Invercargill Travel Guide | The World’s Southernmost Starbucks and the Ancient Tuatara

As I mentioned in the previous article, this was a trip that started with a midnight bus from Dunedin and ended with a 3am arrival in Invercargill. Here’s how it all unfolded.

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The World’s Southernmost City — Avoided Even by New Zealanders

Invercargill sits at the very bottom of New Zealand’s South Island. Locals sometimes nickname it the “a**hole of the world” — affectionately, mostly (laughs). With a population of around 57,000, it’s a small city, but the streets are lined with well-preserved historic buildings that give it the feel of a quiet European provincial town. There’s more character here than the reputation suggests.

That said, Invercargill is well known in New Zealand for being deeply conservative. It’s a small town where strangers stand out immediately — and a visibly Asian face like mine stood out even more. On balance, my experience wasn’t terrible, but one incident at a local Hell Pizza branch left a mark. More on that shortly.

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The Classic Streets of the City Center

The main drag around Esk Street is anchored by a large central monument and flanked by stone buildings housing cafés, shops, and restaurants. It’s a walkable, unhurried stretch of city — nothing flashy, but the kind of place that photographs well and rewards slow walking. I was genuinely surprised by how handsome the streetscape was.

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The Clock Tower at the Heart of the City

Rising from the center of town, the clock tower monument is Invercargill’s most recognizable landmark. Its wide base — spread like outstretched arms — is surrounded by classic buildings that complete the scene. It has a presence that feels slightly outsized for a city this small, and it’s a good orientation point if you’re exploring on foot.

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Meeting a Living Fossil: The Tuatara

The tuatara is a reptile found only in New Zealand, a creature that has survived virtually unchanged since the age of the dinosaurs — a genuine living fossil. In Invercargill, tuatara imagery is everywhere: sculpted into walls, cast in stone, worked into architectural details. The city has claimed this ancient animal as its own symbol.

I got to see a real one. Pale grey, rough-ridged, and almost preternaturally still — the tuatara moves slowly, but there’s something undeniably ancient and otherworldly about it. A large stone statue in the city center has become a go-to photo spot for visitors. Standing next to it, in a quiet city that already feels slightly out of time, you get a strange sense that the clock has stopped somewhere around the Jurassic.

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The World’s Southernmost Starbucks

One of my reasons for coming to Invercargill was this: the world’s southernmost Starbucks. It looks exactly like every other Starbucks on the planet, which is either comforting or unsettling depending on your perspective. But inside, there’s a nice touch — a signpost modeled on the one at Stirling Point, listing distances to cities around the world. Dunedin: 156 km. Seattle: 12,404 km. The original store, now more than 12,000 kilometers away. It’s a small detail, but it makes the place feel genuinely special in a quietly absurd way.

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Historical Buildings

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The Flying Pizza — The Most Overt Discrimination I’ve Ever Experienced

After fifteen years of living and traveling abroad, I’ve come to accept that discrimination exists everywhere. I rarely encountered it on the West Coast of the US or in Canada, where diversity is built into the social fabric. In Europe, I’ve experienced it more often — less malicious, usually, but present. Japan isn’t exempt either. In any country, minorities tend to absorb more of this, and that’s just a reality I’ve learned to move through.

What happened at Hell Pizza in Invercargill, though, was something else.

The woman at the counter was young and cheerful — or at least, she was for the customer ahead of me, a local, to whom she gave the full warmth of someone who genuinely loved their job. I remember thinking: what a lovely person. Then it was my turn. The smile vanished. She went silent. Took my order, told me the price in a flat voice, and walked away.

When the previous customer’s pizza came out, she carried it over beaming — something like “Here’s your pizza! Thanks so much, hope you have a great day, enjoy!” Then she came back to the kitchen.

I sat at the counter, wondering what was coming. A moment later, my pizza box was hurled onto the table from behind me. No words. She was already walking away.

That was the first time I had experienced discrimination abroad that was completely, undeniably intentional. The sheer bluntness of it — in an era when this kind of thing is supposed to be less visible — left me more confused than angry. I hadn’t done anything to provoke it. I think my presence there, a foreign face in a place that doesn’t see many, was simply enough.

I ate quickly and left. I love Hell Pizza. That particular visit, I barely tasted it.

I’ve never experienced anything as blatant since. And honestly, looking back now — the pure audacity of throwing a pizza at a customer takes a kind of commitment that I have to grudgingly respect. It’s a funny story now. It really is.

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Final Thoughts: More to See Than You’d Expect

Looking back through the photos, Invercargill has more going for it than its reputation implies. Historic architecture, the world’s southernmost Starbucks, a living dinosaur in a glass enclosure. Not bad for a city everyone told me not to visit.

One bad interaction doesn’t define a place, and I met genuinely kind people in Invercargill too. If you have a spare day or two on a South Island road trip, I’d say it’s worth the stop. Next up: Bluff — and the oysters I came all this way for.