Fiords, geysers, long drives.
Milford by boat, Rotorua by mud pool, the Shotover by jet boat and Hobbiton by shuttle out of Matamata. What each day actually costs, how long it really takes, and where to book it.
The bookings people fly here for.
A hobbit hole in a Waikato sheep paddock, a humpback off Kaikōura, six ziplines through Rotorua’s native canopy. These fill up first, and they are the ones worth building a week around.
Hobbiton Movie Set: Guided Tour Ticket
Step into Middle-earth on a 150-minute guided walk through Hobbiton, with a Green Dragon Inn drink and photo stops.
From $71 per person
Read the review →
★ 5.0Sells out by DecemberRotorua Canopy Tours: 2.5Hour Native Forest Zipline AdventureFrom $1234,563 reviews
★ 5.0Nobody regrets this oneHobbiton™ Movie Set Walking Tour from Shires RestFrom $743,577 reviews
★ 4.7Whole-day jobMitai Maori Village: Cultural Experience and Dinner BuffetFrom $1013,575 reviews
★ 4.6Kiwi classicKaikoura: Whale Watching CruiseFrom $1043,089 reviews
★ 5.0Alarm-clock earlyCruise Milford NZ Small Boutique Cruise ExperienceFrom $1112,930 reviews
★ 4.5Goes in the wetWhale Watching in Kaikoura by BoatFrom $1112,906 reviews
The best day in the country takes twelve hours.
Out of Queenstown before six, along the Devil’s Staircase above Lake Wakatipu, through the Homer Tunnel and onto a boat under Mitre Peak by lunch. The road is half the reason people go. If the forecast turns, fly one leg and take the hours back.
Three days in Queenstown, three different trips.
One small town at the end of a lake sits within reach of a fiord, a wine valley and the loudest river in the country. Pick the day that sounds like yours; the full list waits behind it, priced.
On the Shotover
The jet boat day
1 hour · from $89 · 1,682 reviews
Red boats in a canyon barely wider than they are, and the full 360 spin the drivers save for the moment nobody is holding on. Twenty minutes on the water. The drive up Skippers Canyon Road is a story by itself.
See every jet boat run →
Twelve hours, one fiord
The Milford run
from $216 · 3,001 reviews
A dark start, the lake road, the Homer Tunnel, then Mitre Peak straight out of the water and a boat that goes close enough to the falls to soak the front deck. Long day. Nobody regrets it.
Compare the Milford days →
Cellar doors and lake edges
The pinot day
from $155 · 1,378 reviews
Gibbston pinot noir twenty minutes from town, lunch at a cellar door, then the steamer across Lake Wakatipu to Walter Peak in the afternoon. This is the day people book once the adrenaline is out of their system.
See the wine days →
The best hours here are the dark ones.
Lake Tekapo sits inside a dark sky reserve the size of a small country, and on a clear night you can read the Milky Way straight overhead. Two hours south of Hamilton, Waitomo hides a cave ceiling of glowworms you drift under in silence. Two different kinds of dark, both worth staying up for.
An evening run by the people who live there.
At Mitai and Te Pā Tū outside Rotorua, the welcome, the waiata and the hāngī come from the hapū who own and run the place. You arrive as a guest, you are told what to expect and why, and the meal comes out of the ground at the end of it.
The national sport is falling.
The first commercial bungy jump opened on the Kawarau Bridge outside Queenstown in 1988 and the country has been finding new ways to drop people ever since. A seven metre waterfall on the Kaituna, six ziplines through Rotorua bush, a tandem exit over Lake Wakatipu at 15,000 feet.
Coast to coast in four and a half hours.
The TranzAlpine climbs off the Canterbury Plains, threads Arthur’s Pass through sixteen tunnels and five viaducts, then drops down the Otira gorge into West Coast rainforest. There is an open-air viewing carriage, almost no phone signal, and nothing else you need to do for the rest of the morning.
Pick the base, the days sort themselves.
Almost every trip here runs on three or four towns and day trips out of each. Queenstown for the fiord and the adrenaline. Rotorua for steam and hosts. Auckland for the gulf. Christchurch for the alps and the train west.
Boats, ropes, rotors and rivers.
This country sells the machine as much as the view, and half of these did not exist as a business anywhere until somebody here tried it. Pick the thing you want to be strapped into at eleven in the morning.
The best days are rarely in the town you slept in.
A glowworm cave two hours south of Auckland. A movie set in a Waikato sheep paddock. A glacier you step onto from a helicopter, a beach you can only reach by boat, and a whale that surfaces close enough to hear.
Ten days that cover both islands.
You cannot drive New Zealand in a week. You can do it properly in ten days if you pick two bases, fly the long leg instead of driving it, and leave one spare day for the weather to make up its mind.
Days 1–3
Land north, go straight south
Sleep off the flight on the Hauraki Gulf, then run down to the Shire and the glowworm caves. Matamata and Waitomo are two hours apart, both close early, and most operators pair them into one long day.
Plan the first days →
Days 4–5
Steam, forest and a hāngī
Wai-O-Tapu early while the geyser still goes off, a zipline through native canopy after lunch, and an evening hosted by a Rotorua hapū. The sulphur stops registering by the second morning.
Plan the Rotorua days →
Days 6–10
Fly south for the fiords
Rotorua or Auckland to Queenstown in under two hours. Give Milford a full day and the forecast a spare one, then spend whatever is left on the Shotover, the Gibbston cellar doors or the road over the Crown Range.
Plan the south →
Newest New Zealand reviews.
★ 5.0Full Day Guided Walking Tour and Picnic around Godley HeadFrom $186147 reviews
★ 4.8Taupo: Māori Rock Carvings Lake Taupo Catamaran TourFrom $36147 reviews
★ 4.9Bay of Islands: Full-Day Tall Ship Sailing ExcursionFrom $107147 reviews
★ 5.0Lake Cruise & Mou Waho Island Nature WalkFrom $176148 reviews
★ 5.0Auckland Shore Excursion: Half-Day Guided City TourFrom $65148 reviews
★ 4.8From Queenstown: Dart River Canoe & Jet Boat Day TripFrom $256148 reviews
★ 4.6From Auckland: Hobbiton & Rotorua Tour with Lunch at Te PuiaFrom $286149 reviews
★ 4.7Auckland: Guided Small Group City Discovery TourFrom $59149 reviews