The best things to do in Franz Josef & the glacier country
The mighty glacier is the main draw, but there are other reasons I love Franz Josef. These are the attractions in the area I love the most.
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Tourists have been flocking to Franz Josef since the late 1800s; back then, the ice was visible from the main highway.
The glacier has beaten a lengthy retreat since then, but it’s still a fantastically accessible river of ice.
Women walking on the glacier in 1913 — photo via Maye Dunn
Franz Josef glacier in the 1950s — photo via Peter Righteous
Usually, to see a glacier, you have to make it high into hostile alpine terrain, or into the depths of a place like Patagonia or Greenland. In Franz Josef, the glacier is visible just a short walk from a tourist village right on the main highway through the region.
The first time I drove up the narrow road to the carpark closest the glacier, I couldn’t believe the chunks of ice flowing down the river, nearly at the sea.
In more modern times — a view of Franz Josef glacier as I was doing the heli hike
I’ve been back many times since, lured back time and again by the beauty of the region.
Franz Josef glacier and its neighbour Fox glacier, a half hour drive south, are the main attractions on the West Coast. But, they are far from the only reason to visit. The wilderness in Westland Tai Poutini National Park is epic, with rich forest that drips in bright green moss, ink dark lakes that reflect the mountains, and beaches strewn with driftwood and frequented by Hector’s dolphins.
Go for the glaciers, but stay long enough to explore all of glacier country.
Franz Josef at a glance
GETTING THERE AND AWAY
There’s only one way in and out of the region; State Highway 6, the long and lonely road down the west coast.
The most common route to or from Franz Josef is from Christchurch, over Arthur’s Pass and down through Hokitika to Franz Josef. Most travellers will carry on down to Haast Pass and through to Wanaka, before heading either back to Christchurch or on to Queenstown.
Needless to say, your own set of wheels is the easiest way to get around (although there are limited Inter City connections throughout the region). There are plenty of hotels in Franz Josef and Fox Glacier townships, with a smattering of Airbnbs as well.
Travelling in a campervan might be the ideal way to move throughout glacier country, though, thanks to the superb campgrounds. Just make sure you’re prepared to deal with abundant sandflies and wet weather.
HOW LONG TO STAY IN FRANZ JOSEF
When visiting Franz Josef you should always have both a raincoat and a good amount of patience; the weather on the west coast is famously fickle, and frequently derails the best-laid plans. During wet weather, helicopters stay grounded and cloud obscures the glaciers from view.
If you have enough time in your itinerary, stay for at least two nights, to increase your chances of seeing the rivers of ice. Glaciers aside, there is plenty to do in this beautiful part of the country, so it’s unlikely you’ll regret spending a little extra time there.
A tip for checking the weather: I use NIWA to look at the weather in Franz Josef (and other national parks). The forecast includes details on visibility and how low the cloud is expected to sit. Anything under 3000 metres means you won’t have great visibility.
MY TOP PICKS FOR FRANZ JOSEF
Kick up some mud on a quad bike tour with Franz Josef Wilderness Tours
Hike to a viewpoint in the area — Roberts Point is excellent for a half day walk, or Alex Knob for a full day hike
Where to stay in Franz Josef
Fox Glacier
Franz Josef glacier is steeper than Fox, with a distinctive black rock at its centre, as well as deep blue crevasses and ice caves.
The Franz Josef township is busier, but has a better visitor centre, more options for accommodation and food, and a much prettier rainforest setting (the large number of visitors is generally swallowed up by the fantastically green surroundings, so it rarely feels crowded).
Fox Glacier itself is longer and gets fewer visitors, so it can make for a less crowded heli-hike experience. The Fox township is smaller than Franz, with fewer amenities. But, it does offer easy access to the spectacular Lake Matheson (handy if you want to visit the mirror lake at dawn, when the water is the calmest).
The townships are a 30 minute drive apart, so it’s easy enough to visit the sights in both areas while using only one as a base. Personally, my preference is to stay in Franz Josef.
Legacy Te Waonui Hotel Franz Josef
HOTEL | $$$$
The clever square layout of this hotel means each of the four wings joins to enclose rainforest.
Rooms look out into the forest (which, while creating a sense of privacy, does mean they lean towards dimness), and are decorated with small flourishes like possum fur cushions.
Although the price tag is high compared to other places in town, the rates do include an excellent dinner and breakfast, which is convenient given the limited dining options in Franz Josef. I enjoyed my stay here.
Rainforest Retreat
Beyond the rainforest setting, the main appeal of the Rainforest Retreat is the wide range of accommodation options, from campervan sites to deluxe treehouses with private hot tubs. Monsoon, the on-site restaurant, serves standard pizzas, burgers, and other bar meals, but it’s some of the better food you’ll find in Franz Josef.
Orange Sheep Campervan Park
CAMPGROUND | $
Tucked into lush native bush, this well-priced campground is ideal for anyone travelling in a campervan, with good facilities and a location right in the middle of town.
Exploring the glaciers
Franz Josef heli hike
There was a time when visitors to Franz Josef could stroll up to the glacier and onto the ice. Those days have long since passed with the retreat of the ice (and approaching the crumbling face of a glacier is never a good idea anyway).
To see the glacier up close, you’ll need to book a helicopter tour. There are ‘flightseeing’ options, which don’t include landings on the ice, but the most immersive experience is the heli-hike.
I did the heli hike on Franz Josef with Franz Josef Glacier Guides, and would recommend the experience.
This was my first time in a helicopter and although the journey from the helipad by the village up the valley and onto the ice lasted for less than 10 minutes, it was still an awesome way to see the glacier.
The heli-hike itself is fairly slow paced – although operators warn you’ll need a good level of physical activity for the trip, I found it to be meandering rather than tiring.
Time is allocated for photo stops, and if you’re lucky enough to go through an ice cave, the group will pass through one person at a time.
In short, there was plenty of time to gawk at the incredible icy blue surroundings, but it’s less of a hike than a stroll. Expect to move at the pace of the slowest person in your group.
One thing to note; on clear days, the number of helicopters flying up and down the valley is so high that the prevalent sound in the area is the buzz of chopper blades. The sounds of waterfalls, ice cracking, and other natural sounds are drowned out.
This, along with the irony of fossil fueled powered flights to see the melting ice, may mean the most nature oriented visitors might not enjoy the trip. If this sounds like you, I recommend prioritising the hiking trails in the area instead, ideally in the Fox Glacier area where the overall number of helicopter flights is lower.
Hikes around Franz Josef and Fox glaciers
The view of Franz Josef from the Roberts Point lookout platform
If you’re on a budget, don’t like helicopters, or don’t want to add to the carbon emissions driving the glacial retreat, there are some wonderful walking options around Franz Josef.
You can get some pretty spectacular views of the glacier from viewpoints in the area, with different levels of difficulty.
The Franz Josef Glacier/Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere track for a 30 minute gentle walk to a viewing point of the glacier and valley. This is possibly the most disappointing view, as the glacier has shrunk far up the valley, but it’s still a lovely (but somewhat busy) walk.
Roberts Point Track is a longer and more challenging hike that crosses swing bridges and rocky terrain. The end point is a wooden viewing platform which faces the glacier, giving you clear views up the valley. I went early in the morning and was the only one there, I loved it.
Alex Knob Hike is possibly the best option for viewing the glacier, as the trail is well maintained and passes three separate view points, so you can choose how far you would like to go.
Franz Josef is twinned with Fox Glacier, a second glacier and small town of the same name around 30 minutes south.
Fox Glacier is an equally epic glacier but is slightly less popular, for some reason. It might be that it’s not as easy to see Fox Glacier — you can spot it from the road, but there is only one easy walking trail to a viewpoint of Fox.
The Mount Fox route is an epic hike with incredible views of Fox Glacier, but it’s a tough trek if you’re a keen hiker. And, you need a pretty good weather window, which can be hard to come by in the rainforesty glacier country.
If you’re heading south through Haast (or north from that direction) you should absolutely stop by Lake Matheson — it’s one of my favourite short walks in all of New Zealand.
Other activities in Franz Josef and Glacier Country
Ride quad bikes through rainforest and rivers with Franz Josef Wilderness Tours
A family owned business run by Kiwi-Canadian couple Bronwyn and Dale, Franz Josef Wilderness Tours runs a range of kayak, boat, and off-road trips in the Franz Josef area.
The guided quad bike tours are a noisy, fun, and fast-paced way to explore glacier-fed riverbeds, muddy grasslands, and lush rainforest. I don’t usually get my thrills from loud vehicles, but throttling through the grey river was an exhilarating experience.
Hooning around on quad bikes is the ideal activity on a rainy day in Franz Josef, when hikes and heli tours aren’t an option. The puddles add to the fun – you’ll be kitted out in waterproof clothing from head to toe, and encouraged to kick up a bit of mud.
If, like me, you’re fairly tentative with a quad bike, not to worry. Dale and his team are remarkably laid back and do a great job of making sure you’re comfortable with the bike and the terrain.
Visit Okarito, the tiny coastal town
For me, Okarito has a special kind of beauty.
The small coastal town is about 25 minutes from Franz Josef, off the main highway. Only around 30 people live here year round. So it’s a bit of a detour to get there, which means it’s blissfully peaceful.
Okarito is home to a large, tranquil lagoon, which is in turn home to mystical white herons.
This stretch of coastal wilderness is rare in its beauty and intactness.
Kayak Okarito Lagoon
Okarito Kayaks is a small, family run business that offers both freedom kayak rentals and guided kayak tours.
Walk the coast at Okarito
There is a beautiful walk along the coast to Three Mile Lagoon, which feels incredibly isolated — I found it almost eerie, but in a beautiful way, if that makes sense. Almost like catching nature off guard.
You can walk back along the beach at low tide. In the evening, you might spot Hector’s dolphins in the waves. I saw one foraging along the coast in the setting sunlight, it was wonderful.
Soak in the Waiho Hot Tubs
Waiho Hot Tubs are more or less in the middle of town, but it doesn’t feel that way — the tubs are surrounded by native forest, making it feel like forest bathing.
The Waiho River flows from Franz Josef Glacier to the ocean. The name Waiho loosely means smokey waters, so the name Waiho Hot Tubs also references this, capturing the image of the steam rising from the hot tubs.
Go and take a look at the local petrol station — Franz Josef’s ticking time bomb
This is more of a thing to know rather than a thing to do, but Franz Josef is one of the most dangerous towns in New Zealand. Why? It sits right on top of the Alpine Fault Line.
And Glacier Motors’ two 50,000-litre petroleum tanks sit right on the spot where the thrusting tectonic plates meet the Earth’s surface.
If you look closely, you can see a subtle hump in the petrol station’s pavement. That’s the Alpine Fault line, the longest natural straight line on Earth.
The Fault literally divides the town, running through the police station and one of the motels as well as the petrol station.
An earthquake along this fault line would force the petrol tanks to burst out of the ground and rupture, spilling 100,000 litres of fuel down the road, through the drains of the town, drenching everything in its path. And if that sparks? Ka boom.
The most terrifying part of all of this — a magnitude 8 earthquake could happen at any second.
Records taken from sediment samples in the South Island clearly show the Alpine Fault earthquakes are triggered roughly every 300 years, a pattern scientists have traced back for around 8000 years.
The last earthquake was in 1717. Tick, tock.
What this means is that the odds of a major quake caused by an Alpine Fault rupture are 75% in the next 50 years, and an 82% chance it will be over eight on the Richter scale. There’s even a name for it — the AF8.
FURTHER READING
If you want to read more in depth about this, I highly recommend checking out Fault Lines. It’s fascinating and frightening beyond belief, knowing that the biggest earthquake in New Zealand’s recorded history could be right around the corner.
ITINERARIES THAT PASS THROUGH FRANZ JOSEF
Franz Josef and glacier country is an essential stop on a longer South Island road trip. If you only have a short time in New Zealand, it might not be worth the trek (you can also see glaciers at Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park) but if you are up for an adventure, I encourage you to visit.
AUTHOR BIO
I’m a freelance travel writer from New Zealand with bylines in National Geographic Travel, Conde Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure and more.
I’ve travelled up and down beautiful Aotearoa and I love sharing my recommendations for the best places to visit in New Zealand.
