How are you going? How do you go? These are the greetings I received during my one-month stay in New Zealand. It took me a little while to figure out what I was being asked, but I’ve since learned that these phrases mean “How are you doing?” and “How do you do?” I’m still not sure whether the word-switch originated in New Zealand or whether the phrases were simply brought to New Zealand by its many European immigrants. What I do know is that New Zealand is one of the most fascinating places on the planet.

Nine of us travelled to New Zealand this summer through the University’s first-ever UA in New Zealand program. We visited Sumner Beach, where we stuck our feet in the cold waters of the Pacific and climbed and explored Cave Rock. We did a one-hour hike, culminating in a beautiful overlook of Pegasus Bay and the Pacific Ocean. We learned about New Zealand sheep farming by actually going to a sheep farm in Oxford. We travelled to Akaroa, New Zealand’s only French settlement, where we went on a boat ride and saw the world’s smallest dolphin and a sleeping fur seal.

We relaxed in the geothermal pools of Hanmer Springs. We took a train up the south island’s eastern coast where we saw beautiful beaches to our east and the snow-capped Southern Alps to our west. We travelled to Wellington, New Zealand’s capital, where we visited New Zealand’s government buildings and got to stand on the floor of the debating room in Parliament.

Although slightly smaller than Colorado, New Zealand has a lot to offer and truly seems much, much bigger than it actually is. For example, it is common to drive through the countryside for hours and see nothing but big, open, beautiful space.

Despite my own considerable amount of traveling in the United States and the rural South, I have never seen anything like the untouched, beautiful land of New Zealand. Nor have I seen a place where the landscape changes as quickly. It is a place where one can walk along a beach in the morning and ski down mountains in the afternoon. For a country so small, it is truly astonishing.

Equally as astonishing is New Zealand’s many accomplishments. In 1893, it was the first country to give women the right to vote, and its last two prime ministers have been women. Sir Edmund Hillary, a New Zealander, was the first man to successfully climb Mount Everest in 1953. The All-Blacks, New Zealand’s professional rugby team, is the most successful rugby team of all time.

Over 100,000 New Zealanders fought alongside Great Britain in each of the World Wars, and during World War II, New Zealand lost more men per million than any other member of the Commonwealth, which speaks both to the country’s fighting spirit and its commitment to justice.

Despite its beautiful people and landscape, New Zealand is a relatively unknown country to the rest of the world. When I first called my credit card companies to tell them where I would be going, the operator asked me, “Is that in Europe?” No, it’s southeast of Australia, near the Antarctic.

Although my summer destination of choice was not typical, I don’t regret it at all. I have fallen in love with the tiny country of New Zealand for all that it is, and I only hope that more people will someday decide to pay it a visit.