Last year we took a two-week Holland America cruise that started in Sydney, Australia and ended in Auckland, New Zealand. Once we got off the cruise ship in Auckland, we flew south to Queenstown (South Island), rented a car and then worked our way north along the west coast of the South Island and then returned to the North Island via ferry. While on the North Island, one of our stops was Hobbiton. I will admit I am a not a bonafide “Lord of the Rings” fan (I’ve seen the movies, but did not read the books except for “The Hobbit” when I was a teenager). However, visiting Hobbiton was really quite interesting and it’s perhaps the most significant tourist site on the North Island.
If you visit, you check in at the visitor’s center. You will be assigned to a tour group of about 40 people and then take a 10-minute bus ride at the appointed time to The Shire (the Hobbiton movie set), located nearby. Tour groups run about every 15 minutes, eight hours a day during the tourist season.
You will have a friendly and knowledgable tour guide for your visit. At the end of the tour you will be given a free drink at the Hobbiton pub before returning to your shuttle bus and heading back to the visitor’s center. You should allow at least 2-3 hours for your visit.
The land is privately owned and was used for the filming of the Lord of the Rings movie series and then again for The Hobbit movies. The director, Peter Jackson, thought this farm land location in the rolling hills would be perfect and he leased the land from the owner to create the Hobbiton movie set, which must have been an incredible amount of work. After the Lord of the Rings movies, the sets were removed and the land was returned to its natural state. The sets were created again for the two The Hobbit films. After The Hobbit films, the land owner decided to turn the movie set into a tourist attraction, and the rest is history.
If you plan to go to Hobbiton, plan ahead and make your reservations in advance here, especially during New Zealand’s busy summer months. Hobbiton is one of the top tourist sites in the country, and it was really busy when we were there. Even with the crowds, the tours are efficiently handled and once you get out on the large set, you might feel like your group is the only one there for most of the tour. Hobbiton is about 2 hours by car south of Auckland.