Cloud Cover in The Southern Alps and Fiordland

If you're locked into a mindset that seeing and photographing Aoraki/Mt. Cook is your goal, then you could well be disappointed. There have been plenty of visitors to the park that never got to glimpse the mountain due to cloud shroud. Focus on experiencing the park and environs as a whole—hike through wildflowers, laugh at keas, walk on a glacier and kayak through icebergs.

And if you get to see the ice-capped beauty, well, that's just the icing on your cake.