Rotorua, New Zealand
Sulphur City
"Come for the geysers, stay because you can't smell yourselves anymore"
Official Coat of Arms
A shield bearing a bubbling mud pool rampant, flanked by two nose-pegs crossed in defiance, beneath a mountain bike suspended mid-jump over the Redwoods. The motto beneath reads 'Olfactory Resilience' in a scroll that has visibly yellowed with age.
TripAdvisor Review
★★★☆☆ 3/5
"Rotorua is genuinely stunning - the geothermal parks, Te Puia, the lake, all incredible - but nobody warns you that the entire city smells like eggs left out since the Treaty of Waitangi. My hotel room, three streets from any geyser, still had a faint whiff of rotten egg. Loved the culture, the mountain biking at Whakarewarewa Forest was world class, but I checked my shoes for weeks afterward. Three stars because the smell is not a 'you get used to it' situation, it is a 'you tell everyone about it forever' situation."— Gareth Plunkett, Cardiff
Property Listing
Charming geothermal-adjacent property offering FREE natural underfloor heating courtesy of the earth's crust itself, a short stroll to world-class Maori cultural experiences and the Redwoods Treewalk, with a 'distinctive mineral aroma' locals affectionately call character.
Twinned With
Egg Harbor — Both towns are named after, defined by, and permanently associated with the smell of eggs.
Supporting Evidence
Rotorua sits atop a volcanic caldera and geothermal field so active that some residents' backyards have natural hot pools, and the city has had to install steam vents under footpaths to stop the pavement erupting.