Take your tastebuds travelling

If you’re looking for the perfect foodie getaway, or a chance to escape the city in style, Lonely Planet’s Gourmet Trails celebrates 11 perfect culinary weekends in New Zealand.

Staying home is an option too with six pages devoted to Christchurch and Banks Peninsula. Lonely Planet tells its readers that since the city-changing earthquake in 2011, the Garden City has been transformed into one of the country’s most dynamic and interesting destinations.

“Complementing Christchurch’s post-earthquake re-emergence anchored in bold, modern architecture and the edgy creativity of street art, there’s also been a renaissance of the city’s eating and drinking scene,” the book advises.

Other chapters are devoted to similar gourmet regions.

Throughout the pages, readers can meet gourmet products producers, and celebrate the ingenuity and passion of New Zealand’s best food and wine regions. Take a taste of Hawke’s Bay delights, enjoy a tipple in the Bay of Islands, whet your appetite on Waiheke Island, visit Central Otago, make your own trail through Marlborough, and sample the West Coast.

“With an abundance of hip restaurants, food markets, craft-beer breweries, micro distilleries, vineyards, coffee roasters, cheesemakers and specialist providers, you don’t have to go any further than your own backyard to experience world class produce,” says Lonely Planet.

“This is a celebration of New Zealand’s culinary ingenuity and now is the perfect time for Kiwis to experience what they have in their own backyard,” says Lonely Planet’s Chris Zeiher.