UK travel magazine Conde Nast Traveler has just named Auckland the world’s friendliest city in its 2014 rankings. It introduces Auckland with a great photo that highlights the city’s growing urbanity:
FRIENDLIEST: 1. Auckland, New Zealand
Score: 86.0 (tie)
We must admit, we saw this one coming—and so did you. “The people are friendly, and their humor and view on life is something to aspire to attain,” said one reader. “Such a gorgeous city on the water” with “clear air,” “fresh food,” and “amazing culture,” others raved. A trip to the Auckland Museum for its Maori collections and “terrific” cultural performances is highly recommended. If you’ve never been to New Zealand, this “clean, youthful, adventurous, beautiful” city is the “ideal starting place” for seeing the country.
Last year’s world ranking: no. 16 (friendliest).
It’s fantastic to see New Zealand’s urban places start to make it into the travel magazines in their own right rather than as brief stopping-off points on the way to the Southern Alps. More of this please!
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Who did we tie with?
1st equal: Melbourne
3rd Victoria, B.C, Canada.
Having visited all three places in the last year, the Canadian were more friendly then here or Melbourne.
Are you a NZer Brendan? I don’t think a local can judge this, because people always treat international visitors differently to how they treat their fellow countrymen. It’s why people always say “the people in [place X] are so friendly”. People say this about lots of places.
Realistically it probably will always be a stopping off place for visitors, on the way to the Southern Alps etc. Almost everyone in the world will have an equally vibrant friendly city far closer than Auckland. Cities will never be the reason for most people making the mammoth trip to New Zealand. Doesn’t mean Auckland can’t be an amazing city (it is already), but New Zealand’s prime attractions will always be natural.
Sure, most cities are ‘merely’ that. Nobody goes to Iceland just for the cities, but that doesn’t stop Reykjavik being a “must see”. Even to mega cities like New York, few people will make an international holiday just to visit one city.
While living in London i did trips to New York and Tokyo (separately) for the weekend and for no real reason than to go and have a look, but given my interest in transport related issues, I’d hardly describe myself as a typical kiwi.
It’s pretty common for people elsewhere in the world to make international trips to visit a single city – New York, London, Paris etc. Probably a bit more unusual for kiwis as the journeys are longer, although I’m sure plenty go for weekend trips to Sydney and Melbourne.
We want the Aussies coming over to Auckland on their weekend jaunts! I’ve had Saturdays in Auckland that honestly resembled tourism adverts: drive out to Piha to go for a hike and then a surf, dinner by the beach, back into the city to cycle to a concert downtown, midnight post-show snack at a great hole-in-the-wall Korean restaurant…
Yeah, but Peter, what you are describing is not at all what the typical visitor to Auckland perceives. They land at the international airport, and either transfer straight over to Domestic and escape – or if they want to stay a day or two, they have one of the worlds highest taxi fares to get into the central city. Or get herded into a shamefully crap excuse for Public Transport – the waiting area for the Airbus at Domestic is just awful. Auckland treats its visitors very poorly. If the nominal visitor wants to get out to Piha to play in the surf, they’ll have to hire a car, as I don’t think there is any PT form the airport out to the west coast. Auckland has a loooooong way to go to be any good for visitors.
I’m saying that it could – and should! – be the sort of experience visitors can get in Auckland. And it’s a relatively unique one – there are few large cities where you’re so close to such great natural amenities. Two points:
1. I don’t own a car, so I have to rent or borrow one if I want to go to the West Coast. This isn’t hard to do. Lots of people hire cars on vacation.
2. There are other spectacular things that visitors can do in a day without a car. Take the ferry to Waiheke and cycle around the island. Bike to Mission Bay. Explore Devonport on foot. That kind of stuff.
Lastly, let’s not forget that 15 years ago it would have only been possible to do _one_ of these things. Back then, the city centre revitalisation hadn’t yet kicked off. Britomart hadn’t been redeveloped; Vector Arena didn’t exist; almost nobody lived in the city centre; and there weren’t a lot of good restaurants. It’s easy to be frustrated about the things that are lagging behind, but let’s not forget how rapidly Auckland is getting better.
I use the Auckland air bus from time to time and it is excellent. On the other hand, I’m not sure Melbourne has an air bus equivalent and if they did it would probably drop you off at Southern Cross like the Avalon airport bus does (or did in 2007 when I used it). Southern Cross is nowheresville. The taxis there are expensive too.
They had n airbus type thing when I was there 2 years ago, and it did indeed drop you off at SC.
Melbourne Skybus every ten minutes 24/7.
Skybus is very popular and often packed! does drop you of at SC
btw Maximus, there are a number of privately-owned bus services which travel to Piha daily throughout the summer from both the airport and the city.
“The people are friendly, and their humor and view on life is something to aspire to attain,” said one reader. “Such a gorgeous city on the water” with “clear air,” “fresh food,” and “amazing culture,” others raved
With this description I do not necessarily think Auckland. They could just as well be talking about Wellington, or any other NZ town that borders the water… Is there anything quintessentially Auckland that makes it the world’s friendliest city?
There seems to be endless surveys on just about everything these days and rating cities and indeed entire countries, is just part of this largely pointless industry. So someone arrives here, takes a look around then gets out the laptop and, whoa! you live in the 86th equal best city in the world with its growing urbanity. Must be true because it’s on the internet.That we take absurd delight in a strangers favourable pronouncement tells me that NZs traditional culture cringe is alive and well in Auckland in the 21st century. David Frost, visiting NZ in the 70s was asked, ‘how do you find New Zealand’? Looking and sounding pissed off he simply replied ‘well I sort of stepped off the plane and there it was’.
Humans probably have been asking each other of their opinions about their homes and similar “vanity” aspects since they were able to talk in more than grunts.
Conde Nast is also a pretty well-known source, so slightly more than “just someone on the internet”. Whether we are ranked 1st or 23rd equal doesn’t matter that much in reality, it’s true (except for that very human desire for approval noted above) but at the very least it shows that we were good enough to play in the top leagues of whatever semi-arbritrary measurement was used, so whether we are really better than Potumhuck City or whichever other one isn’t really that important at the end.
It gives something to aspire to and aim for! How are you supposed to better yourself without a goal or target? This is a pretty reputual source and something the city should be proud of, and continue to be leaders in. Just as our target to be the most livable city in the world, without that goal, without that drive we wont get there. And the journey will benefit all residents of the city if we achieve or not, but given NZer’s attitude we will achieve it, it’s just a matter of when.
In the Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night, the boys find themselves facing a litany of anxious reporters and photographers. When asked, “How did you find America?,” John replies, “Turn left at Greenland.” If the Yanks could have the same culture cringe in the ’60s, after nearly two centuries of independence, then we were entitled to do the same in the ’70s with only one century of independence. 😉
“Last year’s world ranking: no. 16 (friendliest).”
So what happened between last year and this year? Did Aucklanders develop a better attitude, or did fifteen other cities get suddenly grumpier?
Whats with all the hating? Some of you guys sound like the pretty girl who can’t take a compliment and is a crashing bore as a consequence.
It’s just so pointless. It’s like saying: I had the world’s most enjoyable dream last night!
It is so objective the whole expression becomes meaningless.
As others mentioned, in the span of a year Auckland has apparently risen 15 places. What has changed? What is it about Auckland that you do not find anywhere else that makes it the friendliest city? What are the quantifiers other than other peoples opinions? Because you know what they say about them, right… everyone has one and for every positive, I can find a negative one.
No that’s the point really; it’s not that Auckland can have got more friendly over this period but rather more worth visiting. I’m sure there are literally thousands of little places all over the world where visitors will be greeted more warmly and patiently by the few souls there, delighted to have a visitor at all, but they won’t count on this scale. So what this is really a measure of is Auckland’s gradual shift from dozy backwater to place of interest.
While still remaining authentic enough to greet visitors well. This is the challenge with our ongoing growth; keeping the balance.