The best overnight hikes

These Boots Are Made For Walkin'

You've bought the pack, the all-weather gear, the merino undergear, the sleeping bag and the gas stove. One decision left: where to go on your first overnight hike?

There's got to be a payoff for busting a gut. Northland's Cape Brett Track is a "challenging" 16km ridgeline hike to the former lighthouse keeper's house at the end of the peninsula, now a trampers' hut. Expect exceptional views, and if you're keen, wake early to watch the sun rise over the Pacific. You don't have to walk back: a water taxi collects hikers from Deep Water Cove.

Aucklanders don't have to travel too far from home. When the service resumes, catch a ferry to Rangitoto/Motutapu and overnight in the Hauraki Gulf by booking DoC accommodation or campsites (this applies to most DoC facilities throughout this feature).
Fancy sleeping on a volcano? Rangitoto's baches have been available to only a few families since the 1920s but three are now available to rent. Option 2 – when the current rāhui is lifted - walk the causeway from Rangitoto to Motoutapu and camp by the beach at Home Bay, exploring walkways, coastline, native bush and ever-increasing wildlife.

The well-maintained Pinnacles Walk on Coromandel Peninsula leads to one of the best and biggest (80-bed) huts in Aotearoa. With showers (yes, they are cold), solar lighting, barbecue, gas cookers, a solid fuel burner and onsite warden, this mountain hut experience will have you planning many further adventures. Sunrise and sunset peeks of bush and ocean at no extra charge.

Pirongia dominates the Waikato countryside and the mountain's walking tracks are also popular overnight options, staying in Pahautea Hut. Hihikiwi Track is the shortest route to the hut near the 962m summit; the Tahuanui and Bell tracks can be combined to create an overnight trip, also staying in Pahautea Hut.

We're just coming into the season for exploring the heart of Tongariro National Park. Late October-April is the best time to tackle the Tongariro Northern Circuit, one of our 10 Great Walks in the Dual World Heritage Area of dramatic (and active!) volcanic landscapes, glacial valleys, beech forest, alpine meadows and emerald lakes.

Most walkers take four days/three nights or three days/two nights for the full 43km tramp. Very fit people can walk it in two days/one night but each day is at least eight hours. There are a number of DoC huts or you can pack a tent and take your own cooker.

The lightweight option for first-timers is to head for the Waihohonu Hut, an easy one to three hours walking from the road. The modern, solar-powered 28-bunk hut on the Northern Circuit offers mountain views, a big log burner and good insulation.

The mighty Ruahine Ranges divide the lower North Island, its forest park containing great tramps on both the Hawke's Bay and Manawatū flanks. Top of the ranges on the Bay side is Sunrise Hut, built by the Forest Service in 1983 and upgraded in 2005. It's a popular, easy walk for families and groups (tip: take your own cooker).

On the Manawatū side, the recently revamped Rangiwahia Track is an ideal day or overnight tramp for families and newbies. Plan 1½-3 hours walking, depending on your fitness level or age and stage, crossing across an awe-inspiring arched wooden bridge to the tussock tops and the 13-bunk Rangiwahia Hut (yep, bring cooking gear).

In the scenic Ōroua River valley, the Alice Nash Memorial Heritage Lodge Track is another quite easy walk for families and novices, with the bonus of an overnight stay in the 12-bed hut with large, sun-drenched deck (kids could sleep outside) and tent pitches.

Naturally, there's a bonus to reaching the Pouākai Hut on Taranaki Maunga. Sure, you have social media-perfect mountain views but on a clear night you'll see a dazzling display of constellations stretching along the North Island coastline. The 6.5km Maketawa Hut Circuit is another great tramp for families or first-time overnight adventure.

There are four classic tramps in the Wairarapa's Tararua Ranges, with the two- to three-day Mt Holdsworth-Jumbo Circuit a real treat, but you should save this one until you've got some experience under your Swanny. Reccy the place with an easy one- to three-hour walk to the Akiwhakatu Hut and out again.

Closer to Wellington, the Orongorongo Track is an easy walking trail through Remutaka Forest Park, all bush and swimming holes and DoC huts.

We pointed you in the direction of Nelson Tasman's Mt Robert Circuit in the Absolute Beginners section, and we'll tip the sunhat to that one again here, and also recommend the Sylvester Hut Track in Kahurangi National Park. It's a two-hour, 5km each-way hike that follows a wide gravel path through the bushline to open tussocks and – OMG! – the hut above tranquil, glacial Lake Sylvester. You may want to take an alpine swim. Or not.

You can barely tie your bootlaces without tripping over another national park in this glorious part of the country.

In Westland Tai Poutini National Park, the 36km, 14-hour return tramp along the Copland Track to Welcome Flat is a taster of Aotearoa's alpine adventures with magnificent views and natural hot pools to soak muscles at the end of the day. Go from December-May for the best weather and expect ancient landscapes, rainforest, rushing rivers and birdlife, swing bridges and some boulder hopping, kea, kererū, weka and a night in the 31-bunk, two-storey Welcome Flat Hut.

Our newest Great Walk is Paparoa, the innovative purpose-built, shared-use hiking and mountain biking track within Paparoa National Park that connects with the Pike29 Memorial Track to the former mine site.

From Blackball, a 20km, 9-hour return section of the Paparoa walk is an ideal two-day tramp for newbies. A well-formed and easy track ascending to 1000m above sea level, you'll get impressive views of the Southern Alps, Tasman Sea and native forest on the way to the 16-bunk Ces Clark Hut. It sits on the bushline with views to Lake Brunner and the Main Divide to Aoraki Mt Cook.

The Marlborough Sounds are a gorgeous slice of New Zealand and the 72km Queen Charlotte Track, tracing the bays, hills, ocean and islands from Ship Cove to Anakiwa, is a journey from the country's past to present, with friendly locals including weka, pīwakawaka, kererū and seals. Best of all, you can walk or mountain bike leaving heavy gear with the water taxis that'll carry it to tonight's accommodation.

Mt Fyffe and the Seaward Kaikōura Ranges rule the Kaikōura skyline. Come summer, there are opportunities from a serious back-country journey or 45-minute ramble. For our purposes, a five-hour return hike to the basic eight-bed Fyffe Hutt is the go.

From Hanmer Springs, the St James Walkway is a great introduction to multi-night tramping. Commonly done over five days/four nights, the track through farmland, beech forest and sub-alpine regions is suitable for beginners and experienced trampers.

Yes, we have mentioned the Hooker Valley Track in Aoraki Mt Cook National Park but here's why and where you should stay overnight. Just 950m off the track is Hooker Hut. Opened in 1910, it's been moved several times as the Hooker Glacier, avalanches and even Covid took their toll – not so much a leaky building as a creaky building. Reopened last summer, the corrugated iron hut can sleep eight – not counting the resident ghost.

Arrowtown can feel like a journey into the past. Take it a step further by hiking the old wagon trail 15km to the equally historic goldmining settlement of Macetown. It's now uninhabited but DoC has restored several original stone buildings and created a campsite. Novice trampers and families should know they'll have to make several river crossings.

For another multi-day experience, the Greenstone-Caples trail is a stunning and easy, four- to five-day track that connects to the Routeburn Track.

The spectacular, flat-topped Maniototo mountain range is the foreground of our big sky country. Get amongst it on the Mt Buster Track in Oteake Conservation Park near Naseby, a 15km, five- to six-hour walk past historic gold diggings before continuing to overnight at Tailings Hut.

Another chance to nibble a piece of one of our most challenging Great Walks, the Kepler Track in Fiordland. Starting from Te Anau, the Luxmore Summit is a 1200m hike through forest and past limestone cliffs until trees give way to alpine flowers near the summit and its DoC hut. The track is steep and you'll have to be reasonably fit; the payoff, you'll spend the night above the clouds with sunsets and sunrises stretching over mountains to the Tasman.

Southland mums and dads wanting to ease their offspring into the outdoor life could do far worse than take them to Dolamore Park, 11km outside Gore, for camping and easy walking tracks through native forest, ranging from 10 minutes to four hours.

Welcome Rock, near Garston, is a bespoke tramping experience, a 27km privately owned trail on a high-country station (21km hand-built with pick and shovel), following old goldmining water races, overnighting in back-country huts or a farm-stay.