Auckland: Sydney Lite, Now With More New Zealand

I went to Auckland for one of the most compelling reasons known to modern travelers: The flight was cheap.

That was pretty much the entire strategic planning process.

I saw a cheap ticket to New Zealand, briefly considered whether I had any legitimate reason to go to New Zealand, remembered that I have never required such a thing before, and booked it.

Because apparently financial irresponsibility becomes “adventure” the moment an airplane is involved.

Auckland wasn’t really supposed to be the main event, either. I had bigger plans to head south and explore considerably more of New Zealand, where mountains, ridiculous landscapes and all the other shit you’re actually picturing when someone says New Zealand were waiting for me.

Then Mother Nature reviewed my itinerary. Denied.

Those plans got canceled because weather remains one of the few travel providers that doesn’t give a single fuck about your reservations, schedule, photography plans or emotional investment.

So my grand New Zealand adventure became significantly less grand, leaving me with some unexpected time to wander around Auckland.

And that’s when I realized something.

Auckland really, really wants to be Sydney when it grows up.

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DESTINATION: Auckland’s City Center

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Wait. Haven’t I Seen This Shit Before?

I’ve been to Sydney many times.

I love Sydney.

It’s one of those cities that somehow figured out how to combine a dense central business district, waterfront, ferries, parks, restaurants, pedestrian areas and giant pieces of recognizable architecture without making the whole thing feel like humanity accidentally spilled a box of skyscrapers beside the ocean.

So walking through Auckland’s city center produced a strange sense of déjà vu.

Waterfront? Check.

Modern towers clustered around a compact CBD? Yep.

Big harbor? Absolutely.

Restaurants and bars spilling toward the water? Of course.

Ferries moving people around? Naturally.

A tall landmark sticking out of the skyline so tourists know which direction to point their phones? Hello, Sky Tower.

Even the overall planning and layout felt eerily familiar.

It was like somebody opened Sydney in SimCity, clicked Save As, changed the filename to Auckland, deleted a few million people and called it a day.

And I don’t necessarily mean that as an insult.

If you’re going to copy someone’s homework, Sydney isn’t exactly a terrible kid to sit next to.

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Auckland Is Almost Suspiciously Well Put Together

My first impression walking around Auckland was that the city just…works.

Which is surprisingly high praise considering how many cities I’ve visited where basic urban planning appears to have been performed by six government departments that weren’t allowed to communicate with each other.

Auckland’s CBD is compact, clean and ridiculously easy to explore on foot.

I spent most of my limited time doing exactly that.

No grand itinerary. No carefully optimized list of the 14 MOST INCREDIBLE THINGS YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST DO BEFORE YOU DIE™.

I just walked.

Queen Street runs through the heart of downtown toward the waterfront, and from there you can wander into the Viaduct Harbour, Wynyard Quarter and the surrounding waterfront areas without requiring a rental car, expedition supplies or an advanced degree in public transportation.

That’s one of Auckland’s biggest strengths.

You can actually experience the center of the city by walking through the damn thing.

The CBD is dense enough to feel urban without feeling suffocating. The waterfront opens everything back up. Restaurants, hotels, offices and public spaces all seem to connect logically.

Again: Sydney. Sydney. Sydney.

I half expected to turn a corner and find the Sydney Opera House sitting there looking confused about how the hell it ended up in New Zealand.

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The Waterfront Is Where Auckland Starts Showing Off

If I had limited time in Auckland again, I’d head straight toward the harbor.

Viaduct Harbour and the surrounding waterfront were easily my favorite parts of the city.

You’ve got boats, restaurants, bars, pedestrian paths and the sort of expensive yachts that immediately make you question every financial decision you’ve made since approximately age 18.

It’s polished without feeling completely artificial.

And because Auckland is surrounded by water, the harbor isn’t some decorative afterthought somebody added to increase nearby condo prices. It’s fundamental to the city.

That maritime connection is everywhere.

You see ferries constantly coming and going. Boats fill the marinas. The skyline rises directly behind the harbor.

And once again, my brain kept returning to Sydney.

Sydney obviously plays this game on a completely different level. Put the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House beside almost any waterfront on Earth and you’ve basically activated cheat codes.

Auckland doesn’t have those.

What it has instead is a smaller, calmer version of the same basic formula.

And it works.

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Then There’s the Giant Needle Sticking Out of Everything

You aren’t going to spend much time walking around central Auckland without noticing the Sky Tower.

Mostly because Auckland has thoughtfully built a 328-meter-tall landmark that repeatedly photobombs the city.

The Sky Tower dominates the skyline and gives Auckland something immediately recognizable among an otherwise fairly conventional collection of modern high-rises.

You can go up for the views.

You can also strap yourself to things and walk around outside.

Or jump off it.

Because apparently simply observing a tall building was no longer generating sufficient tourism revenue.

The SkyWalk takes you around an exterior platform roughly 192 meters above the ground, while the SkyJump allows you to step off the building and rapidly reconsider the chain of decisions that brought you to this moment.

Having already done the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb, I appreciate any city willing to look at perfectly good infrastructure and ask:

How can we attach tourists to this?

That’s the kind of innovative thinking I support.

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Queen Street and the Actual City Part of the City

Queen Street is Auckland’s main downtown corridor and provides most of the normal big-city shit you’d expect.

Shops.

Restaurants.

Hotels.

Office buildings.

People going places considerably more important than wherever you’re going.

It’s useful more than spectacular.

And that’s actually how I’d describe much of central Auckland.

There wasn’t some enormous revelation waiting around every corner. I didn’t stumble into an alley and suddenly reconsider my place in the universe.

It was simply a really pleasant city to walk around.

The side streets branching away from Queen Street were often more interesting to me anyway. Smaller restaurants, cafés and little pockets of architecture broke up the larger commercial areas and made aimlessly wandering worthwhile.

Which is fortunate, because aimlessly wandering represents approximately 70% of my urban travel strategy.

The other 30% is looking for food.

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Auckland’s Biggest Problem Is New Zealand

Here’s where Auckland gets screwed.

It’s located in New Zealand.

And New Zealand is fucking ridiculous.

This is a country packed with volcanoes, mountains, fjords, glaciers, beaches, forests, geothermal insanity and landscapes that look like someone dragged the saturation slider too far and forgot to fix it.

Against that competition, Auckland is…a city.

A very nice city.

A beautiful city, actually.

But still a city.

If Auckland existed somewhere surrounded by endless suburbs, highways and industrial parks, we’d probably spend considerably more time talking about how fantastic it is.

Instead, it’s the front door to a country where the scenery quickly starts behaving like it’s desperately trying to win a photography competition.

That’s a difficult act to follow.

Or precede.

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Auckland: Sydney Lite, and I Mean That Affectionately

My short stay in Auckland wasn’t remotely what I’d originally planned.

Mother Nature took care of that.

But that’s travel.

You make plans.

You book flights.

You reserve hotels.

You create itineraries.

And occasionally the planet looks at your carefully organized spreadsheet and says:

That’s adorable.

What I got instead was unexpected time wandering through New Zealand’s largest city.

And I liked it.

Auckland was clean, beautiful, organized and extremely easy to explore. The waterfront was fantastic. The CBD was compact. The harbor gave the entire city an openness that prevented the downtown core from feeling like another generic pile of office towers.

But after visiting Sydney so many times, I couldn’t shake the comparison.

Auckland feels like Sydney’s younger sibling.

Similar DNA.

Similar layout.

Similar waterfront lifestyle.

Similar urban planning.

Just smaller, quieter and still waiting for someone to build an internationally recognizable opera house shaped like something that requires seventeen different explanations.

Would I go back?

Sure.

Would Auckland itself be the reason I bought another ticket to New Zealand?

Probably not.

But if another suspiciously cheap airfare pops up?

Well, we’ve already established that I have absolutely no self-control when airlines start discounting shit.