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North Island Travel Guide

As we wrap up our time here in New Zealand, I wanted to list all of our adventures- both to reminisce and to provide a travel guide for anyone interested. Since there is so much to see and do, I've split this into the north and south islands.

Here is a map of the north island and the different trips we've taken (color coded for those of us who have a proclivity for obsessive compulsive personality types).

Since we lived in Auckland, most of our adventures were weekend trips, close enough to drive to.

I'll start with Auckland itself. You don't come to New Zealand to spend your time in Auckland. It's a big city. There are better ones, there are worse ones. These were our favorite activities in the city and surrounding areas:

  • Waiheke Island 

  • Auckland Domain-large Park with Botanical Gardens & War Memorial 

  • Matakana 

    • 45 min drive north of Auckland, cute little town with great restaurants and shops (we liked Matakana Market Kitchen for brunch- if it’s nice out can sit by the creek) 

    • Really busy on Saturdays, they have a farmers market there; we only went on a Sunday 

    • Great views and short hikes at Tawharanui Regional Park 

    • Native bird sanctuary; lots of Takahe 

  • Piha Beach

    • 45 minutes west of Auckland, very windy and narrow road to get there. Beautiful black sand beaches. Can be busy with tourists, the beach just North of it is called Bethell's beach and is just as nice.

Takahe near Matakana


In terms of road trips, I'll start with the purple one. We started from Auckland and drove to Lake Taupo, then Rotorua, then Hobbiton on our way back to Auckland.

William swimming in Lake Taupo- super clear!


  • Rotorua

    • Weren’t too impressed with the city and the free geothermal areas, if you’ve been to Yellowstone it is very underwhelming. There are many other geothermal areas where you can walk around and look at the geysers/hot pools/geothermal features but these tend to be expensive. There are a lot of hot pools advertised, but they seemed expensive and touristy; much nicer and cheaper ones can be found many other places in NZ 

    • Loved rafting the Kaituna river just outside of Rotorua- the highest commercially available waterfall at 7m. Really fun! Rotorua Rafting | Best White Water Rafting In Rotorua (rotorua-rafting.co.nz)

  • Hobbiton

Us enjoying a rainy day at Hobbiton!


Orange trip to Tongariro National Park

Gorgeous views from the Tongariro Alpine Crossing!


Yellow trip to New Plymouth and Mount Taranaki

  • New Plymouth 

    • A cool little town about 5 hours drive from Auckland, we would have stayed here longer or come back if we had the time! 

  • Egmont National Park- Mt Taranaki (for the film ‘The Last Samurai’, this was the mountain used as Mt Fuji) 

Pouaki Tarns with gorgeous views of Mt Taranaki!


Pink trip to the Coromandel Peninsula

  • Coromandel Peninsula 

  • We went to New Chums Beach, which was a beautiful beach but requires about a 20min walk over a lot of rocks 

  • William went with some friends to Hot Water Beach (a geothermal beach where you can dig a hole & sit in your own hot pool in the sand), which is touristy but he really liked it; must check tides as you can only go within a few hours of low tide 

  • Heard good things about The Lost Spring thermal pools (Whitianga), but never made it 

  • People recommended Puragi Winery but didn’t make it

A stroll on New Chums Beach


Blue Trip to Bay of Islands

Hike on our Bay of Islands tour


  • Poor Knights Island (about an hour boat ride from Bay of Islands area) 


We have loved living in New Zealand for the past six months. Here are some of our favorite video memories from the North Island!


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