The Hermitage Hotel

A hermitage has stood at the foot of Aoraki/Mount Cook since 1884, making this one of the southern hemisphere's oldest tourist hotels; flood and fire claimed earlier incarnations, and the present building has grown in stages since the 1950s. What has never changed is the situation — the hotel sits within Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park, and its public rooms and best bedrooms frame New Zealand's highest mountain through walls of glass, with the Southern Alps crowding every horizon.

Rooms are comfortable alpine-lodge in style rather than luxurious, and the premium categories facing Aoraki are worth the difference on any clear day; sunrise on the summit from bed is the hotel's defining luxury. The Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Centre attached to the hotel honours the mountaineer who trained on these slopes before Everest, with a planetarium and museum that give bad-weather days real substance.

The village sits inside an International Dark Sky Reserve, and the hotel's stargazing experiences rank among the world's most accessible high-quality astronomy for travellers. Days go to the Hooker Valley Track, glacier-lake boat trips and scenic flights; dinner in the Panorama Room turns the alpenglow into theatre. Remote supply lines mean provincial service rhythms — but nowhere else puts New Zealand's greatest mountain this close to your pillow.