devil's Bath, and bubbling mud out on the road. A timed boardwalk circuit takes a couple of hours. The most visually striking of the region's thermal parks.

The world's youngest geothermal system, blasted into existence by the 1886 Tarawera eruption. A long downhill walk takes you past Frying Pan Lake (the world's largest hot spring) and Inferno Crater Lake. Quieter and greener than Wai-O-Tapu, with a shuttle bus back up.

The Edwardian heart of the lakefront, with the photogenic Tudor-style Rotorua Museum (closed for a long earthquake-strengthening rebuild) and croquet lawns laid out over old Maori bathing pools. Free to wander, and the natural starting point for a walk along the lake.

The big quiet lake just east of town, ringed by the silhouette of Mount Tarawera, the volcano that erupted in 1886. Locals come to swim, fish and launch boats; the Te Wairoa Buried Village on the road in tells the eruption story. A different feel from busy Lake Rotorua.

The flat-topped volcano that split open in 1886 and rearranged the landscape, now reached only by guided 4WD tours that take you to the crater rim and let you scree-run into the rift. The view down into the still-steaming gash is unlike anywhere else in the country.

A free public park in town with a foot-soaking pool, sulfur lakes and an active mud pool that occasionally throws a small eruption and re-routes the paths. Locals walk through it at all hours. The casual reminder that Rotorua sits on a live geothermal field.

The original Maori village on the lake's north shore, where steam still rises from backyards. The 1914 St Faith's Anglican Church mixes Maori carving with stained glass that shows Christ in a feather cloak looking out at the lake. Quietly extraordinary and rarely crowded.

Gondola up Mount Ngongotaha for the city-and-lake view, plus a paved luge track that has become a Rotorua rite of passage. Top station has restaurants and a mountain biking park; the luge is unironically fun for adults and the genuine highlight for kids.

The most active of the geothermal parks, named by George Bernard Shaw who said it looked like the gateway to hell. Hot waterfalls, steaming cliffs, and a mud spa where you actually soak in the warm grey clay. Smaller than Wai-O-Tapu but the only one where you can get in the mud.

An evening cultural experience set in a recreated pre-European village in the forest south of town, ending in a full hangi feast. More polished than Whakarewarewa's daytime tour and the most accessible introduction to Maori protocol for first-time visitors.