Three weeks of country. Ten days of holiday.
Which Milford cruise gets out of the crowd. What the Hobbiton ticket actually costs. Whether Rotorua or Waitomo earns the day when you only have one. Reviews of every tour you can book in New Zealand.
The Shire, Mitre Peak, a marae at dusk and a boat through the glowworms.
Four bookings a first New Zealand trip tends to hang off. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The Waikato morningHobbiton Movie Set: Guided Tour TicketForty-four hobbit holes on a working sheep farm at Matamata. Book the first slot and you get the Shire before the coaches land.
02The Fiordland dayCruise Milford NZ Small Boutique Cruise ExperienceA small boat down Milford Sound instead of a 300-seat catamaran. Rain makes the waterfalls better, not worse.
03The Rotorua eveningMitai Maori Village: Cultural Experience and Dinner BuffetA waka comes down the stream, then a hangi lifted out of the ground. The night most people talk about afterwards.
04The Waitomo hourGlowworm Caves Guided Tour by BoatDrifting under a cave ceiling lit by larvae. Short, cheap and unlike anything else on the island.
Six towns the country organises itself around.
A harbour city with an island of vineyards offshore, a lake town that invented commercial bungy, geysers and a living Maori culture, a rebuilt cathedral city, a capital in a wind tunnel, and a sound cut by a glacier. Pick a base and the days out follow.
Fiordland cruise, Bay of Islands hull, or a kayak you paddle yourself.
New Zealand does its best work at sea level. Three kinds of day afloat, what it costs to board each one, and which coast it belongs to.
Middle-earth is a sheep farm, and the caves are full of larvae.
Two of the most booked days in the country sit within an hour of each other in the Waikato. The Shire was rebuilt in permanent materials after the films; the Waitomo caves have been taking boats under the glowworms since 1889. Most people do both in a day out of Auckland or Rotorua.
The days out more travellers book than anything else in New Zealand.
The whole catalogue, two islands →Nine products carry a disproportionate share of the country. Here is what each costs and what earns it the slot.
1
Hobbiton Movie Set: Guided Tour Ticket
Walk through the 12-acre Hobbiton Movie Set with an English-speaking guide, see Hobbit Holes and the Mill, enter a Hobbit house, and finish with a complimentary drink at the Green Dragon Inn. The 150-minute tour includes a short bus ride from the car park and works well for film fans, families, and curious first-time visitors.
From · $71
Read our review →
2
Glowworm Caves Guided Tour by Boat
from $48
3
Rotorua Canopy Tours: 2.5Hour Native Forest Zipline Adventure
from $123
4
Hobbiton™ Movie Set Walking Tour from Shires Rest
from $74
5
Mitai Maori Village: Cultural Experience and Dinner Buffet
from $101
6
Ferry & Hop-On Hop-Off Explorer Bus Tickets
from $59
7
Whale Watching Cruise
from $104
8
Premium Milford Sound Small Group Tour & Cruise from Queenstown
from $216
Queenstown sells adrenaline and pours pinot noir by the same lake.
Everything in Queenstown →
Wedge a jet boat morning against a Gibbston cellar afternoon and you have the town in one day. It is also the launch point for Milford, which is a very long coach ride and worth every hour of it.
Shotover canyon at 85kph
Rock walls a metre off each shoulder and a driver who spins the boat for the fun of it. Short, loud, and the reason half the town books a second run.
Alpine landings and heli-hikes
Snow underfoot on a glacier that took ten thousand years to get there. Flights are scrubbed for cloud constantly, so plan it early in your stay and keep a spare day.
Central Otago pinot, four cellars
The southernmost wine region on earth, planted on schist terraces above the Kawarau. Somebody else drives, which is the entire point.
What a day out in New Zealand actually costs.
This is not a cheap country and the tour prices say so. Grouped by what you pay, with the best of each band, so the budget decides the day rather than the other way round.
Cave boats, city trams, museum entries, a cable car and the geothermal parks.
The full-day standards: Milford cruises, Hobbiton from Auckland, whale watching, wine country.
Heli-hikes onto the ice, skydives over the lakes, fly-cruise-fly days and private guides.
Rotorua smells of sulphur and is worth every whiff.
The ground steams in the town parks. Wai-O-Tapu boils in colours that look edited. And the Te Arawa people have been hosting visitors here for a century and a half, which is why the cultural evenings are the real thing rather than a floor show.
Every Rotorua day out →
The alps run the length of the South Island and set the timetable.
Aoraki stands 3,724 metres over a glacial lake full of icebergs. An hour south, Tekapo sits inside a dark sky reserve where the Milky Way is bright enough to cast a shadow. Everything up here turns on cloud cover, so the flexible day is the one that works.
- 1Alpine Stargazing Experience with a Guidefrom $59
- 2Stargazing Experiencefrom $71
- 3Scenic Helicopter Flight with Alpine Landingfrom $226
Three things that happen only on these two islands.
Mountains and coastline you can find elsewhere. A film set kept as a working farm, a cave roof lit by insect larvae, and a welcome performed by the people whose land it is are New Zealand and nowhere else.
The Shire, still standing
The set was built twice. The first version came down after the Rings films; the second was put up in permanent materials for The Hobbit and the Alexander family, who farm the land, kept it. Forty-four hobbit holes sit in the hillside with the gardens planted and tended year round, and the pint at the Green Dragon at the end is included in most tickets.
- 1Hobbiton Movie Set: Guided Tour Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 8,167 reviews
- 2Hobbiton™ Movie Set Walking Tour from Shires Rest★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,577 reviews
- 3Hobbiton & Waitomo Caves Guided Day Trip from Auckland incl lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,677 reviews
A ceiling made of larvae
Arachnocampa luminosa lives nowhere but New Zealand. The larvae hang sticky fishing lines from a limestone roof and glow to draw insects onto them, which is less romantic than it looks and no less extraordinary. Boats have been drifting through the Waitomo grotto since a Maori chief and an English surveyor mapped it in 1887.
- 1Glowworm Caves Guided Tour by Boat★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 4,908 reviews
- 2Hobbiton & Waitomo Caves Guided Day Trip from Auckland incl lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,677 reviews
- 3Waitomo Caves: Labyrinth Black Water Rafting Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,673 reviews
The powhiri, done properly
A welcome onto a marae follows an order that has not changed: the challenge, the call, the speeches, then the hongi. In Rotorua several iwi-owned operators run the evening on their own ground with a hangi lifted out of a pit at the end. It is hosting rather than performance, and the difference is obvious within a minute.
- 1Mitai Maori Village: Cultural Experience and Dinner Buffet★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 3,575 reviews
- 2Cultural Experience & Seasonal Māori Cuisine at Te Pā Tū★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,546 reviews
- 3Mitai Maori Village Cultural Experience in Rotorua★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,294 reviews
Four bookings down here that will not wait.
Most of this country can be sorted from a campsite kitchen the night before. These four run on timed entry, one road, one train a day and a boat that leaves whether you are on it or not.
- 01Hobbiton Movie Set: Guided Tour TicketEntry is by timed slot in a group with a guide. Summer mornings, the cool ones, go weeks ahead.
- 02Premium Milford Sound Small Group Tour & Cruise from QueenstownOne road in, one road out, and it closes for avalanche risk. Day trips from Queenstown leave before dawn and fill first.
- 03Doubtful Sound Wilderness Day TripGetting there is a boat across Lake Manapouri, then a coach over Wilmot Pass. The relay runs to a fixed timetable with no spare seats.
- 04TranzAlpine Train, Arthur’s Pass and Castle Hill Day TripOne train each way, each day, across Arthur’s Pass. Miss it and the next chance is tomorrow.
Waiheke, Marlborough and Central Otago pour on three different latitudes.
A forty-minute ferry from downtown Auckland lands you in syrah. Marlborough put sauvignon blanc on every wine list on earth. Central Otago grows pinot noir further south than anyone else tries. Somebody else drives on all three.
Four seasons in a day is a description, not a joke.
Fiordland takes seven metres of rain a year and the alps make their own weather by lunchtime. Flights get scrubbed, passes close, and a booked-out morning evaporates. The fix is a wet-day list held in reserve: hot water you sit in, a workshop, a cellar, a tram.
Down the map, Cape Reinga to Bluff
By kind of day: on the water, in the air, under the ground
Auckland to Milford Sound: the run almost everybody does first.
Fresh off the road this week.
The rest of the new ones →
Lake Wanaka 1-Hour Cruise Including Wine and Cheese
Read our review →
Tongariro Alpine Crossing One Way Shuttle from Ketetahi
Read our review →
Tauranga Private Excursion: Rotorua -Te Puia-Geysers & Kiwi’s
Read our review →
Rotorua via Kiwi/lakes country & a visit to iconic Whakarewarewa
Read our review →
