I'd go somewhere stable and safe. It's nice to make it back home too. You have only been to one place in western Europe. Why not hit Italy? There is so much culture and history there. Tour the UK, go through France, Austria, Germany, etc.

"hasnt new zealand also had some fairly major issues on occasion?"

They did have a few issues with the opposition leader Sauron threatening to mess things up, but the local hobbits stopped that before it got moving.

I think his point was that traveling to 3rd world countries is nice and all, but it's not exactly all that safe. I'm sure there are those not too long ago who thought that Kenya was a nice stable country and a great place to visit.