My partner and I embarked on our first international trip with our then-16-month-old to the South Island of New Zealand (NZ). We heard tales from friends and other online bloggers about NZ’s family-friendly atmosphere, endless adventure opportunities, and beautiful scenery. After spending two weeks there, I have to admit they were completely right!
We started our two-week NZ adventure in Ōtautahi Christchurch, which was the perfect launching-off point. Located on the South Island’s east coast, Ōtautahi Christchurch is the island’s largest city and its cheapest to fly into from SFO at the time of this writing. Ōtautahi Christchurch also gave us a taste of NZ from a familiar urban setting before we launched into an outdoorsy adventure around the rest of the South Island. Here’s how we spent three days in Ōtautahi Christchurch.
Ōtautahi, also known as Christchurch, was founded on the stolen lands of the Maori peoples.
Things to do in Ōtautahi Christchurch with your kids
Ōtautahi Christchurch is a city full of kid-friendly adventures, so we wrote a whole blog about six activities the whole family will enjoy there. Here is a snapshot:
- Take a walk through Ōtautahi Christchurch to see playgrounds, parks, Cathedral Square, and much more
- See the Cardboard Cathedral
- Visit the Quake City Museum
- Stop by the International Antarctic Centre
- Ride the Christchurch Tram
- Go Punting down the Avon River
Little High Eatery
I love food halls.
Little High Eatery is one of my all-time favorite food halls. Inside, we found nine different eateries ranging from woodfired pizza, to Thai food at Noodle Monk, to sushi at Sushi Soldier.
We liked this community-style eatery so much that we ate there twice! Make sure to try the amazing barbecue meats at El Fogon, which was so good our toddler kept wanting more of my partner’s pricey sirloin (NZ$33). My favorite dishes were the arepas (NZ$11) and margaritas (NZ$16) from Caribe Latin Kitchen.
Something Sweet
I always try to find a sweet treat when we travel. I’m on vacation—I deserve sweets, right?
Some of our favorite sweet shops in Ōtautahi Christchurch were:
- Paleta Bar in Little High Eatery offers paletas with fancy toppings like sprinkles or caramel. Order from the window outside the food hall or from inside.
- Waffle Haus has an endless selection of Belgian-style waffles topped with ice cream, whipped cream, brownies, or more waffles. The waffles are so big, we opted to share a waffle and gourmet shake before we walked to the park to work off the sweets.
- Rollickin Gelato makes organic gelato with a mix of unique and truly local flavors. Have you heard of ‘hokey pokey’ ice cream? Neither had I! A NZ specialty, Rollickin’s ‘hokey tokey pokey’ gelato features vanilla ice cream with small, solid lumps of honeycomb toffee. I wish I could buy some in the US!
Where to Stay
If you’re looking for a place to stay, we found an awesome centrally located Airbnb right across the street from the Cardboard Cathedral.
This Airbnb was a clean and modern one-bedroom with a warm shower and a cozy bed. The best part about this place was its proximity to other attractions, as well as free street parking.
Ōtautahi Christchurch is a neat, clean, artistic, foodie, and hipster city that was a good launching off point for our two-week NZ adventure [blog post forthcoming!]. We felt right at home with their foodie culture, organic, locally sourced foods, and street art.
I did, however, realize that my mixed-race and beautiful brown baby was often treated like one of the attractions at the tourist locations we visited. I’m not sure if it is because she has parents of different races, that there didn’t seem to be many other mixed-race families around, or because she genuinely was the cutest baby on the planet (no, I’m not biased…), but there were a few moments where a bunch of tourists went up to her and took a bunch of photos. At first we were surprised and laughed a bit, but with every subsequent occurrence I would smile politely and pick her up to remove her from the paparazzi. It was quite uncomfortable.
I know I’m preaching to the choir, but I wish people would not take photos of other people without asking first, especially minors. Native Americans have especially felt the brunt end of the “othering” stick through unwanted photography and I can’t say thoughts of that history didn’t pass my mind.
This post is part of a series of posts about visiting Ōtautahi Christchurch and the South Island of NZ with kids. Continue the adventure with us here:
Puerto Rican & Indigenous mama of two. Bay Area native. Salsa dancer. Backpacker. Doula. Angel (she/her/hers) is a co-founding member of the Beautiful Brown Adventures team. She has traveled to over 30 countries and loves to explore the world with her two daughters & partner - one ice cream shop at a time.
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