They call it “tramping” here, but whatever you call it, hiking in New Zealand is a way of life. If you like to hike, New Zealand is paradise. It’s one of the best places we’ve been for hiking. Everywhere we visited on both North and South islands had nice hiking trails, thousands of them.
New Zealand Is a Hiking Paradise
One of our favorite ways to see a new place is by hiking. Especially after days on the boat, it’s a great way to stretch your legs and get fresh air. Sometimes you get to commune with local wildlife and people too!
Some of our favorite places for hiking are The Marquesas and Curaçao, thanks to a variety of beautiful trails. New Zealand hiking is even better for variety and quality. The sheer number of well laid out trails means you can pretty much go hiking anywhere. It’s practically impossible to get lost because they are so maintained and marked.
Brian and I marvel at the work that went into building these trails and then maintaining them. Someone has to bring loads of lumber into the forests to erect the stairs! Someone else carried in steel to build a bridge to cross the river. We are impressed at New Zealand’s trail infrastructure and reaped the benefits.
Add to that the lack of dangerous animals and a temperate climate, and hiking in New Zealand is nearly perfect.
Things to Note When Hiking in New Zealand
Before you depart on a hike in New Zealand, there are things you should note.
weather
First, the weather is variable in this country. New Zealand’s Maori name is Aotearoa, which is translated to “The Land with the Long White Cloud”, and you know what clouds do!
A day may start out sunny and warm but that can change in minutes. Four seasons in a day is no understatement. I recommend dressing in layers and being prepared for anything. Since we did most of our hiking in summer, we packed hats, sunscreen, and rain jackets.
protect the local wildlife
New Zealand doesn’t have any deadly animals that can hurt humans, but we and our pets can hurt the indigenous animals. Protection of the native birds is serious business, so many trails ban dogs on or off leash. We also noted, mostly in the North island, shoe cleaning stations to keep out any pests and weed seeds from endangering the parks and nature preserves.
Many of the hikes in New Zealand are in Department of Conservation (DOC) and other protected lands, so you’re encouraged to stay on the paths. This is to protect the flora and fauna, a main attraction for these wonderful hikes. It’s worth it!
be prepared
Please do your research before going on a hike, and use multiple sources. For some reason, the DOC site calls the Roys Peak hike easy, and that is one of the hardest ones we did. I believe the term is referring to the terrain because it is a smooth path, but people were hiking it with babies in their arms and that is a steep incessant uphill and by no means easy. We also found that recommended walk times were overwhelmingly exaggerated, but Brian and I may be fast walkers.
Always bring lots of water on a hike, preferably in a refillable bottle that’s eco-friendly, and pack some food too just in case.
What You’ll See Hiking in New Zealand
From almost the first day we arrived in New Zealand, we went hiking, and since then, we’ve walked a lot of miles on plenty different paths. We’ve seen a lot!
scenery
New Zealand is known for its gorgeous scenery, a good reason to go hiking. The South Island is showier, with The Southern Alps and glaciers, but both islands have hikes with gorgeous views.
Plants and animals
We enjoyed walking through native forests full of ferns and towering ancient indigenous Kauri trees. Other trails led us through pine forests, and some felt like jungles with abundant palm trees.
While there are few indigenous land animals, New Zealand is booming with birds. Hearing them chatter and peep while trying to spot these cute creatures is a fun diversion on difficult walks.
Sheep and cows were frequent sights on our New Zealand hikes, sometimes they’d run and sometimes they’d sit and wait for us to continue past them.
On the Kiakoura hike in the South island, we saw solitary seals basking on the beach, and we gave each of them lots of room to enjoy their space.
traps
Little wooden boxes are plentiful along the trails and in the woods in New Zealand. These are traps or snares for catching what they call “pests.” In New Zealand, pests are possums, stoats, rats, rabbits and anything that will hurt the native birds. Those poor flightless kiwis can’t defend themselves against the possums! So if you see one of those boxes, leave it alone. It’s doing good work.
other people
You will see other hikers on the trails in New Zealand. Some hikes were packed with tourists, especially in Fjordland and the Southern Alps. In Whangerei and less visited places, we passed people on the hiking trails, but much less often. The famous hikes are always busy, with people lining up for photos at the viewpoints.
The only time we didn’t see any other people while hiking in New Zealand was when we did the private Kiakoura Coastal Trail. Only 8 people are allowed to hike that each day, so we had the natural beauty all to ourselves.
art
We walked on hiking trails which serve as open air art galleries. It’s lovely to hike in a forest or along the waterfront and be entranced by outdoor art. We went to a beautiful park in Hanmer Springs which featured wooden sculptures of animal life. Called the Forest Amble, this easy 1.1k walk on flat ground is great for all ages.
The art is all made by Christchurch artist Andrew Lyons from a local Redwood tree. They include cute squirrels, a dog, this impressive orangutan, and more sculptures. You wouldn’t expect to see this in a New Zealand forest, but it sure makes for a fun hike.
We enjoyed another hike, at Children’s Bay in Akaroa, past sculptures of penguins, sheep and others, culminating with a large rhino on top of the hill.
Other New Zealand cities, including Whangarei, have lovely river walks or town squares with public art. While these aren’t technically hikes, they’re great reasons to get outside and go for a stroll.
geocaches
You will probably only see geocaches (or caches for short) if you’re looking for them, but they are all over New Zealand, including the hiking trails. It’s a fun pastime and can be an impetus to continue the hike or to hike at all. If you do find a geocache, leave it where you found it, just like anything else in nature.
The Great Walks
New Zealand has 10 Great Walks, the most popular and scenic multi-day hikes in the country. These require pre-planning to book overnight camping sites in advance. We didn’t do any of these because of the pre-planning part. I can attest that you can do a lot of wonderful hikes in New Zealand without doing a Great Walk. We don’t feel like we missed out with all the other hikes we did.
One thing that people get caught up in is feeling the need to do the “great” or “famous” walks. They’re not for everyone. Some people don’t have the time, and some don’t want to deal with the crowds. While we loved the beauty of Mount Cook, we were turned off by the daily busloads of people leaving trash everywhere. I don’t mind hiking busy trails, but sometimes the empty ones are the best. If you’re looking for a walk in nature, you’ll find it in New Zealand.
Where To Hike in New Zealand
Short answer on where to go hiking in New Zealand? Anywhere! We found great hikes all over the country, from cities to uninhabited islands.
It really depends where you are and what you want to see. Volcanos, alps, rivers, oceans, forests, waterfalls, it’s all hikeable in New Zealand!
You can also hike to Lord of the Rings sites, hot springs, and wineries. We’ve seen both by foot and bike, and it’s part of why we love New Zealand.
In New Zealand, people take ferries to go tramping they love it so much. It’s nice to be in a place where people take their hiking seriously. We took kayaks, bicycles, and ferries to excellent hiking spots in New Zealand.
Unfortunately, sometimes we do come upon trash while we’re out hiking in New Zealand, but it’s cleaner than most places. The first rule of hiking is leave no trace!
If you like nature and the outdoors, you’ll love hiking in New Zealand. The variety of trails almost everywhere make it accessible to almost everyone. I’ll soon share our favorite hikes in New Zealand, but for now, I hope you enjoyed reading. What kind of hikes or hiking destinations do you prefer? Share in the comments!
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Hiking, tramping, rambling or backpacking, whatever people want to call it, there are definitely some great places to do this in New Zealand. And as you say, there are plenty of smaller ones that you don’t have to plan or book accommodation for. I particularly like the ones that involve a waterfall!
You nailed it Sharyn! I just wish the water in those waterfalls was not so cold! Brrr…
LOVE this Mel!
We had the same thought about Roys Peak… but when I looked into it, I am pretty sure that Kiwi difficulty levels are about the type of trail/how easy it is to navigate, rather than how hard it is in terms of effort. We did an easy (less well known) hike in Fiordland that was listed as difficult because of the route-finding and less obvious trail.
I wonder if some of the trails have become more popular nowadays!? We saw lots of people at Tongariro, on any of the great walks and on Roy’s Peak… but very few hikers on the other walks.
I think you’re right about the difficulty levels, Josy. Unfortunately some visitors don’t understand and end up on the wrong trails for their level of fitness/preparedness. And in terms of popularity, New Zealand in general is more popular now than 5 years ago. Everything is busy, even outside of the peak periods. I also get the impression that more Kiwis started going on walks during the pandemic and have continued to do so. We’ve met a lot on our hikes and they’re generally so friendly!
I have a feeling that might be a world-wide trend! It is the same here in Canada and the UK. It’s pretty fab how many more people have discovered the fun of hikes. 🙂
And yeah, we saw people starting in the heat of noon for Roy’s Peak, with no water…
We were trying to decide where to go for our honeymoon and New Zealand was our top contender. The hiking trails, lakes, camping – all of it, I’ve heard it is just beautiful. We decided on the Galapagos for our honeymoon and New Zealand for 2025, so I’m pinning this for later!
This genuinely makes me want to plan a trip to New Zealand to go hiking! I think the boot washing stations is a fab idea & something that should be put in place elsewhere – what a genius way to prevent cross pollination or spread of other things!
Love this! Someday. Someday, I’ll pack the family and trek NZ. Beautiful land.
I hope you get there, Brian. It’s one of my favorite countries and amazing for hiking.
Someday, hopefully soon. I am currently Europe, heading to Poland to trek Tatras. Anyway, great site!