Places

New Zealand travel map: the regions, the drive times and the best places to visit

Q: What are the best places to visit in New Zealand?

The places most trips are built around are Queenstown, Christchurch, Auckland, the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers, Milford Sound, Aoraki/Mount Cook and Rotorua, with Wānaka, Te Anau, Wellington, Lake Tekapo and the Bay of Islands close behind.

Q: Can you drive between the North and South Islands?

Not directly: you cross Cook Strait on the Interislander or Bluebridge ferry, about three and a half hours from Wellington to Picton. Many rental companies swap cars at each end rather than let one cross.

Q: How long does it take to drive around the South Island?

The classic loop from Christchurch through Mount Cook, Queenstown, Milford Sound and the glaciers is about ten days at a comfortable pace, and fourteen to do it well.

Q: Which city should I fly into?

Auckland for the North Island, Christchurch or Queenstown for the South Island. Flying into one and out of another saves a long backtrack.

By Silver Fern Travel21 October 20265 min read

Aoraki/Mount Cook and the Southern Alps across the turquoise water of Lake Pukaki, with golden tussock in the foreground

The map below shows the 44 places in New Zealand that our itineraries go to most, sized by how many of them do. The busiest are the answer most people are after when they search for the best places to visit: Queenstown, Christchurch, Auckland, the glaciers, Milford Sound, Aoraki/Mount Cook and Rotorua appear on more of our trips than anywhere else. Tap a place to see how many trips include it and what they cost this week.

Under the map is the part a picture cannot show: how long the drives really take. New Zealand looks small, and the distances are short, but the roads are mostly two lanes through hills, and a 250 km leg can take most of a day once you stop to look at things.

The map

Otago, South Island

Queenstown

366 of our itineraries go there, 350 of them stay at least a night. Trips that include it start from NZ$960 per person.

The Queenstown guide and its tours

Number = itineraries that visit, updated weekly with our prices.

The counts come from the same catalogue as our tour pages and update with our prices every week. A place with a page has its own guide: what it is like, how long to stay, and the trips that go there.

The places most trips are built around

The ten places our itineraries visit most, with what each one is best for. This is not a beauty contest; it is where a first trip tends to go, and why.

Place	Island	Best for	Our trips there
Queenstown	South Island	Adventure, lake cruises and skiing	366
Christchurch	South Island	Gardens, a rebuilt city and the way south	363
Auckland	North Island	Harbour islands, volcanoes and your arrival	242
Franz Josef Glacier	South Island	Glacier heli hikes and rainforest walks	235
Milford Sound	South Island	Fiord cruises and the Milford Road	231
Aoraki / Mount Cook	South Island	The Hooker Valley and the country's highest peak	205
Rotorua	North Island	Geothermal parks and Māori culture	203
Wellington	North Island	Te Papa, food and the ferry south	197
Greymouth	South Island	The TranzAlpine and the wild West Coast	190
Wānaka	South Island	Roys Peak, the lake and skiing	184

The South Island takes up most of the list because it holds most of the big scenery, and because many of the places on it sit on one long loop. The North Island’s strengths are more spread out: geothermal Rotorua, the beaches of Northland and the Coromandel, the capital, and Hobbiton. Our guide to choosing between the islands goes through it.

How long the drives really take

Approximate driving times without stops. Add time for photos, coffee and roadworks; on scenic legs, half as much again is realistic. Times are from regional tourism bodies and operators where they publish them, and rounded.

Drive	Distance	Time without stops
Auckland to Rotorua	about 230 km	3 hours
Auckland to Waitomo	about 200 km	2 h 40 min
Rotorua to Taupō	about 80 km	1 h 10 min
Taupō to Wellington	about 375 km	5 hours
Picton to Christchurch	about 340 km	4 h 45 min to 5 hours
Christchurch to Lake Tekapo	about 225 km	3 hours
Lake Tekapo to Aoraki/Mount Cook Village	about 105 km	1 h 15 min
Aoraki/Mount Cook to Queenstown	about 265 km	3 h 30 min
Queenstown to Te Anau	about 170 km	2 h 15 min
Te Anau to Milford Sound	about 120 km	2 hours, more in bad weather
Queenstown to Wānaka, Crown Range	about 67 km	1 h 10 min
Wānaka to Franz Josef, Haast Pass	about 285 km	3 h 45 min
Franz Josef to Greymouth	about 175 km	2 h 15 min
Greymouth to Christchurch, Arthur’s Pass	about 245 km	3 h 30 min
Christchurch to Kaikōura	about 180 km	2 h 30 min

The Milford Road deserves its own warning: NZTA says the non-stop drive from Te Anau takes at least two hours, the only fuel on it is at Gunns Camp, and it is not a road to hurry. Between the islands, the Cook Strait ferry takes about three and a half hours, and many rental companies will not let a car cross, so you swap vehicles at each end.

A coast road winding along a bay on the Coromandel Peninsula, seen from the air, with bush down to the water — Most New Zealand roads look like this: two lanes, bends, and a view worth stopping for. Plan on the stops.

Turning the map into a route

Two loops cover what most first trips want. In the South Island: Christchurch, Lake Tekapo, Aoraki/Mount Cook, Queenstown, Te Anau and Milford Sound, Wānaka, the glaciers, then the TranzAlpine or Arthur’s Pass back to Christchurch. Ten days does it at a pace you would enjoy, fourteen does it well. In the North Island: Auckland, Waitomo, Rotorua, Taupō and Wellington, a week with time to spare.

Our itineraries by days lay these out night by night. Where tours start matters too: of our 477 current itineraries, 197 start in Auckland, 188 in Christchurch and 67 in Queenstown, so those are the airports to aim for.

A rule of thumb from planning a lot of these: no more than about four hours of driving on a day you also want to see something, and two nights wherever there is a whole day’s worth of things to do. The road trip routes guide has the classic drives in detail.