The 10 day South Island itinerary, day by day

Christchurch loop or Queenstown loop

The choice is mostly about flights and about glaciers. Christchurch has the wider international schedule and the TranzAlpine, and its loop takes in Franz Josef and the Haast Pass, which is the drive people photograph. Queenstown has direct flights from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, three hours door to door, and its loop trades the West Coast for Aoraki Mount Cook and Lake Tekapo.

If you have never seen a glacier, take the Christchurch loop. The Queenstown loop is the better trip in winter, when the Haast road can close and Mount Cook is at its clearest.

The Christchurch loop, day by day

1. Day 1, Christchurch. Land, collect nothing heavier than a coffee, walk the river and the Riverside Market. Sleep in the city. You will be tempted to drive somewhere. Do not.
2. Day 2, over the alps to Franz Josef. The TranzAlpine leaves at 8.15am and reaches Greymouth just after 1pm; the car meets you there and Franz Josef is 2 hours 15 down the coast, with Hokitika’s pounamu studios on the way. Driving Arthur’s Pass yourself takes about 3 hours 15 to Greymouth and gives you the kea at the summit car park.
3. Day 3, Franz Josef. The valley walk to the viewpoint is 30 minutes return now that the river has cut off the old route across the bed. If the weather is clear, this is the heli hike day: the glacier guide has the prices and the odds. Lake Matheson at Fox, 30 minutes south, is the reflection photo.
4. Day 4, Haast Pass to Wanaka. About 3 hours 45 with the stops you will make: Knights Point, the Blue Pools if the track is open, the Gates of Haast. The rainforest thins, the pass opens, and Lake Hawea appears. Sleep in Wanaka.
5. Day 5, Wanaka to Queenstown. A lake morning in Wanaka, or Roys Peak if you started at dawn, then the Crown Range to Arrowtown for the afternoon and Queenstown by dinner. An hour and ten on the road.
6. Day 6, Queenstown. Glenorchy in the morning, 45 minutes up the lake and the best road in the district. The afternoon is yours: the gondola, the wineries at Gibbston, or nothing. The local ranking sorts the worth-its from the queues.
7. Day 7, Queenstown to Te Anau. Two hours, and an easy afternoon in a town whose entire purpose is the road you drive tomorrow.
8. Day 8, Milford Sound. Leave at 8am. The road is two hours each way without stops and you will stop, at Mirror Lakes, the Chasm, the Homer Tunnel queue. Cruise at midday, back by 5pm. Sleep in Te Anau again.
9. Day 9, Te Anau to Aoraki Mount Cook. The long one: about 4 hours 45 through Kingston, Cromwell and the Lindis Pass, with Lake Pukaki opening up in the last half hour. Walk the Hooker Valley in the evening light.
10. Day 10, Mount Cook to Christchurch. Tekapo’s church and the lupins in season, then 3 hours across the plains for an evening flight. If your flight is early, sleep the last night in Tekapo instead.

The Queenstown loop, day by day

1. Days 1 and 2, Queenstown. Land over the Remarkables, which is the best free scenic flight in the country. Day two is Glenorchy and Arrowtown, or one big activity and a slow lunch.
2. Days 3 and 4, Te Anau and Milford Sound. Two hours down on day three, the fiord on day four, back to Te Anau. The overnight cruise is the upgrade guests mention most; the day trip or overnight question is worth settling before you book.
3. Days 5 and 6, Aoraki Mount Cook. The 4 hour 45 drive up through Cromwell and the Lindis, then a full day for the Hooker Valley and the Tasman Glacier lake. Two nights here is the difference between seeing the mountain and seeing cloud.
4. Days 7 and 8, Lake Tekapo, then Wanaka. Tekapo is an hour from the village: the church, the hot pools, the dark sky if it is clear. Wanaka is 2 hours 45 back down through Omarama and the Lindis. Two nights on the lake.
5. Days 9 and 10, Queenstown. Over the Crown Range, a last dinner, fly out. If your flight is late on day ten, the morning is Arrowtown.

This version has less driving overall and no day over five hours. It is the loop we book most for Australians, who land at lunchtime and are on the lakefront by three.

The driving times we actually plan to

Every one of these is the map time plus a third. That is not pessimism. Rural highways here run at 70 to 80 kilometres an hour once you allow for the bends, the one-lane bridges and the campervan in front, and every leg has at least two stops you did not plan.

Milford Sound this summer, and the road

Drivers should check weather and road conditions before setting out, allow extra time, and be considerate of others.

John Lucas, DOC Operations Manager, February 2026

The road itself is the other variable. State Highway 94 closed for avalanche risk in the late August 2026 storm, along with a stretch of the West Coast highway after 300 millimetres of rain fell on Franz Josef in a day, and it closes for a few hours most winters. That is why the Milford day sits between two Te Anau nights on both loops: if the road is shut on day eight, you go on day nine and shorten Mount Cook. Never book Milford as a day trip from Queenstown with a flight the next morning. The NZTA status page is here, and we check it the night before every one of our clients drives it.

What people on the forums get right, and the one thing they get wrong

We read the itinerary threads on the New Zealand travel subreddit most weeks, partly because the same questions arrive in our inbox a day later. The advice there is mostly good. One reply on a 10 day thread from last year says it in one line.

10 days I would just pick one island and explore as much as you can there. This itinerary is super full.

r/newzealand_travel, 10 Day Trip to New Zealand

The thing we would push back on is a reply in another thread that suggests cutting Mount Cook when time is tight and staying around Queenstown and Wanaka instead. That was reasonable advice in 2025, when the Hooker Valley track was cut short by a closed bridge. It is not any more. DOC opened a new 189 metre suspension bridge on the upper track at the end of July 2026, the longest in the country, and the full walk to the glacier lake is back. Cut a Queenstown night before you cut Mount Cook.

What to cut when you must

• The Christchurch night at the end. Sleep in Tekapo on day nine and drive to the airport on day ten; the plains are the least interesting three hours of the loop.
• The second Wanaka night on the Queenstown loop, if flights force it. Wanaka to Queenstown is 70 minutes, so the day is not lost.
• The heli hike. It is the single most expensive thing on the trip and it cancels for weather about a third of the time. Book it, but do not build the day around it.
• Not the second Te Anau night. Not ever. The one-night Milford run is how the fiord gets remembered as a long day in a car.

Book it as a package, or build it yourself

You can build either loop from this page with a rental car and a booking site, and plenty of people do. The reason ours exist is the two things that go wrong when you do: February beds in Te Anau and Franz Josef sell out months ahead, and a closed pass at 7am is a phone call we make so that you do not have to. The Southern Explorer runs the Christchurch loop open-jaw into Queenstown; the Southern Adventure is the Queenstown loop with the car, beds and cruise held. Both adjust before you book.