The platform atop this verdant volcano was built with the help of a royal elephant.

This museum/fur store is devoted to educating guests on how awful opossums can be.

Handcrafted thermal spa washes away each night with the tide.

The explorer Captain Cook may have named it White Island, but the Maori call it Te Puia o Whakaari – The Dramatic Volcano.

These phallic stone spires once served as Tolkien's Paths of the Dead.

Anyone wanting to know what a dwarven mine sounds like need only visit the tunnels of this New Zealand artillery compound.

A strange machine made to evaluate the world economy using water and lots of tubes.

A house of bones — but nobody is quite sure to whom they belong.

Now isolated, this church was once the center of a bustling village that succumbed to the Black Death.

A Cold War command center is hidden under an idyllic countryside.

The world's only complete colossal squid specimen is on display at the Te Papa Museum.

A charmingly old-fashioned reminder of the historic building's former life.

Some of the clearest water anywhere in the world.

This deadly little sliver of beach has seen hundreds of whales beach themselves over the years.

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauo tamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronuku pokaiwhenuakitanatahu.

This electric green sulphur lake in New Zealand looks like a cartoonish radioactive dump site.

The once and future home of New Zealand's famed Pink and White Terraces.

Deadly scalding and one of the largest hot springs in the world.

A Maori village obliterated by an 1886 volcanic eruption.

Major tourist destination known for its bubbling mud-pools and hot thermal springs.

Largest Kauri tree in New Zealand.

Tubing through a cave lit with glowworms is a magical underground experience.

These two delightful animal-shaped buildings host a visitor center and wool shop.

One of the world's largest Tesla coils.