Two very different adventures, both within easy reach of home. Here is how to pick the right one for your family.
North Canterbury has always been good at surprising people. Most of the country knows about the region’s wine and rural charm, but fewer realise that two of New Zealand’s best weekend getaway destinations sit practically on its doorstep. Hanmer Springs and Kaikoura are different in almost every way, yet both are capable of delivering a genuinely memorable family weekend, the kind where the kids are tired and happy by Sunday night and you find yourself already thinking about coming back.
From Rangiora, Hanmer Springs is roughly 75 minutes north on State Highway 7. Kaikoura is about 90 minutes up the coast on State Highway 1. Both are doable in a Friday afternoon departure, both have enough to fill a full weekend, and both have the kind of scenery that makes the drive feel like part of the experience rather than a means to an end.
The question is not whether either is worth going to. They both absolutely are. The question is which one is right for your family right now.
Hanmer Springs
Canterbury’s alpine spa village. Where you go to switch off properly.
There is a reason Hanmer Springs fills up every school holiday period without fail. It has cracked the formula for a family weekend that actually works for everyone at the table, including the adults. The village sits in a sheltered mountain basin surrounded by pine forest, and everything about it feels slightly removed from ordinary life in a way that takes about half an hour to fully appreciate. The pace drops, the phones go into pockets, and the kids start looking at trees.
The Thermal Pools
This is the centrepiece and it earns the billing. The Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools and Spa is a well-run complex with pools at varying temperatures, a dedicated family area, hydroslides, a lazy river, and a sulphur-free adult retreat section for parents who need twenty minutes of actual peace. The family pools are genuinely good for mixed-age groups. Toddlers can splash in shallow areas while older kids queue for the hydroslides, and the slides themselves are legitimately exciting, including a dark enclosed slide that has been giving adults a mild shock since it opened. Booking ahead in peak periods is strongly recommended because the complex does reach capacity.
Beyond the Pools
Hanmer would be worth the drive for the thermal pools alone, but the village has been steadily building out its activity offering and 2026 is a particularly good year to visit. The mountain biking trails through Hanmer Heritage Forest have had significant upgrades through 2025 and are now more accessible for beginner and intermediate family riders, with hire available in the village. The Fairy Door Walk in Brooke Dawson Park is a short, flat bush walk where small fairy doors are hidden at the base of trees along the trail. It sounds simple and it is, but toddlers and young children react to it with a degree of delight that makes the whole thing worth the fifteen minutes.
For older kids and teenagers who need something with more adrenaline, Hanmer Springs Attractions runs jet boating through the Waiau Gorge, white water rafting on grade 2 rapids that are well suited to families, quad biking through the forest, and horse treks with options for beginners. The Conical Hill walkway is a solid half-day family hike with great views over the basin, and the Heritage Forest has easier loop tracks for younger legs. Mini golf is available in the village centre and has been recently rebuilt.
New for 2026, Pixel Planet is set to open at The Village Shopping Centre in early 2026, bringing glowing interactive floors, multiplayer gaming zones, and VR simulators. For families travelling in winter or caught in an unexpected rainy afternoon, this will be a welcome addition to the village’s indoor offering.
Food and Staying Over
The village has a good mix of cafes, takeaways, and sit-down restaurants. Fire and Ice has had a strong run through 2025 with its refreshed menu and is a reliable dinner option for families. Accommodation ranges from holiday parks and self-contained cottages to proper hotels, and booking well ahead for any peak period or long weekend is simply a given. The village is compact and walkable, which removes the need to pile kids back into the car once you have arrived.
Hanmer Springs is the right pick for: families who want maximum activity variety in a contained, walkable village. Parents who need a genuine rest alongside the kids’ activity programme. Younger children who will get as much out of a fairy door walk and a splash pool as they would from anything more elaborate. Anyone visiting in winter who wants the novelty of soaking in warm water while the mountains sit white in the background.
Kaikoura
The wildlife coast. Where the mountains meet the sea and the natural world genuinely shows off.
Kaikoura does something very few destinations in New Zealand manage. It delivers a wildlife experience that is genuinely world-class without requiring you to fly anywhere, book six months in advance, or spend more than you planned to. The drive up from North Canterbury on State Highway 1 is reason enough to make the trip, with the Kaikoura Ranges rising steeply on one side of the road and the Pacific pressing in on the other. By the time you arrive, the family is already primed.
Whale Watch Kaikoura
This is the anchor experience and it justifies the trip on its own. Whale Watch Kaikoura is the only vessel-based whale watching company in New Zealand and operates year-round out of the old railway station on Whaleway Station Road. Tours run at 7:15am, 10:00am, and 12:45pm daily, with an extra 3:30pm departure from November through March. The tour runs roughly three and a half hours from check-in to return, with just over two hours on the water.
The stars of the show are the giant sperm whales, which are year-round residents in the deep underwater canyon just offshore. The company advertises a 95% success rate and backs it with an 80% refund if your tour does not see a whale. In reality, most trips see at least one, and many see more. Depending on the season, you may also encounter humpback whales, orca, pilot whales, pods of dusky dolphins, fur seals, and the largest concentration of seabird species on the New Zealand mainland, including multiple species of albatross. The catamarans are purpose-built, with large outdoor viewing decks, spacious indoor seating, and live commentary throughout. Children must be at least three years old to board.
For families who would rather experience the whales from the air, Wings Over Whales and Air Kaikoura both run scenic whale watching flights from a small airfield about ten minutes south of town. Flights run around 30 to 40 minutes in high-wing planes that give everyone a clear downward view of the water. The aerial perspective gives you a completely different sense of how large these animals actually are, and on a clear day the combination of ocean, whale, and snow-capped mountains visible from the plane is something you do not forget quickly.
The Rest of Kaikoura
Whale Watch tends to get most of the attention but Kaikoura has a genuinely full programme beyond it. Kaikoura Kayaks, the original kayak operator in town since 1998, runs guided sea kayak tours that are 100% guaranteed to encounter fur seals and operate year-round. They hold a marine mammal permit to view whales by kayak, which is unique in New Zealand. Having a dusky dolphin swim under your kayak is the kind of experience that children talk about for years, and the guides are expert at positioning the group safely and quietly to give wildlife the space it needs.
On land, the fur seal colony at the Kaikoura Peninsula Walkway is a free and easy family walk that gets you within surprisingly close range of seals lounging on the rocks. The walkway takes around two hours for the full loop and offers good coastal views the whole way. The Kaikoura Farmers Market runs on Saturday mornings and is worth timing your arrival around, with local cheese, fresh bread, preserves, and produce that makes for excellent road trip provisioning. And for a town that sits on the coast, the crayfish is as good as you would hope, with roadside crayfish vendors operating on the highway approach into town.
Practical Notes for Families
Whale Watch tours are popular and do sell out, particularly during summer and school holiday periods. Booking ahead is not optional if you have a specific date in mind. Sea conditions do occasionally result in cancelled tours, so building a spare half-day into the itinerary is sensible. For anyone prone to motion sickness, the scenic flight is a good alternative, though small aircraft do involve their own kind of movement in turns. The town itself is compact and the main strip has a good mix of cafes, fish and chip shops, and sit-down restaurants. Accommodation ranges from motels to holiday parks, and again, forward booking during peak periods is essential.
Kaikoura is the right pick for: families with children old enough to genuinely engage with wildlife, particularly anyone eight and over. Nature lovers of any age who want an experience that feels substantial rather than packaged. Families who want one headline activity that everyone will remember alongside a relaxed coastal town to explore around it. Anyone who has never seen a sperm whale and would like to fix that.
So which one should you go to?
The honest answer is that these two destinations are not really competing with each other. They offer fundamentally different things, and the right choice depends almost entirely on the age of your kids and what kind of weekend you are actually after.
If your children are young, five and under, or you have a wide age range in the car and need something that works for a toddler and a twelve-year-old simultaneously, Hanmer Springs is the easier call. Everything is walkable, the activity level is adjustable, and the thermal pools deliver something for every age without anyone needing to be ready for it in advance. It is also the more forgiving destination if the weather turns or someone wakes up tired and difficult on Saturday morning.
If your kids are old enough to understand what a sperm whale actually is, and that they are about to see one in the wild, go to Kaikoura. The whale watch experience is genuinely hard to top anywhere in New Zealand, and the coastal setting, fresh crayfish, and ease of the town make the rest of the weekend easy to fill. There is less to do in total, but what is there is more memorable.
Better still, both are close enough to do across separate weekends without any great effort. From most of North Canterbury, you are looking at a tank of petrol and an hour and a half of road, which by New Zealand standards makes both of them practically neighbours.
