$8.99City Highlights
Queenstown Audio Walking Tours
Self-guided, narrated walks through Queenstown. Buy a tour once, download it, and hear the story at each stop while you walk at your own pace.
Tours from $6.99
Friends walk free. One purchase covers everyone on your walk. Start the tour, invite your friends to join, and it plays on every phone in your group.
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Queenstown audio tours
Each tour is a mapped route with narration at every stop. Buy it once and it is yours to keep, no subscription.
$8.99City Highlights
$6.99City HighlightsWhat to expect on a Queenstown audio walking tour
Queenstown sells itself on bungy cords and jet boats, but these two audio walks find the small gold rush town underneath, from the gondola and the pioneer cemetery down to a lakefront built around a coal fired steamship.
The Gondola & Town Walk starts at the foot of the Skyline Gondola, with the option to ride up Bob's Peak for the classic postcard view, then winds down past the pioneer cemetery, the Memorial Centre and the Village Green where the original 1862 gold rush tent town stood. From there it passes St Peter's Church, built from stone gathered on the lake's own shore, before climbing to the gate of the Queenstown Hill Time Walk, a track whose plaques retell the town's story as you climb. It's about 2.6 kilometers and 42 minutes, mostly downhill or flat until that last climb.
The Lakefront Walk follows the shore of Lake Wakatipu from St Omer Park, named for the baker who first planted willows here in 1863, past the Steamer Wharf where the coal fired TSS Earnslaw still ties up, and Eichardt's, the hotel built on the site of the town's very first woolshed.
From there the route passes Williams Cottage, the oldest house in Queenstown, and crosses into the Queenstown Gardens, a planted peninsula that shelters the bay, finishing among the roses with a view across to Cecil Peak and Walter Peak. It's a gentle 1.4 kilometers and about 20 minutes, flat the whole way.
Where to walk in Queenstown
A few of the stops you will pass, and why they are worth slowing down for.
The Remarkables and Lake Wakatipu
The jagged, snow dusted peaks of the Remarkables rise straight from the far shore of Lake Wakatipu, with Queenstown's rooftops and streets spread across the near bank below. This is close to the view from the top of the Skyline Gondola, looking down over Bob's Peak toward a town that started as a scattered gold rush camp in the 1860s. The lake runs bent like a lightning bolt for about 80 kilometers, deep enough that its floor sits below sea level, carved out by glaciers. Cloud often sits low on the mountains even on a clear day in town, a reminder of how quickly weather changes once you're up high.
Queenstown Gardens Peninsula
A wooded peninsula reaches out into Lake Wakatipu here, sheltering Queenstown Bay on one side and the Frankton Arm on the other, with the town's streets and rooftops climbing the hillside behind. This is the Queenstown Gardens, set aside as a public reserve in 1866 and planted that same year with the first of its towering Douglas firs, oaks and sequoias. Before Europeans arrived, a Kāti Māmoe settlement called Te Kirikiri Pā stood on this same point. Walking paths wind the full loop of the peninsula today, past tennis courts, a disc golf course and the sheltered Rose Garden at its tip.
Steamer Wharf at Sunset
The sun drops behind the mountains at the end of the lakefront walk, turning the water gold and silver while a handful of figures linger on the wharf. This is close to where the TSS Earnslaw ties up, a coal fired steamship built in 1912 that once carried sheep, cattle and passengers between the railhead at Kingston and the high country stations around the shore. She's said to be the last coal fired passenger steamship still working in the Southern Hemisphere. The lake is known to rise and fall in a slow, steady rhythm that locals and Ngāi Tahu tradition alike have long found hard to explain.
Central Queenstown in Winter
Snow blankets the rooftops of central Queenstown in this view, with the Remarkables disappearing into low cloud across the lake. Even a town built around an adventure sports reputation slows right down under snowfall, cars and quiet streets dusted white in place of the usual buses and tour vans. Queenstown's weather can turn from sunshine to snow within an hour at any time of year, since this is mountain country through and through. The gold rush era buildings that survive in town look especially at home under a blanket of snow, closer to how the original settlers would have seen it.
Queenstown Hill
A forested ridge rises above the town here, tussock colored grass catching the light along its upper slopes before the land drops away toward the lake and the rooftops of Queenstown far below. This is Queenstown Hill, known to Ngāi Tahu as Te Tapu nui, the mountain of great sacredness, and the summit of the Time Walk track that closes out the Gondola & Town Walk. The lower slopes are planted with introduced conifers, Douglas fir and larch among them, while the open tussock higher up gives way to real alpine conditions. The full return hike to the 907 meter summit takes two to three hours.
Get the Audio Tour in 3 Simple Steps
All in the free Walk With Me app, and the first stops of every tour are free to try.
Tap the Gold Headphones and Pick a Tour
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Walk It Solo or Invite Someone
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Press Play and Walk
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Handcrafted for Your Time in the City
These tours aren't a checklist of sights. They're made to be walked slowly, headphones on, eyes on the city.
Meditative and Immersive
Each story is told where it happened. The app chimes when you reach a stop, one tap starts the story, and the stretch between stops is yours to take in at your own pace.
Handcrafted With Care
We choose every route and every stop ourselves and shape each story with care, so the time you have in the city goes to the places most worth seeing.
Better With Someone
Every walk is better with someone beside you, so if you can bring a friend, we really hope you do. That's why one purchase covers everyone you invite: they join your tour free.