We are planning 3 weeks in New Zealand. Our interest is day hiking. We are looking for suggestions for 3-4 areas to use as bases for our hiking - somewhere with 4-5 days of day hiking opportunities within about an hour drive from our base. Any "don't miss" areas? We know we can't seen the whole country!

Also, we would like to go in May but are concerned about the weather. The earliest we can travel is mid-April, but would rather wait until after May 1.

This sounds like a great idea. We like to travel similarly and base ourselves for several days in an area and visit the sites and do some day hikes. We have traveled to New Zealand in March (mostly So Island) and November (North Island).

One area that comes to mind right off is the Nelson area on the North part of the South Island. There are both beach hikes and mountain lake hiking in this area. You may be able to part of the Abel Tasman trek as a day hike. I don't think you can do the Queen Charlotte Islands as a day hike unfortunately.

On the North Island, the Coromandel Peninsula has good weather and a variety of hiking on the North Island. We stayed here for several days in November and had a great time.

There would also be good day hiking along the slopes of some of the volcanos such as Tongariro and Tananaki but it can be dangerous in these area due to changing weather and potential poor weather being late Fall. We've stayed in New Plymouth and enjoyed the area but never saw the mountain due to clouds. There is also great hiking around Auckland especially on the off shore islands.

For researching, I'd recommend searching on 'tramping', 'trek' or 'walks' instead of 'hiking'. New Zealanders using these terms and you'll be able to find more information from locals searching on these.

Gosh...where to begin...Everyone will have their own favourites but basically anywhere you decide to stay you will find good walking...and the scenery everywhere is superb.

New Zealand is great for walking and there are tracks to suit all abilities. Department of Conservation are responsible for maintaining a lot of the trails and have an excellent web site. This is probably the best place to begin. Follow the links for the different areas and you will find lots of idea from short walks of 1-2 hours to walks taking several days. You can download a booklet of easy walks for North Island here and for South Island here. DOC also produce a series of leaflets with a basic map and details of walks in certain areas which can be obtained from the local information centres.

There is further information about walking here.

An area most tourists do miss but we loved was Cromwell in Central Otago. It is about 45min drive to all the "attractions" of Queenstown (if that sort of thing turns you on - it doesn't us). There was lots of good walking in and around the area. Cromwell Tourist Information Centre publish a "Walk Cromwell Brochure" which has lots of detail and good maps. Some of these take you up through the old gold mine areas and make dramatic walking. They were great and sent me lots of information and maps and answered all my (many) questions patiently. Check out their website.. The Central Otago Rail Trail is also good for walking.

We just visited South Island. There are lots of pictures on our website. We found that many of the places tourists flock to were busy and often over rated. There are so many other places yet to be discovered. Don't be afraid to be different.

Eleanor

Thanks for all your suggestions. I've bookmarked all the websites and will use them for planning.

If you stick to the National park areas and get advice on trails and routes from DOC (department of Conservation) you can't go wrong.

In general (very very general) The further north you go the walks are more coastal whereas south island walks are more often inland and mountainous. Again very general though

Thanks for all the helpful information. We determined that this will not be our year to visit New Zealand after all. We'll try to for a trip next year, between February and April. Our 2010 destination will be Andalucia, Spain, so I am switching over to that forum!