Wellington
New Zealand
A harbour capital wedged between hills and sea, with the best coffee and the worst wind in the country
Photo by aless Con on Unsplash
Photos by Koon Chakhatrakan, Wolf Zimmermann, Sulthan Auliya and leyvaine Davids on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of New Zealand
December to March — the wind is a fixture in every season and the locals stopped mentioning it
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 147mm in Jun
Where it is
41.29°S, 174.78°E Open in Google Maps
Things to do
A week easily- Take the cable car up and walk down through the gardens
- Spend a morning in Te Papa and do not rush it
- Walk out to Zealandia early, when the birds are loud
- Eat and drink your way along Cuba Street
- Take the ferry across the harbour for the view back
Wellington travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget New Zealand
Good valueCards everywhere, contactless everywhere, and almost no cash economy left. Petrol stations and remote lodges still want a card that works offline occasionally.
ATMs & cards
ANZ, ASB, BNZ and Westpac all charge foreign cards a few dollars a withdrawal. Draw once rather than often; there is very little you cannot pay for by card.
Avoid these
- nothing in particular; all four banks charge a foreign card a few dollars
Use these instead
- ANZ
- ASB
- BNZ
- Westpac
New Zealand has almost no cash economy left. Cards and contactless work down to the smallest café.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of New Zealand
Very safeVery safe. The wind is not a joke — gusts over 100km/h are a normal winter day and the airport diverts. The city sits on a fault line and earthquake drills are routine; the guidance is on the back of every hotel door.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (8 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- the wind — gusts over 100km/h are an ordinary winter day and the airport diverts
- Courtenay Place at closing time — the city’s one loud hour
- the south coast in a swell — the waves come over the road at Island Bay
Very safe. The city sits on a fault line and earthquake guidance is on the back of every hotel door, which is prudence rather than alarm..
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa New Zealand visa rules
Travel authorisation requiredup to 90 daysNZ$23 plus NZ$100 visitor levy
NZeTA plus the International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy, paid together. UK passports get six months rather than three.
Other passports
No visa needed
Australian citizens may live and work in New Zealand indefinitely.
Visa required in advance
How to get it: Apply through the official Immigration New Zealand app or website — it is cheaper in the app. Allow 72 hours.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Before you fly: the arrival card
New Zealand Traveller Declaration (NZTD)Required
In the 24 hours before you fly.
Have these in front of you before you start:
- passport
- flight number
- the full address of your first night
- what food, outdoor gear and medicines you are carrying
The biosecurity questions are the point and are taken seriously — undeclared food carries an instant fine.
Use the official link above. Sites that charge a "service fee" to submit one of these for you are not the government, and they want the same passport details the real form does.
Health & emergencies all of New Zealand
Excellent and cheapRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Routine vaccinations up to date
Getting treated
Excellent, and unusually generous to visitors: the ACC scheme covers everyone in the country, tourists included, for treatment of accidental injury regardless of fault or nationality. Illness is not covered, so insurance is still worth having.
The weather in the mountains is the hazard. There are no snakes and nothing venomous worth worrying about.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
Very goodMore cafés per head than New York, and they take it seriously. The night markets on Cuba Street, craft beer that started the country’s scene, and Kapiti ice cream from anywhere that sells it.
Nightlife
More bars per head than anywhere in New Zealand, in a centre small enough to do all of them on foot.
- Cuba Street — the heart of it, and open latest
- Courtenay Place — the loud end, and where the students are
- Hannahs Laneway — the craft beer row, Garage Project at the end of it
- the waterfront bars — for a sunny evening, which happens
Closing: Bars to 3am at weekends, earlier midweek. The buses stop before the bars do.
A beer in a bar: NZ$11–14
The wind decides the evening more than the weather forecast does.
Getting around
Easy- UberWorks here
- OlaWorks here
- ZoomyWorks here
- BoltNot here
Zoomy the New Zealand one
- Against a taxi
- Under the meter in the three big cities. In the smaller towns supply is thin and a booked taxi is more reliable.
Time zone and your working day
Pacific/Auckland — 17 hours ahead of you
1 hour of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — 16:00–17:00 your time, 09:00–10:00 theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 16:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 16:00–00:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of New Zealand
Why these are New Zealand's numbers and not Wellington's
Home broadband — Fast. Several people on calls at once, large uploads, 4K. Broadband here runs at 1.7× the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Good. Maps, calls and streaming, and enough to tether a laptop for an afternoon. Mobile runs at 1.3× the global median of 109 Mbps.
Ookla publishes no separate figure for Wellington, so these are medians for all of New Zealand. Cities usually beat the national number and remote islands and national parks fall well below it — treat this as the country's shape, not as a measurement of the street you will be staying on.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Getting online: Airalo or Holafly — a data eSIM for New Zealand, installed before you fly and working the moment you land.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Must-see
Nearby day trips
Say a few words
New Zealand English — local usage
- Hello (Māori, widely used)Kia orakee-a OR-a
- ThanksCheers / Ta
- Flip-flopsJandals
- Cool boxChilly bin
4 more phrases
- Holiday homeBachbatch
- Sweet, no problemSweet as
- The bill, pleaseCan we settle up?
- GoodbyeHaere rāHIGH-reh rah
Religion
No majority faith
Around half report no religion. Māori tikanga governs behaviour at marae and at sites of significance, and is respected as protocol rather than religion.
Do's and don'ts
Do
- Learn kia ora and use it; Māori greetings are part of everyday speech
- Remove shoes entering homes
- Clean hiking boots between parks — biosecurity is taken seriously
- Log your intentions before any serious walk
Don't
- Do not confuse New Zealand with Australia, or the accents with each other
- Do not sit on tables or pillows — in Māori custom, surfaces for food and heads are not for sitting
- Do not tip; it is not part of the culture
- Do not underestimate the weather in the mountains; it changes within the hour
Where to stay in Wellington
No Holistay rentals in Wellington yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Wellington on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Wellington WLG
20 minfrom the airport· 5 km as the crow flies
20 min by bus or taxi, and a famous approach.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
