Where to stay before and after a Great Walk
The huts and campsites on a Great Walk are booked with DOC. Everything else, the night before you start and the night after you finish, is a hotel question. Here is how to think about it.
Huts are not hotels
Every Great Walks bunk and campsite is a paid, dated, named booking made through DOC (the Hump Ridge Track has its own booking system), and a Backcountry Hut Pass is not valid on them. Our booking system guide explains when bookings open each May. None of that includes a bed in a town, which you arrange separately with a hotel.
Why the nights either side matter
- Start time. Many tracks have a boat, shuttle or fixed start window. Sleeping in the base town lets you make it without a long drive that morning.
- Weather. Fiordland and the central North Island can close or reroute a track. A spare night in the base town covers a delay.
- Finish. One-way tracks end far from where you began. Plan your first night after the walk as carefully as your last night on it, and ask hotels whether they can hold luggage while you walk.
Base towns for each walk
| Walk | Base towns | Planning note |
|---|---|---|
| Milford Track | Te Anau, Manapouri, Queenstown | Fiordland gets a lot of rain; keep a spare night in case of weather. The track is one-way and finishes at Milford Sound by boat, so plan your onward transport. |
| Routeburn Track | Queenstown, Glenorchy, Wanaka | The two ends of the track are far apart by road, so decide which end you start from before choosing a base. |
| Kepler Track | Te Anau, Manapouri, Queenstown | A closed loop from Te Anau, so the town works as both base and finish, which makes it the simplest Fiordland walk to plan around. |
| Abel Tasman Coast Track | Nelson, Motueka, Kaiteriteri, Takaka | Water taxis shorten or link sections; stay in the town nearest your first boat or trailhead. |
| Heaphy Track | Nelson, Takaka, Karamea | A one-way track between Golden Bay and the West Coast, so you finish a long way from where you start. |
| Tongariro Northern Circuit | Turangi, Taupo, Ohakune | Volcanic weather changes quickly; a spare night either side is sensible. |
| Lake Waikaremoana Track | Wairoa, Taupo, Rotorua | Remote, with few places to stay nearby. Wairoa is the closest town in our catalogue. |
| Rakiura Track | Invercargill, Bluff | Stewart Island is reached by ferry from Bluff or by air from Invercargill, so many walkers sleep on the mainland the night before. |
Find a hotel
Our catalogue lists 1,000 hotels across New Zealand, and 151 of them are within about 35 km of a base town for one of the walks. Open the catalogue with that filter already on, or browse the city pages below. Descriptions come from the Hotelbeds catalogue and can be out of date; Redwoodmere does not take bookings, so contact the hotel directly.
Show hotels near the walk base towns
Te Anau (9) · Queenstown (56) · Nelson (27) · Motueka (3) · Turangi (5) · Taupo (22) · Ohakune (10) · Invercargill (11) · Wairoa (1) · Takaka (2) · Wanaka (11) · All regions
For choosing between the walks themselves, start with choosing a Great Walk and the best time to go.