Hi dear travelers,
Greetings
I am actually looking to cover New Zealand for my next solo trip and thinking about spending 14 days. I am thinking of starting my trip from Queenstown. So roughly how many days will it take to cover that place ? Is 4 days enough to cover Queenstown and its nearby nature places in its entirety ? Thank you!! :D
14 days to cover New Zealand? Much too little time.
Queenstown - depends what you want to see and do. A day to see Queenstown itself - ride the gondola, boat trip on the lake. A daytrip down to Glenorchy and do a day hike. A day seeing Arrowtown, a hike in the Remarkables. With extra time you could ride the Shotover Jet, hike Queenstown hill or Ben Lomond.
Wanaka and Te Anau are both places that people try to daytrip from Queenstown, but I'd treat them as separate bases for two or three days. Milford Sound as a Queenstown daytrip is a particularly crazy thing people do, much better from Te Anau.
With 14 days I'd stick to this area rather than spend all of my time on roads trying to see all of NZ. If you like the outdoors I'd spend it all seeing things from Queenstown, Te Anau, Wanaka, and add a visit to the glaciers at Fox / Franz Josef.
Or you could do a South Island loop. Continue from the Glaciers up either to Nelson and Abel Tasman NP, returning via Kaikoura (whale watching) and Christchurch. Or over Arthur's Pass straight to Christchurch and back over to Queenstown via Tekapo.
A month is a good amount of time to get a quick first look at all of NZ.if you really want to see things in both islands in 14 days have a week around Queenstown and fly up to spend the remaining time seeing the geothermal stuff around Rotorua and Taupo.
AndyF knows what he's talking about - 14 days will not do NZ justice.
18 months ago we flew from Auckland to Queenstown. We had a car and drove to Te Anau to stay and then up to Milford Sound. We had four days in Queenstown and that was just about enough to see Glenorchy and Arrowtown and do a bit in Queenstown itself. We then drove up to Wanaka and then on to Mt Cook to do a bit of hiking and had a night at Lake Tekapo before returning to Queenstown via Wanaka. That took eleven days and it was busy but not frenetic.
That doesn't cover Christchurch and Kaikouru, Fox Glacier, Blenheim and the Abel Tasman NP, Wellington, Napier, Tauranga, Rotorua, Taupo, the Tongariro Crossing, Matamata (for Hobbiton), the Coromandel, Auckland (which, although AndyF might disagree, is a brilliant city!!) and Northland and the Bay of Islands.
14 days around Queenstown is fine but you'll most likely want to come back at some point to explore the rest.
[ Edit: Edited on 23 Oct 2022, 01:43 GMT by Borisborough ]
Quoting Borisborough
Auckland, although AndyF might disagree, is a brilliant city!!)
Auckland is a brilliant city. It's just that big cities are not what most visitors go to NZ for.
If you find yourself in Auckland, which is likely as the main gateway and people usually have long-haul travel and jetlag to get over, I suggest:
I think the big city feel gives it a different vibe to the rest of NZ, a bit more like an Australian city.