(Note: this is part of the larger work New Zealand Huts: Notes towards a Country Study)

Privately owned and operated huts in New Zealand have not been studied, except by Walter Hirsh, who identified 25 private walking tracks in 2007. My interest in these private tracks was piqued at the end of my 2018 visit when I walked two of the best established, the Banks Peninsula Track and the Tuatapere Hump Ridge Track. I realized that American backcountry entrepreneurs might be able to learn something from these New Zealand small businesses. While I don’t have time to write reports on the two private walks I took, they stimulated some of the questions noted below.

While the privately owned and operated NZ hut systems are dwarfed by the single government operated system of 962 huts, these small business enterprises may resonate with the intensely capitalistic inclinations of Americans. In the U.S. there are 17 hut systems (comprising about 105 huts), of which two systems (comprising 8 huts) are operated by the federal government (one, in Yosemite National Park, as a concession). Twelve of the 15 other hut systems are privately operated as small business enterprises, mostly on government lands.

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How many private walking tracks exist in New Zealand, what forms do they take and how are they doing? How do they survive in a nation with so many comparatively inexpensive huts? Is the notion of private huts compatible with Kiwi culture and what are their prospects for the future? What might we in the USA learn about and from NZ private huts? These are a few of the questions I’d like to explore in more detail in future. Following are some observations, reflections and questions that will guide my explorations on a return trip.

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