One Week in New Zealand’s North Island: The Route I’d Actually Do
First time in New Zealand. First time on a real solo trip. First time sleeping alone in hostels. This trip was a lot of firsts, but mostly it was a kid who grew up obsessed with The Lord of the Rings finally going to see the place where the best trilogy ever made was filmed. I don’t want to hear any arguments about that last part.
Saying I loved this trip doesn’t come close to what actually happened in my head. I loved it so much that I’m going back to work there for the fourth season in a row.
So today I’m taking you through the first half of my very first New Zealand trip. It was three years ago, and even now, if I only had one week on the North Island, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Why this North Island itinerary still works
Because it’s a loop, and because it doesn’t try to do everything. One week is short. You either drive constantly and see the inside of your car, or you pick five or six things and give them proper time. I picked the second option almost by accident, mostly because I was too scared to overplan, and it turned out to be the right call.
The whole route is Auckland, Matamata, Tongariro, Taupō, Rotorua, Tauranga, Coromandel, back to Auckland. Nothing is more than about three hours from the last thing. You’re never doing a big driving day, which on the North Island is a luxury.
Day 1, landing in Auckland and picking up the car
I landed in Auckland, picked up my little rental car, and yes, that first time I did not sleep in it. I was still very much in the classic traveller mindset, I needed my comfort, a hot shower at night and an actual bed. You’ll figure out pretty fast from reading this blog that my life has changed quite a bit since then.
First night was in a hostel in the city centre at Verandahs Parkside Lodge and it was genuinely great. Everyone was lovely, the rooms were good, and the bathrooms were proper full bathrooms. Not those weird swimming pool cubicles with wooden panels that start at your knees and give you zero privacy. If you’ve stayed in enough hostels you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Day 2, Hobbiton, and whether it’s worth the money
My god, what a slap in the face. In the best way.
Hobbiton is about two hours south of Auckland, near Matamata, and I got very lucky with timing. They’d only just started letting people go inside the hobbit holes a few weeks before I visited, so I got to walk into the interiors, which visitors a month earlier didn’t get. Your eyes don’t know where to look. The guides are proper fans themselves and they have a thousand stories, and then you finish at the Green Dragon Inn with a beer brewed on site, which is just magic.
The Signature Tour is NZ$130 for an adult and runs about 2 hours 30, or 4 hours if you leave from Matamata itself. Going inside the hobbit hole interiors is part of every tour now, and every tour ends with about 20 minutes at the Green Dragon and a drink included. It’s not cheap. If you’re a fan it’s absolutely worth it. If you’ve never seen or read The Lord of the Rings, keep walking and spend that money on something else, because you’ll be paying a hundred and thirty dollars to look at a very nice garden.
Day 3, the Tongariro Alpine Crossing in full fog
That evening I drove down to sleep near the Tongariro Crossing, because a week goes fast and there’s no time to mess around.
I’d already sorted the logistics, and this is the part people underestimate. The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is 19.4 km, it takes 7 to 8 hours in summer and around 9 in winter, and it’s a point A to point B walk, so forget any idea of doing it there and back. On top of that, DOC enforces a strict 4 hour parking limit at the Mangatepopo road end, and in summer there’s essentially no parking there for Crossing hikers at all. So you need a shuttle. My hostel, National Park Backpackers, ran one, which is the easiest way to do it.
I remembered paying around NZ$30 return, and I want to be honest with you, that number is long gone. Today you’re looking at roughly NZ$55 to NZ$70 for a return shuttle from National Park village, Tūrangi or Taupō, or around NZ$78 for the Ketetahi park and ride option, which bundles the car park, a NZ$13 parking fee, a NZ$10 DOC community contribution and a NZ$4.10 DOC activity fee.
Booking is free and strongly recommended. Check the exact price with whoever you book with, because this has changed twice in the time I’ve been going to New Zealand.
The alarm hurts, and you never really know what the weather is doing up there when you set off in the dark. I got bad weather, and I had exactly zero spare days to wait for a better one, so I went anyway and hoped the sky would lift. Fun fact, it never did.
But honestly, what a walk. It’s a proper sporty hike. I could see so little because of the fog that I never saw the red earth at the top of Mount Doom, and I very nearly walked straight past the famous Emerald Lakes.
Somewhere in the middle of that soup I met a guy who was just as gutted about the weather as I was, and we gave ourselves the mission of finishing the second half as fast as humanly possible, because there was nothing to look at anyway. So I got the first bus back, and I spent the rest of the day watching The Lord of the Rings in bed, completely destroyed.
I really want to do it again in good weather. Every single person I met afterwards had a clear day, so I’m choosing to believe I was just unlucky.
Day 4, Gollum’s Pool, Huka Falls and the drive to Rotorua
The next day I went to Gollum’s waterfall. I told you I was a fan. I did not come all this way to skip the most iconic Lord of the Rings spots.
Small honest correction, because I looked this up properly while writing this. The waterfall everyone calls Gollum’s Pool, Tawhai Falls, is a 10 minute return walk off Whakapapa Road about 4 km from Whakapapa Village, and it’s stunning, but it’s a look-alike. The scene where Gollum catches the fish, the Forbidden Pool in Ithilien, was actually filmed at Mangawhero Falls on the southern side of Mount Ruapehu, near Ohakune. Both are in Tongariro National Park, which is why everyone mixes them up. Now you know more than I did at the time.
After that I drove up to Taupō for Huka Falls, which is free and takes ten minutes off the main road. The Waikato river gets squeezed into a narrow rock channel and turns an unreal blue, and it’s genuinely loud.
And now the second correction, which I’m including because I was fully convinced of the opposite. I was almost certain the barrel scene from The Hobbit was filmed at Huka Falls. It wasn’t. The dwarves in the barrels were shot on the Pelorus River, near Havelock, which is on the South Island. But go there it’s still stunning.
Day 5, geothermal Rotorua and the Māori village
Then the geothermal park near Rotorua, Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland. This is the one with the Champagne Pool, the Artist’s Palette and the Devil’s Bath, that green so bright it looks like someone’s been dumping paint in it. It’s open 8:30 to 16:30 with last entry at 3pm, it’s cashless, and there are three walking loops of roughly 45, 60 and 90 minutes.
The Lady Knox Geyser goes off at 10:15 every morning and they tell you to be seated by 9:45. Adult entry is somewhere in the region of NZ$40 to NZ$50, and I’ll be straight with you, I could not find a clearly stated current price on their own site, so check before you go rather than trusting my number.
The smell in Rotorua is exactly what everyone tells you it is. The whole town smells like a fart. After about an hour you genuinely stop noticing.
I also visited the Māori village with the unpronounceable name, Whakarewarewa, and I’ll admit I was nervous it would feel like a theme park. It’s the complete opposite. It’s so authentic, and the people there are genuinely doing this to keep their culture alive, which does something to your chest. You learn everything. They cook corn for you in the hot pool, and at the end they sing, and it gives you goosebumps. I had tears in my eyes and I wasn’t expecting that at all.
Practical bit, the all day pass with the guided village tour, the cultural performance and the geothermal trails is NZ$119 for an adult for the 2025 to 2026 season. Village tours run hourly from 9am to 3pm, and the daily cultural performance is at 12:30 and lasts about half an hour. If you only want the performance, that ticket is NZ$35. There are shorter options, so pick what fits your day rather than defaulting to the big one.
Day 6, Mount Maunganui and the Bay of Plenty
I slept near Tauranga that night and walked up Mount Maunganui, Mauao, in the morning. It’s 232 m, it takes 30 to 45 minutes to the top depending on how often you stop, and the view over the beach and the bay is ridiculous for that little effort.
Days 7 and 8, Coromandel
I spent my last two days in Coromandel, and I’ve already written a whole article about it, so if you want the detail on my favourite corner of the North Island, go have a look there.
Read my full Coromandel guide →
What I’d change if I did it again
One thing worth explaining. I did this as a loop back to Auckland because I was flying to the South Island and had to return the rental car to meet a friend down there. If you’re crossing by ferry, the more logical version is to cut straight across the island and finish in Wellington, then take the boat across. Same stops, no backtracking.
And the real gap in this itinerary is Mount Taranaki. I still haven’t done it, because I live in the south now and once harvest starts there’s no chance of getting a few days free to drive up. It’s very firmly on my list.
What I packed
Nothing exotic, but a few things I would not do this week without.
A rain jacket, because New Zealand mountain weather changes its mind every fifteen minutes, as my fog day proved.
A fleece, for the top of the Crossing, where it’s a different climate entirely.
Proper hiking shoes, the Crossing is loose volcanic scree in places and your ankles will thank you.
A 3L hydration bladder, because there’s no water on the Crossing and 19.4 km is 19.4 km.
A daypack that isn’t your school bag.
An eSIM, sorted before you land, because you’ll want maps for the whole drive and New Zealand coverage is patchy enough without adding a SIM card hunt at the airport.
Shop the Yesim eSIM → (15% off your first purchase with the code SKYVINE15)
A rental car, because there is no version of this itinerary that works on public transport.
That’s the week. One island, one small car, one very foggy volcano, and the start of something that turned into four seasons of my life. If you only have seven days on the North Island, this is still the route I’d hand you.
