Everything worth stopping for. From the Shire to the Sounds.
Which Milford cruise beats the coaches. What a Hobbiton ticket really costs. Whether the glowworms read better at Waitomo or Te Anau. Reviews of every tour you can book in New Zealand.
02
04In New Zealand the best day usually starts at a wharf.
Fourteen hundred kilometres of coast, a drowned valley in the south-west that fills with waterfalls when it rains, and lakes deep enough to lose a mountain in. Pick the kind of boat first, the town second.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Cruise Milford NZ Small Boutique Cruise Experience
Fiord cruisesMitre Peak, seal colonies and waterfalls off the cliff face.
Jet boat ridesShallow braided rivers at speed, canyon walls close enough to touch.
Flat-water paddlesSea and lake at dawn, before the tour boats push out.
Dolphin runsHector's dolphins in the harbour, dusky pods out in the open water.
All 342 boat trips in New Zealand →
Six towns that anchor a first New Zealand itinerary.
An adventure capital wedged between a lake and a mountain range, a harbour city on two seas, a valley that steams, the road to the fiords, a garden city rebuilt from an earthquake, and the bay where the country was signed into being.
The days out New Zealand books the hardest.
Every New Zealand tour we have reviewed →The summer weeks go first on all of these, and every one of them earns the queue for a different reason.
1
Hobbiton Movie Set: Guided Tour Ticket
Review of Hobbiton Movie Set guided tour in New Zealand, with set highlights, Green Dragon Inn drink, price, access, timing, and practical tips.
From · $71
Read our review →
2
Waitomo: 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
Waiheke Island: 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
What a day out in New Zealand actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Distance is what gets expensive here — the cheap end is full of things you can walk to.
Cave entries, thermal park tickets, harbour ferries, gondolas and the short walks out of town.
The standards: Hobbiton, a Milford cruise off a Te Anau coach, whale watching, jet boats, a winery afternoon.
Scenic flights, glacier heli-hikes, the fly-cruise-fly to Milford and full days out of Queenstown.
Queenstown sells adrenaline, but the lake is the reason to stay.
The town invented commercial bungy and never stopped selling it. Book one loud thing, then give the rest of the day to Lake Wakatipu — an old coal steamer, a farm on the far shore, and the Remarkables turning pink at about nine in the evening.
Every Queenstown day out →
Three things New Zealand has and nowhere else does.
Caves and hot springs exist all over the world. A ceiling of live glowworms, a working film set left standing for visitors, and a lake that boils at the edges do not.
The Waitomo Glowworms
Arachnocampa luminosa lives nowhere else on earth. In the Waitomo caves the larvae hang fishing lines from a limestone ceiling and glow to draw insects onto them, and the boat drifts underneath with the lights off. The blue is faint — give your eyes the full ten minutes and do not use a phone.
- 1Waitomo: Glowworm 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
- 3Glowworm Caves Guided Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 2,611 reviews
Hobbiton
Thirty-nine hobbit holes sit on a sheep farm outside Matamata, rebuilt in permanent materials after the first set was bulldozed. The gardens are planted and pruned to stay in continuity, the fake oak above Bag End has wired-on leaves, and the tour ends with a pint at the Green Dragon. Departures are ticketed and timed.
- 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
Wai-O-Tapu and the thermal belt
A rift runs from White Island down through Rotorua to Taupō, and the ground along it never settles. Champagne Pool sits at seventy-four degrees and rims itself in orange antimony; the Lady Knox geyser goes off at quarter past ten because somebody helps it. Rotorua smells of it constantly and you stop noticing by the second day.
- 1Wai-O-Tapu Geothermal Park Entry Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 2,601 reviews
- 2Hobbiton, Rotorua and Wai-O-Tapu Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 458 reviews
- 3Hobbiton & Rotorua including Wai-O-Tapu – Small Group Tour from Auckland★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 450 reviews
Milford Sound is four hours from Queenstown and worth the alarm clock.
Seven metres of rain a year fall on Fiordland, which is why the cliffs run with waterfalls and why a wet day is arguably the better one. Coaches leave Queenstown in the dark; Te Anau buys you two hours in bed and the same boat.
Four New Zealand bookings that will not wait.
Most of this country can be sorted over breakfast. These four run on timed entries, boat schedules and weather windows that take no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Hobbiton Movie Set: Guided Tour TicketEvery departure from the Shire's Rest is ticketed and timed, with a fixed number on each walk. December to February they go weeks out.
- 02Premium Milford Sound Small Group Tour & Cruise from QueenstownThe coach leaves Queenstown before dawn and the cruise slots are sold against sailing times, not seats on the bus. The Homer Tunnel also closes for avalanche control.
- 03Waitomo: Glowworm Caves Guided Tour by BoatThe grotto is entered by boat in small groups on a fixed rotation. There is no walk-up queue that moves.
- 04Lake Tekapo: Alpine Stargazing Experience with a GuideTekapo only runs on a clear night, and the clear nights near a new moon are the ones people plan a whole South Island leg around.
New Zealand weather cancels flights, not holidays.
Scenic flights, glacier landings and some boat days are the first things a front takes out, and on the West Coast the front arrives weekly. The answer is underground, indoors or in hot water: caves hold their temperature, thermal pools are better in the rain, and a cellar door does not care.
Marlborough, Waiheke, Central Otago: three wine regions, one afternoon each.
Sauvignon blanc off the Wairau gravels, syrah on an island forty minutes from downtown Auckland, and pinot noir grown at the coldest latitude anyone tries it. Every one of them runs a minibus so nobody has to draw the short straw.
Rotorua: the steam is the easy part. Stay for the evening.
Everything in Rotorua →
Ngāti Whakaue country, and the one place where the geothermal ground and the living culture sit on the same street. Do a thermal park in the morning, a river in the afternoon, and a marae after dark. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the district.
A marae welcome, then dinner
A pōwhiri at the gate, a haka you are standing close enough to feel, then a hāngī lifted out of the ground and eaten at long tables. Te Pā Tū and Mitai run the two best-attended versions and they book out first in summer.
Wai-O-Tapu, or the mud at Hell's Gate
Wai-O-Tapu has the colour — Champagne Pool, the Artist's Palette, a geyser at 10.15. Hell's Gate has the mud bath you climb into afterwards. Neither needs a full day, and both are better in cool weather when the steam sits.
The seven-metre drop on the Kaituna
The Kaituna runs through a bush gorge north of town and finishes over Tutea Falls, the highest commercially rafted waterfall anywhere. Grade five, and almost everyone in the raft is a first-timer.
By town — North Island and South
By kind of day — water, height, heat or a long lunch
Auckland to Milford: the route almost every first trip follows.
Matamata
MackenzieThe newest New Zealand tour reviews.
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Hobbiton-Rotorua : Movie Set & Geysers: Private Tour
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Self-Guided Milford Track Day Walk from Lake Te Anau
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Milford Sound Earnslaw Burn Helicopter Tour from Queenstown
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Invercargill to Dunedin via the Catlins Small Group 1 Way Tour
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Waipara Valley Winery Tour Wine Tastings and Scenic Views
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7 – Day North to South Island Grand Tour – Auckland to Queenstown
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Otago Peninsula Tour and Larnach Castle City Sights (min 4 )
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