Greg’s New Zealand trip, tips, and recommendations

My wife and I recently visited New Zealand for the first time, and it was awesome.  Prior to the trip, friends and acquaintances offered countless recommendations, but we couldn’t do it all.  We only had two weeks.  We ended up spending only three nights on the north island and the rest of the trip on the south island.  This post outlines our itinerary and points out highlights from our trip.  Please do not think of this as a recommended itinerary.  There are endless great things that we didn’t do.  I’m sure readers who have been to New Zealand before will be disappointed that we missed this, that, or the other thing.  That’s OK!  Let us know in the comments below and we’ll plan another trip!  For readers who are thinking of going, make sure to read the comments of this post because I’m certain that people will share great recommendations.

New Zealand Tips

Before I jump into my trip overview, here are some things that we learned that would have been helpful to know in advance…

• A time zone trick:  The time in New Zealand during our trip was 18 hours ahead of eastern time in the U.S.  Doing mental math to figure out what time it was back home was extremely challenging until I realized a simple shortcut: the U.S. time was 6 hours later (but one calendar day behind).  For example, if it was 11am in New Zealand, it was easy to add 6 hours to figure out that it was 5pm back home.  Of course you’ll need to adjust this trick to your “back home” time zone and any daylight saving time offsets that may be involved.
• Tipping isn’t expected: Unlike tip-happy United States, New Zealanders don’t expect tips.  The one and only exception that we encountered was with free walking tours where the guides earn money only from tips.
• Cash isn’t necessary: When visiting foreign countries I usually stop at an ATM to withdraw cash in the local currency.  I did that here, but cash wasn’t needed anywhere except to tip our free walking tour guides.  We used credit cards with no foreign transaction fees everywhere else, even in a taxi.  Free walking tour guides usually stop the tour near an ATM anyway so in the future I would only withdraw cash if needed in that circumstance.  Or I’d tip them in U.S. currency and let them figure out how to convert it.  Bonus tip: For international travel, it’s a great idea to carry a debit card that has no foreign transaction fees and that reimburses ATM fees.  A great option that is 100% fee-free is the Schwab Bank Investor Checking.  For those interested, here is my refer-a-friend link.  After clicking through, click “Open an Account”, and then “Individual Checking Account” or “Joint Checking Account.”
• Uber is available, Lyft is not: In my one experience with a taxi in New Zealand I found that Uber would have been significantly cheaper and so I stuck with Uber for the rest of the trip.
• Driving (on the left) is easy: Unlike in Europe, most of New Zealand’s roads are wide like in the U.S.  Plus, also unlike in Europe, most rental cars in New Zealand have automatic transmission.  And, of course, English is New Zealand’s primary language.  These things make renting a car and driving it very easy.  Yes, you have to get used to driving on the left (right turns into the far lane can be especially hard to get used to), but that adjustment doesn’t take long.  This was a long way of saying that I recommend renting a car when in New Zealand.
• Restaurants don’t bring the bill to you: When you’re done eating at a restaurant, you shouldn’t wait for the check.  And, unlike in Europe, you shouldn’t ask for the bill.  Instead, when done eating, simply walk up to the front cashier (often, but not always the bartender) and let them know which table you were at.  They’ll usually confirm what you ordered and then you can pay there with your favorite credit card.
• Many restaurants close around the New Year: Many New Zealanders go on holiday at the end of the year and so we found that many restaurants were closed while we were in Auckland from December 29 to Jan 1.
• Try Meat pies: New Zealanders love their meat pies (they’re a lot like pot pies).  The cool thing is that when you want good food fast, you can usually find hot meat pies just about anywhere: pop into a bakery, stop at a mom and pop shop on the side of the road or even a gas station market, or grab one while waiting for a flight at the airport (we did all of these things during our trip!).  Even vegetarian options are widely available.

Key to the stars ★★★

In my trip overview, below, I marked many places or activities with stars.  Here’s how to interpret them (yes, I heavily borrowed from the Michelin Guide system):

★ (one star): If you’ll be nearby anyway, I recommend this place or activity
★★ (two stars): This means that I believe this one is worth going out of your way for (i.e. worth a detour)
★★★ (three stars): This is worth planning your trip around

North Island (Dec 29 2022 to Jan 1 2023)

Auckland (3 nights)

Park Hyatt Auckland ★

See: Park Hyatt Auckland Bottom Line Review.  As I wrote in my review, this is an excellent hotel, but a poor Park Hyatt.  I’d happily stay again next time I’m in Auckland, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for this one.

Free Walking Tour ★

I usually find that free walking tours are a great way to get to know a city quickly.  I prefer the free ones because, in my experience, they’re more often fun and interesting than prepaid tours.  This is probably because with free tours only the interesting guides earn enough in tips for it to be worth doing regularly.  Anyway, we enjoyed this one!  You can find details and sign up here.

Mount Eden at sunset ★★

The concierge at the Park Hyatt recommended that we visit nearby Mount Eden at sunset.  That turned out to be a great recommendation.  It was beautiful!

Culprit Restaurant ★★

We loved our dinner here.  When visiting Auckland, make sure to make reservations in advance.  The food was inventive, fun, and delicious.

Hobbiton and Glow Worm Caves Tour ★

We booked a day tour with a company called Bush and Beach.  We were picked up at our hotel in the morning and returned around 6pm.  Both the Hobbiton village and the glow worm caves were well worth visiting.  And by booking through Bush and Beach, our Hobbiton visit included an excellent buffet lunch right in Hobbiton (next to the Green Dragon).  Other Hobbiton visitors who hadn’t booked through Bush and Beach didn’t qualify for the lunch.

While I’m very glad we did the tour, the whole experience felt a little bit too touristy and Disney-World-ish for my tastes.  Still, I recommend doing it once.

New Years Eve fireworks ★

If you happen to be in Auckland over New Year’s Eve, you might as well watch the fireworks shot from the Sky Tower.  If you are staying at the Park Hyatt, you might be lucky enough to have a room like we had with a good view of the tower.  If not, there are several hotel balconies that are open to hotel guests where you can go to watch.

Fly to Christchurch

Air New Zealand offers cheap and easy flights to just about anywhere around New Zealand. I didn’t even bother trying to book award flights since the cash rates were only around $100 USD per person to fly to Christchurch.

South Island (Jan 1 to Jan 12 2023)

Christchurch (3 nights) ★★

Overall I thought that Christchurch was a delightful town, well worth a visit.

The George Hotel ★

This is a good hotel in a great location.  See my review here: The George, Christchurch New Zealand (Bookable via Hyatt SLH). Bottom line review.

Free Walking Tour ★

The free walking tour in Christchurch is run by Green Kiwi Tours.  And, despite Google thinking that the tour is permanently closed, I can assure you that it is open and available, and well worth doing!  Make sure to sign up in advance.

Botanic Gardens ★★

When visiting Christchurch, don’t miss the free botanic gardens.  It’s beautiful and a great way to spend an afternoon.

Arthur’s Pass Tour ★

We booked a day tour from Christchurch to Arthur’s Pass with Canterbury Trails.  The tour guide picked us up in a van at our hotel and drove everyone to the train station where we rode the TranzAlpine train one-way to Arthur’s Pass (the return trip was by van).  There, the tour guide met us in the van and took us to lunch and then to various scenic spots around the National Park.  Then, on the drive back we stopped at Castle Hill, which was my favorite stop of the day.

Car Rental

Thanks to Autoslash, I had found a great rate for a one way Budget rental with pick-up at the Christchurch airport and drop-off in Queenstown within a short walk from our Queenstown hotel.  The rate, though, was for a big pickup truck.  When I went to get the truck, I asked at the counter if I could downgrade to a regular car.  We didn’t need a big truck for this trip!  We were given the perfectly good (and much better gas mileage) Toyota Corolla shown above.

Oamaru (1 night) ★★

In my opinion, the little town of Oamaru is worth going out of your way for because it is packed with several great things to do.  We spent just one night there and that was perfect.

Poshtel Hotel ★

This independent boutique hotel is in a great location in town.  As you can see above, it is chock full of interesting artwork.  A light continental breakfast is included.

Steampunk HQ ★★

The town of Oamaru has embraced its industrial past by going all steampunk.  Wikipedia defines steampunk as “a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery.”  The Steampunk HQ museum is well worth the price of admission. It’s chock full of Mad Max-ish technology and it’s almost like a treasure hunt: some displays are interactive and stuff happens when you pull the right levers or push the right buttons; there are hidden rooms and passages; and there’s even a gigantic claw-like gizmo where you can use a huge mechanical winch to try to pick up objects.

The steampunk theme in Oamaru goes beyond the museum.  Nearby is a playground with several huge steampunk-ish elements.  Even our hotel, the Poshtel, got in on the fun with a number of steampunk elements like this toilet paper holder:

Blue Penguin Colony ★★★

The Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony is a protected reserve for blue penguins.  There are two things you can do here as a visitor and I recommend doing both.

First, you can do a day tour (currently between 1pm and 7pm).  Day tour entry includes a small museum, a guided walk around the penguin homes, and a viewing opportunity.  In the tour around the homes you are unlikely to see any penguins (we didn’t), but it was still a highlight to see where they live. In many ways it seemed like a miniature version of Hobbiton but with square doors instead of round.  The viewing opportunity was in a specially-designed viewing room which has 10 nesting boxes that you can look down into without disturbing the penguins.  If there happen to be penguins there (which is common when they’re nesting), you’ll see them. We saw a few adult penguins and several babies.

The better known attraction here is at sunset.  Visitors sit in one of two large viewing platforms (general or premium) and watch as penguins return from their day of hunting fish at sea.  The penguins float in together in groups called “rafts”.  When they reach the shore they waddle up a steep rocky hill, walk through rectangular tunnels built for them into the fence, and then (I assume) they say goodbye to each other before waddling off to their homes.  From the viewing platforms you can see all of this except the final return to their homes (most of the penguin houses aren’t visible from the viewing platforms).  In the future I’d love to do the premium seating which is much closer to the fence tunnels, but it was sold out when we went.

Cucina Restaurant ★★

Great service. Beautifully prepared dishes.  Incredibly yummy food.  Go!  Link to website.  This is the one thing I most want to return to Oamaru for!

Bushy Beach

This scenic reserve just outside of Oamaru is home to a yellow eyed penguin colony.  If you visit in the evening you may be able to see them at a distance.  We visited in the morning, though, and didn’t see any.

Drive to Dunedin (1 night)

We had a number of great stops on our drive south from Oamaru to Dunedin.  Unfortunately, we arrived in Dunedin too late to do any sightseeing in that area, and we had to leave early the next morning to drive across to the west side of the south island.  I hope to return someday to explore the area around Dunedin.

Moeraki Boulders ★

You’ll find Moeraki Boulders Beach just about half an hour drive south of Oamaru.  These spherical boulders are mysterious and fun to see and to climb on, but really there’s not a lot to do here.  I do recommend stopping for 15 minutes to explore the boulders along with all of the other tourists, but then move on to the better stop which few tourists know about… Katiki Point Lighthouse.

Katiki Point Lighthouse ★★

What a great stop!  This historic reserve is only a 15 minute drive from the Moeraki Boulders but most tourists don’t seem to know about it.  It’s an incredibly beautiful peninsula with a walking path down the middle.  As we entered the reserve we soon saw a yellow eyed penguin on the beach.  We watched as it made its way across the beach and up a steep hill to get back to its babies.  That was amazing to see.

If you’re not lucky enough to see penguins, this is still worth a stop.  Seals and beautiful views are everywhere.

Doctor’s Point Reserve

Doctor’s Point is just under an hour drive south of the Katiki Point Lighthouse and just half an hour north of Dunedin.  On this beach you’ll find large rock caves which you can walk through.  Try to go during low tide though.  There’s no beach to walk on at high tide.  We didn’t plan well and had to do a little bushwhacking to get back to our car.

The Stables (Dunedin hotel) ★

We stayed just one night in this independent hotel.  It was very nice and clean.  Even though we booked through hotels.com, it was run like an AirBnb: they sent us a code for entry.  We never saw or talked with anyone who works there.

Doubtful Sound (1 night)

Doubtful Sound Overnight Cruise ★★★

This overnight Doubtful Sound cruise was the highlight of our New Zealand trip.  The adventure began with a 40 minute boat ride across Lake Manapouri.  We then boarded a bus which took us over a mountain to Doubtful Sound (which is actually a fiord).  We then cruised through Doubtful Sound and its many arms, and even briefly out to sea.  We stopped the first afternoon to go kayaking and swimming.  In the evening they served an excellent dinner.  We anchored overnight in a quiet arm of the fiord and enjoyed spectacular sunset views.  After breakfast the next morning we cruised more around the fiord before returning to Manapouri via bus and boat.  This overnight trip cost us $845 U.S. for the two of us to stay in a private room with an ensuite bathroom.

Some other highlights were the multiple times a school of dolphins played around the boat, and when we briefly exited the fiord into the ocean and pulled up alongside a small island full of active seals.

It’s hard to explain why we loved this overnight trip so much.  Part of it may have been the fact that it took multiple vehicles over a lake and mountain to get there.  We were cut off from all communications (no cell service or internet) and felt like we were at the end of the earth.  Plus, we enjoyed the company of other travelers that we talked and shared meals with.  And, of course, the scenery was spectacular.  We can’t wait to do it again!

Te Anau (1 night)

Te Anau Lodge ★

We spent one night in Te Anau at this independent hotel which is worth a visit all by itself.  The Te Anau Lodge used to be a convent.  Now it’s owned by someone with a whimsical and irreverent sense of humor.  The breakfast “Chapel” room includes a poster with the “10 breakfast room commandments.”  The hotel’s public bathroom is titled “The Lavatorium”.  Drinks and snacks are available in the library.  One of the snacks is communion wafers.  Our room was named the Bishop’s Retreat and had a large bishop chess piece outside the door.  These are just a few of the many examples.  The hotel also has unique rooms such as one converted from a train car and another that was a carousel.

Te Anau is a great town from which to explore Fiordland National Park, and the Te Anau Lodge is a great place to stay when there.

Milford Sound Day Trip ★

Doing Milford Sound is probably the most recommended activity for New Zealand.  Rather than drive ourselves, we booked a package tour with Real NZ where we were driven in a glass topped bus to Milford Sound.  We stopped at a number of beautiful spots along the way, including Mirror Lakes (1st photo above).  Finally we boarded a boat on Milford Sound (really a fiord) for a two hour out and back cruise.

While Milford Sound may have more dramatic views, I preferred the beauty and remote feeling of Doubtful Sound.  The Milford Sound boat dock was teeming with tourists when we arrived, and many filed onto the same boat as we did.  The whole experience seemed overly touristy to me.  It was a bit of a letdown after all the great things I had heard and read about Milford Sound.  If you want to do both fiords, I’d recommend doing Milford Sound first and Doubtful Sound second.

Regarding the Real NZ tour: the tour guide was good, but the glass topped bus was like a sauna.  The a/c couldn’t compete with the sunshine pouring in from above.  In retrospect, I would have liked to have driven myself and stopped for as long as we wanted at the many beautiful attractions in Fiordland National Park on the way to Milford Sound.

Queenstown (4 nights) ★★★

After our Milford Sound tour, we drove from Te Anau to Queenstown.  The next morning I dropped off the rental car at Budget and walked back to the hotel.  While Queenstown was teeming with tourists, the sheer beauty of the surroundings more than made up for it.  The town is on Lake Wakatipu and surrounded by tall hills.  We loved it.

Eichardt’s Private Hotel ★★

We paid 40,000 points per night to stay in this hotel which otherwise usually costs over $1,500 USD per night.  It’s in the perfect location in town with great service and plenty of extras like free valet parking, free breakfast, free pre-dinner drinks and canapes, etc.  See my full review here: Eichardt’s Private Hotel — A gem in Queenstown New Zealand bookable with Hyatt points.

Queenstown lake walk and water taxi ★

On our first morning in Queenstown, we walked along the lakefront from Eichardt’s Private Hotel to the Hilton which is about 6 miles away.  While we enjoyed the views of the lake and The Remarkables mountain range beyond, many bikes zoomed past us without warning and that made the walk less relaxing than we had hoped.  We ate lunch at the Hilton and then returned to town via water taxi.

Wine Tour ★

For one of our days in Queenstown we booked a small group wine & food tour (details here).  We stopped at several wineries for wine tastings and, at one stop, a delicious lunch.  While the wines varied from “meh” to excellent, we liked our guide and enjoyed meeting other travelers.  It’s worth noting that some of the places we stopped were only open to tours over the holidays, so we wouldn’t have been able to go if we had driven ourselves.

Queenstown Hill ★★

This was great!  One morning we walked around Queenstown Gardens, but quickly finished that because they’re quite small.  So then we decided to walk up hill through Queenstown’s neighborhoods.  As we walked, we found signs for the Queenstown Hill Walkway and decided to go for it.  The walk was very steep and tiring, but well worth it!  The views from the near top and very top were incredible.  We also walked right by a group of adorable mountain goats.

Tatsumi Restaurant ★

Queenstown is loaded with great restaurants, but we made the mistake of not booking far in advance.  Among the restaurants we wanted to try, only Tatsumi was available for dinner reservations at a time that worked for us.  We booked their “Sharing Banguet” chef’s selection dinner for $85 NZD per person.  It was excellent.

For our other dinners while in town we ate at Bella Cucina Italian restaurant and Eichardt’s Bar, which serves tapas.  The tapas at Eichardt’s were good (and it was a great way to use the hotel’s $100 food credit), but we didn’t care much for Bella Cucina.

Next time in New Zealand

If we return to some of the same areas next time we visit, here are some things we missed but would like to do…

• In Christchurch we’d like to do punting or kayaking on the Avon
• In Queenstown we’d like to try a Fergburger (but a local told us that Devil Burger was even better)
• We’d like to spend several nights in Te Anau and make it our home base for exploring Fiordland (and we’d drive ourselves around to the different sights)
• We’d love to do the Milford Track hike
• We’ll budget more time to explore the area around Dunedin and visit, for example, the Royal Albatross Centre
• Mount Cook National Park
• Stewart Island

Of course there are many, many more great things to do and see.  Time to start planning for our next visit…

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