Queenstown with Kids

The Honest Take

Queenstown is genuinely spectacular and earns every superlative thrown at it. The Remarkables mountain range sits behind the town like a film set that someone forgot to take down. The lake is the kind of blue that makes you check your camera settings. The town itself is walkable, lively, full of good food, and works surprisingly well for families.

We had four nights and left wishing we'd booked five.

What to Do

The Skyline Gondola and Luge

Start here. Take the gondola up Bob's Peak for the view across the lake and the Remarkables, then buy luge rides and accept that you will be up there longer than you planned. The luge is a wheeled cart on a concrete track down the mountain with three different routes. It is objectively fun for every age, and our ten-year-old treated it as a personal time trial event for approximately two hours.

Buy more rides than you think you need. You will use them.

Practical: book online in advance to skip the queue. The gondola alone is worth it for the views even if nobody in your family wants to luge, which will not happen.

Deer Park Heights

A drive-through wildlife reserve on the hills above town with wallabies, deer, llamas, highland cattle, and views that are frankly unfair. You drive your own car through at your own pace and the animals approach the windows. Our youngest declared this her favorite day of the entire trip, which surprised us given that Milford Sound was also on the itinerary. Animals that walk up to your car window beat fiords, apparently. File that away.

Practical: it's a rough gravel road up, fine in a standard rental car but take it slowly. Allow two hours.

Shotover Jet

Book the first session of the morning. Show up early. Then hold on.

The Shotover Jet runs a jet boat through the Shotover Canyon at speeds that make conversation impossible, performing 360-degree spins in a canyon that appears to be about four feet wider than the boat. The driver does this with the casual energy of someone parallel parking. Our kids came off the boat in a state that can only be described as delighted shock.

It costs around $215 USD for three kids. It is worth it.

Practical: minimum age is three years old, minimum height is one meter. Book through Viator for easy cancellation flexibility.

TSS Earnslaw and Walter Peak Farm

The TSS Earnslaw is a 1912 twin-screw steamship that crosses Lake Wakatipu to Walter Peak High Country Farm for a barbecue lunch and farm show. This sounds genteel and is actually one of the better things we did.

The farm show involves sheepdogs doing things that seem impossible, a shearer demonstrating that sheep are very patient animals, and a barbecue with views across the lake to Queenstown. Our kids spent most of the return journey on the deck watching the engine room through the glass floor. The ship has a glass floor above the engine room. This is a very good feature.

Practical: book in advance, this sells out. Around $380 USD for a family of five.

Fly-Cruise-Fly Milford Sound

Technically this is a day trip from Queenstown rather than a Queenstown activity, but it departs from Queenstown airport and dominates the day, so it lives here.

The fly-in takes you over the Southern Alps in a small plane with views that will make your children go quiet, which is notable. The cruise through Milford Sound runs past waterfalls coming directly off the fiord walls, some of them hundreds of meters tall. On the flight back over Fiordland, our oldest sat with his face against the window and did not speak for forty minutes.

Do the fly-cruise-fly version, not the bus. The drive from Queenstown to Milford Sound is five hours each way. The flight is twenty-five minutes and goes over the mountains instead of around them.

Practical: around $1,658 USD for a family of five. Book months in advance, this sells out well ahead of time.

The Escape Room

It rained one afternoon. We found an escape room in town, booked the family session on short notice, and spent ninety minutes locked in a room together trying to solve puzzles while our youngest found the answer to everything before the rest of us had finished reading the clue.

It was one of the most fun afternoons of the trip. We mention this because Queenstown has a reputation as an outdoor adventure destination and it is easy to forget that there are things to do when the weather doesn't cooperate. There are. The escape room is one of them.

Where to Eat

Fergburger is the most famous burger in New Zealand, which sounds like a modest claim until you eat one. It is a large burger. Go early or queue. Our middle one ate two thirds of his and then looked at the remaining third with genuine respect. It is on Shotover Street and you will not miss it.

Odd Saint is a coffee shop that takes coffee seriously and makes banana bread that we are still thinking about. Get the banana bread.

Where to Stay

Airbnb is the right call for families in Queenstown. Having a kitchen, a living room, and space to debrief the day matters when you have kids and a lot to talk about. We paid around $514 USD per night for a home that fit all five of us comfortably. Central location is worth paying for since Queenstown is walkable and you'll want to be in it.

How Long to Spend

Four nights is the right amount. Three feels rushed. Five would be indulgent but we would do it.

Getting There

Queenstown Airport has direct connections from Auckland and other major NZ cities. Most international families fly into Auckland and connect, or fly directly from Australia. The airport is small, well-run, and about ten minutes from town.

Rent a car. You need one for Deer Park Heights, Milford Sound, and anywhere outside the town center. Roads are good and driving in New Zealand is straightforward once you've adjusted to the left-hand side, which takes about one day and one moment of turning the wrong way out of a car park.