Welling­ton may be New Zealand’s most excit­ing city, but that’s not enough to earn us one of Wallpaper*s City Guides. Almost as galling as the news that Auck­land will get one next year is the fact that this dis­qual­i­fies us from enter­ing Grid­skip­per’s $100 a day con­test and win­ning the com­plete set of guides.

Still, that should­n’t stop us. What’s the best way to blow US$100 (about $150 Kiwi) in Welling­ton in a day?

The rules are: “Your US$100 should cov­er not just food and drink, but must include a vis­it to an archi­tec­tural­ly inter­est­ing site and some sort of phys­i­cal exer­tion. Sex counts, video games don’t. Do not include lodg­ing as part of your $100.” Giv­en some of their exam­ples (dime bags in Mon­tre­al?), legal­i­ty is not a require­ment, and the expe­ri­ences don’t have to be quin­tes­sen­tial­ly or trite­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the city.

Some of my sug­ges­tions would include:

  • A trip on the East­bourne Fer­ry (high­ly weath­er-depen­dent)
  • Grab­bing a gela­to from Kaf­fee Eis and strolling along Ori­en­tal Bay (dit­to)
  • Staunch­ly refus­ing to go any­where near Courte­nay Place on a Fri­day or a Sat­ur­day night
  • Of the AA’s 101 must-do’s for Kiwis, the only one of the five Welling­ton options I’d include would be the Writ­ers’ Walk (and that’s free!)
  • The City Gallery (espe­cial­ly the Michael Hirschfeld Gallery’s cur­rent exhi­bi­tion of Mar­tin Thomp­son works), includ­ing lunch at Nikau
  • Walk­ing, shop­ping, eat­ing and drink­ing your way all along Cuba St
  • While I’d love to rec­om­mend a Mar­ti­ni, and can’t stand cucum­ber, a Falling Water at Mat­ter­horn must be com­pul­so­ry

Let’s hear your own favourite (best or best-val­ue) moolah-spend­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties here in (Sil­i­con) Welly(wood), and we’ll see if we can get it adding up to exact­ly $150.