Eleven hours, or one flight
Franz Josef is about three hundred and fifty kilometres from Queenstown by the only sensible road, and that road takes five and a half hours before you stop for anything. There are exactly two ways to do a heli hike from Queenstown: drive up and stay two nights, or buy the one-day version at $995 that flies you over the Main Divide and back. This page prices both properly.
Quick answer
The short answer. If you have three days, drive up, stay two nights and book the standard hike at $497. If you have one day, the flight-and-hike package at $995 is the only thing that works, and its price mostly buys you back eleven hours of driving and two nights of accommodation.
The drive
One of the best drives in New Zealand. Not a drive to do twice in a day.
The route is a single road, State Highway 6, and it divides neatly into three parts.
Queenstown to Wanaka is about an hour, either over the Crown Range — the highest sealed road in the country, and worth it in good weather — or the longer way round through Cromwell. Wanaka is the last town of any size and the sensible place for fuel and coffee.
Wanaka to Haast is the Haast Pass: two and a half hours through beech forest, past Lakes Hawea and Wanaka, over a low saddle in the Southern Alps and down a gorge full of waterfalls to the Tasman Sea. It is the best driving of the trip, and it is also where there is no phone coverage and no fuel for a long stretch.
Haast to Franz Josef is a further two hours up the coast, with the sea on one side and rainforest on the other, through Fox Glacier village and on to Franz Josef.
Itineraries that work
All of them assume you want to be on the ice, and therefore that you want more than one chance at the weather.
A scenic flight from Queenstown over the Main Divide, the guided hike on the glacier, and back the same afternoon. It removes eleven hours of driving and two nights of beds, which is what the price actually covers. The risk is that all of your weather luck has to land on one day.
Day one: drive Queenstown to Franz Josef, arrive early evening. Day two: heli hike on the first departure. Day three: drive back, with the morning held in reserve if day two was cancelled. Tight, but it works.
Night one in Wanaka. Nights two and three in Franz Josef, hiking on the first morning with a spare behind it. Drive back on day four. This is the itinerary most people should choose.
Queenstown up the coast to Franz Josef, then north to Hokitika and east over Arthur’s Pass to Christchurch. No backtracking, spectacular the whole way, and it turns the drive from a cost into part of the trip.
However you get here, the weather decides whether you walk on the ice.
Weather and cancellations→Reading the package price
At first glance the Queenstown day trip looks like double the price of the same hike booked locally, and in a narrow sense it is. Read it as a whole day and it looks different.
Booking locally means the hike at $497, plus roughly eleven hours of driving, plus at least two nights in Franz Josef, plus fuel. Add those up honestly and the gap closes almost completely — and you get two crossings of the Main Divide by air, which is one of the great scenic flights anywhere, thrown in.
The real argument against it is weather concentration. Booking locally over two nights gives you two or three chances at the ice. The package gives you one, and if it is cancelled you are refunded and back where you started, in Queenstown, with no glacier.
So: if the West Coast is already on your itinerary, book locally. If it genuinely is not, the package is a good deal that carries a real risk.
Book direct
From Queenstown in a day, or from the village in a morning.
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Common questions
About three hundred and fifty kilometres by road, which is five and a half hours of driving before any stops. With fuel, food and the Haast Pass viewpoints, allow seven to eight hours.
Not by car — that is eleven hours of driving with no margin. There is a one-day package at $995 that flies you over the Main Divide, puts you on the ice with a guide and flies you back the same afternoon.
If you are not otherwise going to the West Coast, yes: it removes eleven hours of driving and two nights of beds, and adds two crossings of the Southern Alps by air. If you are already heading that way, book locally and keep the spare morning.
State Highway 6 the whole way: Queenstown to Wanaka, then the Haast Pass to the coast, then north through Fox Glacier to Franz Josef. Fill up at Wanaka and Haast — there are long stretches with no fuel and no phone coverage.
Yes, daily coach services from Queenstown take around eight hours and stop at the viewpoints on the way. A reasonable alternative if you would rather not drive the pass in rain.
Two at a minimum, three if the heli hike is the reason for the trip. One night gives you a single morning, and around half of all trips here are weather-affected across a season.
Go deeper
What it is, what it costs, and why there is no way onto the ice without one.
PricesThree heli hikes priced against the scenic flight, and what the money actually buys.
VerdictThree heli hikes compared on time on the ice, group size and what is included.
Hike or flyThe most common wrong booking in Franz Josef, settled with both sets of numbers.
Hour by hourFrom the boot fitting to the pick-up, in order, with the boring parts left in.
Which oneTwo glaciers, two villages, and which one to put your only clear morning into.
