Huts
773 huts you can walk into without asking anyone
You do not book them. You do not know anyone. You walk in, and if there is a spare bunk it is yours for fifteen dollars. This is where they are, which ones work that way, and the rules that decide whether a hut is any use to you with a rifle on your shoulder.
Where they are
Click a cluster to break it open, then a hut to see what it is and go straight to its DOC page.
The pattern is worth looking at before you zoom in anywhere. The network is thickest exactly where the animals are — the length of the Southern Alps, the West Coast beech, and through the Kaimanawa, Kaweka and Ruahine ranges. That is not a coincidence. In DOC’s own words, “over half of these were built for government shooters” — the deer cullers, from the 1930s until the helicopters took over in the early seventies. You are not a guest in this network. You are the reason for it.
Hut locations and facilities: Department of Conservation (CC BY 4.0), via the DOC open data hub.
Can I just turn up?
At 773, yes. Backcountry huts are first come, first served. No booking, no list, no key. You walk in, you put your ticket in the box or you carry a pass, and you take a bunk.
Nobody can turn you away and nobody is holding a bunk for you. If the hut is full you sleep on the floor, and when somebody arrives at eleven at night soaked through, you make room — that is the whole arrangement, and it is the reason it still works.
The 156 that must be booked are the exception, and they are marked on the map in amber. Those are Great Walk huts, the popular Serviced ones, and most of the Stewart Island hunters’ huts, where the hunting blocks themselves are booked through DOC.
What the categories mean
DOC grades every hut, and the grade decides the fee and whether a pass covers it. The facilities column is DOC’s own wording, not ours.
| Category | What DOC says is in it | Fee | Getting in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Great Walks huts | Great Walk Huts are the most comfortable. They have mattresses, water supply, toilets, hand washing facilities and heating with fuel available. They may have solar lighting, cooking facilities with fuel and a hut warden. | Varies by hut and season, and overseas visitors pay a different rate. | Booked, and the popular ones go the day bookings open. No hunting within 500 m. |
| Individually priced huts | This category of huts covers those popular huts and Serviced alpine huts that have individual fees. The fees are not solely based on the hut standards or levels of service. | Varies — DOC names each hut on its categories page. | Priced and booked per hut. A pass will not cover you. |
| Serviced huts | Serviced huts have mattresses, water supply, toilets, handwashing facilities and heating with fuel available. They may have cooking facilities with fuel and a warden. | $25 a night for an adult, $12.50 for a child or youth. | Covered by a Backcountry Hut Pass unless DOC lists that hut as bookable. |
| Standard huts | Standard huts have mattresses, water supply and toilets. Wood heaters are provided at huts below the bush line. | $15 a night for an adult, $7.50 for a child or youth. Camping outside is free. | First come, first served, and covered by a Backcountry Hut Pass. The hunter’s hut. |
| Basic huts and bivvies | Basic huts provide very basic shelter with limited facilities. | Free. | First come, first served. No pass or ticket needed. |
| Club huts | They have mattresses, a water supply, toilets and handwashing facilities. They may have heating and cooking facilities and some require a booking. | Varies — check the hut’s own page. | Club and private huts on public land that are open to the public. |
Fees as DOC published them on 13 September 2026 — check the current figures. The map above cannot tell you a hut’s category, because the open dataset DOC publishes does not carry it. Its own page does.
The rules that decide whether a hut is any use to you
A hut is a place to sleep, dry out and start from. It is not a hide, and two of the conditions on your DOC permit are about exactly that. The quoted lines are DOC’s; the plain-English line under each is ours.
You cannot shoot from the doorstep
No firearm shall be discharged: In the vicinity of huts, tracks, campsites, road-ends or other public places.
A hut is a base to walk out from before light, not a hide. "In the vicinity" is not given a distance, which means it is judged on the day, by somebody who is not you.
Great Walk huts are off the table entirely
Within 500 m of a Great Walk hut or track.
A half-kilometre no-discharge ring around every Great Walk hut and the whole length of the track. You may sleep there if you have a booking. You cannot hunt out of it.
The carcass does not come inside, or anywhere near
Carcasses and offal must not be left within 100 m of huts or campsites, and 50 m of tracks or waterways.
A hundred metres from the hut, fifty from the track and the creek. Hang it downwind, out of sight of the door, and take the bag off the bunk room floor before somebody’s kids find it.
The bolt comes out when you get to camp
when you get into camp remove and store your firearms bolt and ammunition separately to your firearm.
DOC’s wording, and it is worth doing visibly. Half the people in a backcountry hut have never been near a rifle, and what they remember about hunters is decided in the first minute.
And the unwritten one, which matters more than any of them: leave it better than you found it. Boots off at the door, sweep it out, fill the wood box, sign the book. Half the people who form an opinion about hunters this year will form it in a hut.
DOC built some of them for us
Twenty-one of them have "Hunters Hut" in the name, and nineteen are on Stewart Island/Rakiura, where the hunting blocks are booked through DOC rather than balloted — and all but two of those huts show as book-ahead here. The other two are in Mount Richmond Forest Park and up the coast at Harihari. DOC did not put hunters in the hut network as an afterthought. It built us our own.
Hunting by region
DOC’s own nineteen regions, biggest hut network first. Each one has the huts, the DOC permit areas and roar blocks, which ballots cover it, any 1080 in caution, and what has been recorded there.
- Canterbury179 huts
- West Coast144 huts
- Nelson/Tasman99 huts
- Otago78 huts
- Southland70 huts
- Marlborough60 huts
- Fiordland55 huts
- Hawke’s Bay55 huts
- Manawatu/Whanganui43 huts
- East Coast38 huts
- Wairarapa36 huts
- Wellington/Kapiti24 huts
- Central North Island16 huts
- Bay of Plenty8 huts
- Northland7 huts
- Taranaki7 huts
- Waikato6 huts
- Auckland2 huts
- Coromandel2 huts
Before you rely on any of this
This is a snapshot of DOC’s hut dataset, not a live feed — DOC last refreshed it in April 2026 and has flagged it for replacement. Huts close, burn down, get booked out and get alerts put on them. Before you commit to sleeping in one, open its DOC page and check.
One thing worth saying about the counts. DOC’s extract lists many huts twice — exact duplicates, same name, same place, same coordinates to six decimal places. We take the duplicates out, so the numbers on this page are lower than you will get by counting DOC’s file yourself, and they are the right ones.
DOC’s hut pages are the authority on closures, alerts, bookings and fees. We map where they are and tell you what the data says. DOC decides the rest.
Working out how to get to one? Find access on the map — the same country, with the land boundaries, the formed tracks and the walk-in routes on it.