{"id":538,"date":"2016-09-14T02:06:01","date_gmt":"2016-09-14T02:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.expedia.co.nz\/stories\/chasing-southern-lights-new-zealand\/"},"modified":"2022-04-21T01:26:30","modified_gmt":"2022-04-21T01:26:30","slug":"chasing-southern-lights-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.expedia.co.nz\/stories\/chasing-southern-lights-new-zealand\/","title":{"rendered":"Chasing the Southern Lights in New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A mesmerising swirl of vibrant green and pink lights, the Aurora Australis is harder to catch than its northern counterpart. Winter months promise more regular occurrences, but if you\u2019re lucky you could witness the stunning display of solar wind reacting with natural gases any time of the year from the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve, a 3-hour drive south-west from Christchurch on the South Island of New Zealand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Aspiring photographers, adventure seekers or hopeless romantics you\u2019re in luck. We\u2019ve compiled the best tours offering you a chance of seeing the Southern Lights in <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.expedia.com.au\/New-Zealand.d133.Destination-Travel-Guides?brandcid=blog.chasing-southern-lights-new-zealand.standardarticle.010916\">New Zealand<\/a>\u00a0and a couple of great accommodation options close by.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A mesmerising swirl of vibrant green and pink lights, the Aurora Australis is harder to catch than its northern counterpart. Winter months promise more regular occurrences, but if you\u2019re lucky you could witness the stunning display of solar wind reacting with natural gases any time of the year from the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.expedia.co.nz\/stories\/chasing-southern-lights-new-zealand\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Chasing the Southern Lights in New Zealand<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":1771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5,2,4,6],"tags":[241,410,119,49,411,10],"authors":[],"class_list":["post-538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adventure","category-destination","category-experiences","category-explore","category-oceania","tag-activities","tag-aurora-australis","tag-culture","tag-new-zealand","tag-southern-lights","tag-tips","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Chasing the Southern Lights in New Zealand | Expedia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.expedia.co.nz\/stories\/chasing-southern-lights-new-zealand\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chasing the Southern Lights in New Zealand | Expedia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A mesmerising swirl of vibrant green and pink lights, the Aurora Australis is harder to catch than its northern counterpart. 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content=\"Brian Perkins\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Brian Perkins\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.expedia.co.nz\/stories\/chasing-southern-lights-new-zealand\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.expedia.co.nz\/stories\/chasing-southern-lights-new-zealand\/\",\"name\":\"Chasing the Southern Lights in New Zealand | 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