Hawke's Bay

Hawke's Bay is where New Zealand's wine and food culture is at its most confident. The bay enjoys more sunshine hours than almost anywhere in the country, and that light — warm, clear, drawn out — is what gives the region its particular quality. The Heretaunga Plains produce world-class merlot, syrah, and chardonnay from estates like Craggy Range, Church Road, and Black Barn. Private cellar door experiences here are as refined as anything in Napa or Margaret River.

Napier is the Art Deco capital of the world — rebuilt almost entirely in the style after a 1931 earthquake, the city's streetscapes have an extraordinary coherence. But the region's most singular experience is The Farm at Cape Kidnappers. Set on 6,000 rolling acres above Pacific cliffs that host the world's largest mainland gannet colony, it is one of the great lodges not just of New Zealand but of the Southern Hemisphere. Dinner on the terrace as the gannets wheel overhead and the sun drops into Hawke Bay is the kind of moment that recalibrates everything.