New Zealand Signature: Both Islands

What we work through with you

1. Your dates and priorities

   Tell us when you want to visit Auckland → Queenstown, NZ, who is travelling and what you would change in the outline below.

2. The route and pace

   We discuss the 12D / 11N starting itinerary, your preferred stays and how much you want to fit in. Any changes depend on availability and are agreed in your written plan.

3. Your written quote

   Review the final arrangements, total price, inclusions and payment and cancellation terms before booking. An enquiry does not reserve this trip.

The route we start from

These are the stages published for this trip. A stage can cover part of a day or several days; it is not a separate travel day.

1. Stage 01

   Auckland

   Land in Auckland, transfer in, and take the first evening gently down at the Viaduct where the harbour boats are tied up. The Sky Tower is open late and gives you both harbours, the volcanic cones the city is built over, and a useful sense of the geography ahead.

2. Stage 02

   Waitomo → Rotorua

   South through the Waikato farmland to Waitomo, where you board a flat-bottomed boat and are pulled in silence through a cave lit entirely by glowworms on the ceiling, thousands of them, like a star chart. On to Rotorua afterwards, which announces itself by smell before you see it.

3. Stage 03

   Geothermal

   Te Puia in the geothermal valley, where the Pohutu geyser erupts several times a day and the ground steams through the grass between paths. Mud pools that gurgle like cooking. In the evening, a Maori cultural night and a hangi, a feast cooked in a pit using the earth's own heat.

4. Stage 04

   Fly South

   Fly south to Christchurch, a city rebuilt after the 2011 earthquake and honest about it, with street art alongside the restored stone. The old tram loops the centre and is the easiest way to get your bearings. A quiet evening before the scenery starts.

5. Stage 05

   Tekapo

   Inland to Lake Tekapo, whose water is that particular opaque turquoise because of rock flour ground by glaciers and suspended in it. The tiny stone Church of the Good Shepherd sits on the shore. After dark the whole basin is a designated dark sky reserve, and the stars are the point.

6. Stage 06

   Mt Cook

   Up the valley to Aoraki Mount Cook, the highest mountain in the country. The Hooker Valley Track runs about ten kilometres return over three swing bridges to a lake with icebergs floating in it, and it is flat enough that almost everyone manages it.

7. Stage 07

   To Wanaka

   South down the Lindis Pass through Central Otago, which is dry, gold-coloured, hard country and looks nothing like the rest of New Zealand. Wanaka at the end of it: a smaller, calmer lake town, and the willow tree standing in the shallows that has its own social media following.

8. Stage 08

   Queenstown

   Over the Crown Range and down into Queenstown. Skyline gondola up the hill above the town for the view over the lake and the Remarkables behind it. Arrowtown in the afternoon, a preserved gold-rush settlement of original cottages.

9. Stage 09

   Milford

   The long day out to Milford Sound: through the Homer Tunnel, then a cruise into a fiord where cliffs go up more than a kilometre straight out of the water and waterfalls come off them in every direction. Kea, the alpine parrots, will try to eat parts of the bus. Rain improves it.

10. Stage 10

    Adventure Day

    Yours to choose. Queenstown is where commercial bungy was invented at the Kawarau Bridge, so there is the original bridge jump, the Shotover jet boat spinning through canyon walls, or the paragliding off the gondola hill. The alternative is the winery lunch at Gibbston and a spa afternoon, which nobody regrets either.

11. Stage 11

    Slow Goodbye

    A slow last morning by the lake, a walk around the gardens on the peninsula, and time to buy the things you have been mentally noting for eleven days. A farewell dinner with the group, which on this trip is usually louder than it was on day one.

12. Stage 12

    The Return

    Fly home out of Queenstown, an airport with a runway between mountains and an approach people applaud. Twelve days, both islands, geysers to fiords, and a phone that is now mostly photographs of scenery and sheep.

What this trip lists

Use these inclusions and exclusions when reviewing your quote. The displayed price starts from ₹2,99,999 per person; your written quote confirms the total for your dates and arrangements.

Read this trip’s booking terms →