Invercargill sits at the bottom of the South Island, closer to Antarctica than to Auckland. It is the southernmost city in New Zealand and one of the southernmost in the world — a fact locals are quietly proud of. The city was laid out on a grand Scottish grid in the 1850s, and it still has the unhurried, slightly eccentric feel of a provincial town that has always done things its own way.
The centre is compact and walkable, with a handful of good museums and some fine Victorian and Edwardian streetscapes. Te Unua Museum of Southland — home to the country's largest population of tuatara — is the cultural anchor, set in a distinctive pyramid building at the entrance to Queens Park. The transport museums are another draw: Bill Richardson Transport World and Classic Motorcycle Mecca together form one of the finest automotive collections in the world. And E. Hayes & Sons — a hardware store with Burt Munro's original World's Fastest Indian motorcycle in the back — is the most beloved institution in town. The surrounding Southland plains are flat and fertile, constantly lashed by weather rolling in off Foveaux Strait.
Invercargill is a practical base for exploring the far south: Fiordland is within reach to the northwest, and the ferry to Stewart Island — one of New Zealand's best places to see kiwi in the wild — departs from Bluff, 27 km south.