Specialist booksellers should have a reasonable stock of maps of New Zealand . The best available is the two-sided 1:1,000,000 edition produced by International Travel Maps , with all the important roads, and an attractive and instructive colour scheme giving a good sense of the country's terrain. The 1:2,000,000 maps produced by GeoCentre and Bartholemew come a distant joint second. Road atlases are widely available in New Zealand bookshops and service stations; the best are those produced by the AA, all of which indicate the type of road surface - though some roads marked as unsealed have since been tar-sealed. The AA also provide their members with simple but effective strip maps of major touring routes free of charge.

With a road atlas and our city plans you can't go far wrong on the roads, but more detailed maps may be required for tramping . All the major walks are covered by the Trackmap and Parkmap series, complete with photos ($13.50 from DOC offices and bookshops in New Zealand), or go for the larger scale Topo maps ($12.50), which cover the whole country.