New Zealand Adventure Blog

The South Island of New Zealand's Secret Day Hikes

The South Island is the ‘crown jewel’ when it comes to hiking, offering an overwhelming amount of the best New Zealand day hikes set amongst an untouched wilderness. We’ve put in the miles for you and come up with six world-­class day walks to consider conquering on your South Island New Zealand vacation.

We are Ashley & Jordi, Canadian & Dutch Tourism Management students in Amsterdam. As part of our studies we needed to complete a five month internship which we chose to do at First Light Travel in New Zealand. During our time there we were able to explore much of the beautiful country and one of our most unforgettable experiences was to dive the Knights Islands. A protected nature reserve with a rich Maori history, these uninhabited islands off the East coast of New Zealand’s North Island have now been labeled ‘tapu’ or sacred.

Best New Zealand Day Hikes – North Island

What first comes to mind when you think of New Zealand? Our soaring Southern Alps? Windswept coastlines? Glistening lakes? Our country was made to be explored on foot – it’s the only way to experience the full extent of NZ’s striking wilderness. To show you how to incorporate a little hiking into your New Zealand itinerary, we’ve put together a couple of posts about our favorite day hikes. Here’s the Best New Zealand Day Hikes - The North Island installment.   

We are Stephanie and Martina, tourism students from Germany and Switzerland, who were lucky enough to have the opportunity to live and work in Auckland for a few months. We love to travel and explore so were on the road every other weekend exploring the rest of New Zealand. The circumstances for this little trip could not have been better: the weather forecast was amazing and thanks to Queens Birthday it was a long weekend.  In order to explore the Central North Island we left Auckland after work on Friday, arriving in Taupo around 11pm.