The Best Way to Visit Milford Sound

If you are planning a trip to New Zealand, one of the main things you’ve probably been told to visit is Milford Sound down on the South Island. What they don’t tell you is how much of a pain it is to actually visit, especially considering that it has to be a daytrip. I’m going to tell you the best way to visit Milford Sound.

Photo from Makalu on Pixabay https://pixabay.com/photos/new-zealand-milford-sound-fjord-4848052/

The most popular way to visit (and the easiest) is through a tour that leaves out of Queenstown. Most people take a bus there, get on a boat, do the tour, and then hop on the bus back to Queenstown. Easy enough right? Wrong!

The journey from Queenstown to Milford Sound is anything but easy. It’s a 5 hour journey there and a 5 hour journey back. I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty miserable day to me. In fact, I even met a couple that took the bus there and dreaded taking it back, so they paid some money and hopped on a flight to get back to Queenstown. That actually takes me to what I want to put you on… a scenic flight over Milford Sound.

By taking a scenic flight to Milford Sound, you are a) eliminating that horrendous 10 hour bus day and b) flying over some of the most stunning scenery in the world. Seriously, I’ve traveled to 35 countries and this was by far, one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.

This is the company that I used and it includes the flight there, a boat tour through Milford Sound, and the flight back. It’s only ~$100 more than the bus and boat tour, so why not throw in the scenic flight and gain a whole new experience along the way?? If you plan on doing this, give yourself a few days in Queenstown because weather can be a huge determinate on if the flight is a go or a no-go. When I went, we didn’t get to do the boat tour because of weather but they refunded the difference and I still got to experience the flight which was sooo amazing, I didn’t even feel like I missed out by not going on the boat.