In perusing this board for tips for our upcoming NZ trip I have begun to wonder why North Americans seem to see Australia/NZ almost as one destination. "We're going to Australia/NZ this year!" I know it is a lengthy flight to get to the South Pacific but if I decide to fly to Paris it doesn't follow that I'd better visit Rome too, while I'm there. Why the Oz/NZ thing?? Is it the 'tour group' mentality where everything is jammed into one quick trip so that you can say you've been? Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Because it was only 150 Dollars more to do both and I did not know when I would get back down under. But if you have less than two weeks, I would not attempt to do both.

The air tickets for two alone to NZ/Australia is $3000 US and our vacation days are much shorter than other countries. So the likeliness of me returning to the S. Pacific area anytime soon is slim.
If it takes me 20+ flight hours to get to Paris, I'd stop by Rome too! IT's only 3 hr flight.

To provide a reverse perspective, the first time I visited Canada (while living in Australia), I stopped over in LA and San Fran, before travelling to Vancouver.

I guess when you are so close, you might as well take a look.

Bill

If you only expected to make one trip to Europe you might well try to fit in a little of both France and Italy, and maybe the UK too. And, as sammyc notes, most Americans are leisure time deprived and have to make sometimes painful compromises.

There are times when you have to accept that you'll see only a small part of a particular country, so a week each in Australia and NZ may be better than nothing. Some Australians are probably sensitive to occasional implications (intended or not) that their large and diverse country can be "done" in a week or two.

Another point - it's not so surprising that Australia and New Zealand tend to be paired in travellers' minds. The citizens of each country, rather like Americans and Canadians, see differences between them that will completely escape most visitors. There's certainly no more difference than there is between a Vermonter and a Texan. Physically the two countries are chalk and cheese, but take a walk around the cities of Adelaide and Christchurch and see how much cultural difference you can spot. There's even a collective term for the two countries - "Australasia".

One major difference is in New Zealand's more successful, if still imperfect, treatment of its indigenous people. Of course you could argue that this is largely due to the fact that the Maori mounted an effective military resistance to British occupation.

Historically the circumstances of British settlement were somewhat different, but the commonalities were so great that in the 1890s there was serious discussion of incorporating both sets of colonies in a single federation.

imagine the strength of our rugby and netball eams if we had become the one federation .... wow.

As already pointed out, I suspect it has more to do with cost and distance than anything.

I think some of it also has to do with the misconception that NZ and Australia are close to one another. The first time I went downunder I was shocked to learn that the flight from Sydney to Christchurch was well over three hours long and covered 1,330 miles.

And yes, unfortunately most of us Americans are "lesiure time deprived" (love that description Neil) and therefore want to see and do as much as possible on a trip downunder.

When traveling a great distance I find myself thinking, "if I'm going to spend the money and go that far, I'm going to make it worthwhile and spend some quality time there". But then, I'm not as leisure time deprived as the average American. THANK GOODNESS.

Indeed, when we tell people that we went to NZ, they say,'and Austraila?'. But we decided to spend our 3 weeks in NZ, and were glad that we did, as we were able to see the country more deeply.

We hope to get to Australia some day, to see the beautiful country.

If you have only two weeks - don't go to both. Priceless.

If you have less than two MONTHS don't even consider combining them.

That was my feeling Fuzzylogic.
The short-stayers use the reasoning that it is a long way so why not jam it all in. I prefer the reasoning that it is a long way so why not wait until you can make your stay long enough to see more than the passing scenery. To each his own, I guess!

Neil Oz challenges us to "see how much cultural difference you can spot."

One cultural difference I noticed: When a half-dozen Aussies enter a fish-and-chips shop, they order for six. Kiwis order for sex.

WK

Consider also that for Western Americans, 1300 miles IS close. Thank God they finally connected the Sydney Harbour and Auckland Harbour bridges so you can drive it ; - )

SYD-AKL is a shorter hop than SYD/PER or SYD/DRW, or for that matter SFO-NYC.

I take your point about the vowels, Wally, and a visitor may well think that a fish shop is a strange place to ask for sex - the original "mixed business" maybe. It certainly beats the combined pet food/X-rated video shop Bill Bryson found in Cowra NSW.

When we first visited NZ in the 1970s we noticed only a subtle difference in the NZ and Australian accents. I read that the NZ vowel shift has indeed become more marked in the last few decades and is being studied by linguists.

I remember a motel owner in Christchurch telling us we could buy milk at the dairy down the road - as we were only a mile from the city centre we were surprised that farms were so close at hand, but soon established that it was what used to be called a milk bar in Australia. These days I suppose you'd be more likely to be directed to a deary, adding to the confusion.

On the subject of vowels, I remember a thread on another forum some time ago in which at least one American poster claimed not to be able to distinguish between the pronunciations of Mary, marry and merry. I guess this just shows how much we take for granted when we think that we're making ourselves clear.

Once when we were taking a domestic flight in the US the check-in lady initially couldn't find our bookings, which I'd made by phone. It turned out that when I'd spelled my surname, Cammack, my a's had sounded like i's to the reservations agent, so it got recorded as "Cimmick". Bloody hell, I thought, I must have sounded like a Cockney! That was sobering.