Driving Through the Caitlins

In the southernmost part of the South Island of New Zealand is a region called The Caitlins. Many tourists end up skipping this part of the South Island, especially if they're in a hurry to get over to the Fiordland National Park, Te Anau, or the extreme sports mecca of Queenstown.

We'll get to those towns soon enough. So we decided to take two days to do a drive that any American driver could do easily in a day, and use the extra time to follow the coastal scenic route and noodle around on back roads in this region. We're glad we did, and we would strongly recommend doing this drive to anyone who wants to see stunning scenery in nearly total solitude.


Laura put it in a really striking way the other day: she said that the Alpine-ish landscape was like being in Switzerland, except every so often you round a bend in the road and see the ocean.


Now we're convinced that New Zealand has almost all of the world's best scenic drives.