What We Would Skip in New Zealand

Almost everything in New Zealand is good, which is exactly what makes a two-week route hard to write. The country is small enough that everything looks reachable and slow enough that most of it is not, and the difference between a trip people talk about for years and one they describe as tiring is f

Here is what we take out of a draft, written the way we would say it on the phone.

What we take out	What goes in its place
The second island on a two-week trip	Two more nights each in Fiordland and Aoraki
A fourth or fifth region	Three nights per base instead of two
Milford as a day trip from Queenstown	Two nights in Te Anau, or Doubtful Sound
A single night on the West Coast	A third night at Aoraki Mount Cook
A room in central Queenstown	Arrowtown or Glenorchy

The big ones

Both islands in fourteen days

The most common thing we remove, and the one people argue about most. Fourteen days across both islands means a ferry crossing or an internal flight in the middle, two transit days that see almost nothing, and every region visited at the pace of a person who is already behind.

Fourteen days on the South Island alone is a better holiday by a wide margin. Both islands honestly needs seventeen to twenty-one days. The arithmetic is in how many days do you need in New Zealand and the route we would build instead is in the best two-week route.

The fourth and fifth region

Same principle, one level down. Every additional region on a fixed number of days is a long drive, a check-out, a check-in and a lost afternoon, in exchange for about a day of actual seeing. Cutting one region almost always improves a trip more than upgrading every hotel in it.

One-night stops

In a self-drive country, a one-night stop is two hours of unpacking and repacking for eleven hours of sleep. We aim for two or three nights in most places and we will push back on a route with six single nights in it. The only one-night stops we defend are the arrival and departure ends.

Milford Sound as a day trip from Queenstown

Roughly twelve to thirteen hours, most of it in a vehicle, for about two hours on the water in the middle of the day when the light is worst and every boat is out. The same cruise from Te Anau is a civilised day.

If Fiordland matters, sleep in Te Anau. If it does not fit, we would rather remove Fiordland from this trip than sell you the coach version of it.

Sleeping in central Queenstown

Not a skip so much as a substitution, and the one that most reliably improves a trip. Queenstown carries the largest accommodation premium in the country and is the busiest place you will visit. Arrowtown is twenty minutes away and quiet in the evening. Glenorchy is forty-five minutes up one of the best roads in the country and sits at the head of the lake with the Dart and Rees valleys behind it.

You still spend your days in Queenstown. You simply stop paying the most for the least pleasant evening.

The West Coast glaciers on a single night

Franz Josef and Fox have both retreated significantly and the valley walks no longer reach the ice. Getting onto a glacier means a helicopter, and this is one of the wettest coasts in the world, so it frequently does not fly.

One night means one attempt, in a wet town with the worst sandflies in the country. Two nights makes it a real day with a real alternative behind it. If two nights will not fit, take the West Coast out and give the days to Aoraki, which is drier, more reliable and has better walking.

Cape Reinga and the far north on a two-week trip

The drive from the Bay of Islands to Cape Reinga and back is a very long day for a lighthouse and a view, on a trip that has not yet reached the South Island. It belongs on a dedicated North Island trip and nowhere else.

The TranzAlpine as a return day trip

The Christchurch to Greymouth rail journey is a genuinely good train ride. Taken as a return day trip from Christchurch it is most of a day sitting down, twice, over the same ground. If you want it, use it one way as transport with a car arranged at the other end, and treat it as a leg rather than an excursion.

Stewart Island or the Catlins bolted onto two weeks

Both are excellent and both are the deep south, which means long driving days at the far end of a route that is already full. On twenty-one days they are among the best things in the country. On fourteen they cost you Fiordland or Aoraki. See New Zealand in 21 days.

The ones with conditions attached

A campervan

Right for some travellers and wrong for many. It is slower on every hill and every corner in a country where the driving times already surprise people, freedom camping is restricted and enforced, and the good holiday parks in January are booked out too. We will build it, and we will tell you where a car and a bed would have been better.

Taking the hire car on the Cook Strait ferry

Expensive, and usually unnecessary. Dropping the car in Wellington, crossing as a foot passenger and collecting another in Picton is normally cheaper. We do it that way by default and tell you when the exception applies.

Bungy jumping

If you want to jump, jump, and Queenstown is the place it was invented. If what you actually want is the story, know that it is over in seconds and costs about the same as a half-day on the water in a small boat, which more people remember fondly.

Hobbiton

Extremely well run and precisely what it promises. Worth a half day if the films matter in your house, and a strange and expensive detour if they do not. We ask rather than assume.

A dolphin or seal swim chosen on price

Kaikoura’s dusky dolphin swims and the Akaroa boats range from carefully run to crowded. What we look for is a small boat, a limit on numbers in the water, a proper briefing and an operator that will call it off rather than go out in poor conditions. The wildlife distance rules are legal requirements, and an operator that treats them casually is telling you something.

Rotorua

Rotorua smells of sulphur and it is worth it anyway. What is worth skipping is the cluster of low-quality attractions around the main road. Two or three properly chosen days here, including a guided evening at a marae and one of the serious geothermal parks, is one of the best parts of the North Island. A day of everything with a queue is not.

Auckland

Two days, and it is mostly a gateway. Waiheke Island for the wine and the beaches is the best of it, and the west coast beaches at Piha are the other half. Beyond that, on a two-week trip, Auckland is where you land and leave from.

The small ones

The Sky Tower, in a country whose views are at ground level.
A second Milford cruise on a trip that could have had Doubtful Sound instead.
Buying a full day of wine touring in Marlborough when the ferry day already passes through it and two cellar doors is plenty.
Hotel breakfast, in a country with genuinely excellent cafes.
Queenstown’s restaurant queues in January, when Arrowtown is twenty minutes away.
The commercial hot pool complexes, when the free and low-key ones exist.
A scenic flight booked for the last morning, with no day behind it to reschedule into.
Driving the Crown Range or Arthur’s Pass at dusk, which turns a good road into a tiring one.
Any unsealed short cut, which is usually excluded by the rental agreement anyway.

What we would do with those days instead

Doubtful Sound instead of a second Milford day. Longer to reach, far quieter, and preferred by most people who do both.

A third night at Aoraki. The Hooker Valley in the morning, the Tasman glacier lake in the afternoon and the dark sky reserve at night is a better day than anything you would drive four hours to reach.

A day walk instead of an activity. The Routeburn Flats, the Rob Roy Glacier track, the Kepler’s Luxmore ridge and the Hooker Valley are all day walks from roads you are already on, and they cost nothing.

Glenorchy and the Dart valley. An hour of driving and no crowd.

Banks Peninsula and Akaroa as the first or last two days, rather than an extra night in Christchurch.

Nothing. An empty day with a swim, a laundry and a long lunch is not a wasted day. We build them in deliberately and we defend them when asked to fill them. On a fourteen-day self-drive route, two of them are the difference between coming home rested and coming home tired.

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Frequently asked questions

What is the single most common mistake?

Trying to do both islands in two weeks. Almost every other problem in a New Zealand draft follows from that one decision.

Are the glaciers worth it at all?

With two nights and a helicopter budget, yes, and the flight is genuinely extraordinary when it goes. With one night and no alternative planned, usually not.

Should we skip Fiordland if we only have ten days?

Not necessarily. Skip the West Coast instead. Christchurch, Aoraki, Wanaka, Queenstown and Te Anau fits ten days without a single long transit day. The costs for each length are in what two weeks in New Zealand really costs.

What do you refuse to build?

A six-hour drive on the day of an international departure, a single weather-dependent activity with no spare day behind it, and a fourteen-day route with more than six bases in it. We explain why, then offer the version that works.

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What we would skip in New Zealand