Hiking The Lord of the Rings: One Dense Week in New Zealand
March 2025
Nothing like a week of non-stop elven adventures to put me in my happy place. If you’re trying to maximize a week in New Zealand with all the dreamiest hikes, have I got an itinerary that will make at least one toenail fall off! Highly recommend watching all three LOTR films on the return flights because you will recognize all these locations in the scenes. Don’t forget to pack your poles (you will thank me after the stairs).
Day 1: Arrive in Auckland
Arrive in Auckland late at night and pick up your rental car. Don’t bother getting a hotel in the city, get one close to the airport. We’re not spending any time here.
Day 2: Tongariro Alpine Crossing
Oh good I am glad you slept four hours! Now you are going to get up at 4:30am to drive four hours to catch the last shuttle for the point-to-point Tongariro Alpine Crossing hike (AKA Mount Doom!!!). Hike all day, don’t bathe in the acid lakes. Stay at Rainbow Motel because you can soak your weary bones in a hot spring tub.
Day 3: Hobbiton!
Why not break up the drive back to Auckland with a stop at the most magical place on the North Island: Hobbiton! You need advance reservations because this place was booked nearly solid when I purchased the last ticket available for the week a few days prior. Have a meat pie and perhaps an ale at the Green Dragon Inn, you’re a hobbit now. Okay, that’s enough! Drive back through the bucolic landscapes to the Auckland airport and get on a flight to Queenstown on the South Island! Buy your groceries here before heading out tomorrow because New Zealand is pretty unserviced outside of the cities.
Day 4: Key Summit, Fiordland National Park
Big fours trip – Drive another four hours from Queenstown to Milford Sound in Fiordland National Park. If you want to hike from the Sandfly trailhead, turns out you need a water taxi to cross the channel, and you can’t swing that if you arrive here in the afternoon. Better to just climb Key Summit instead, because you end up with sweeping vistas from a boardwalk-lined mountain-top covered in tarns and spongy green carnivorous plants. Camp at Cascade Creek Campground in the park!
Day 5: Gerture Saddle, Fiordland National Park
I hope the sun is out because today because now you’ll climb up to Gertrude Saddle. This was my favorite hike of the whole trip. Its just a tiny bit technical and the big granite slab at the top is just a little bit scary, but the VIEWS. From the top of the saddle you can see straight through the fjords all the way to the sea! Not to be missed. I was lucky and saw some kea here (the only alpine parrot species). When you’re done, you might as well drive another four hours back to Queenstown to stay in a hotel with a hot tub because we’re going to take this party north next!
Day 6: Rest, Recharge, Re-Snack
A day of rest. Buy some more snacks in town followed by only a three hour drive to Aoraki National Park. Check out the Tasman Glacier Viewpoint but skip the Blue Lakes (should be renamed gray puddles). Camp at White Horse Hill Campground. Be lazy. Read!
Day 7: Mueller Hut Route, Aoraki National Park
Wake up before the sun rises to see the alpenglow on Mount Cook. Then get ready to climb up a billion stairs to Sealy Tarns, followed by a stair-free (but still steep) ascension to the Mueller Hut. Catch a case of mountain madness. Descend. Get ice cream at the gift shop. Spend another night in the campground.
Day 8: Departure from Queenstown
Drive three hours back to Queenstown and catch your flight out.