Six of New Zealand's 11 Great Walks. Thirteen of the country's 23 Great Ride cycle trails. A 500km alpine spine in the Southern Alps. If you're the sort of traveller who measures a holiday in summits, singletrack or hut nights, the South Island is hard to beat — and, crucially, it's remarkably easy to organise.

The walking is the headline act. The Department of Conservation (DOC) runs a booking portal for the Great Walks, so a multi-day trek can be locked in online before you've even booked flights. The catch is popularity: the Milford, Routeburn and Abel Tasman Coastal walks sell out fast, so be on the DOC site the moment bookings open each year. Guided options exist on Milford and Routeburn if you'd rather hand over the logistics.

If you want fewer crowds, look beyond the marquee names. The four- to five-day Rees-Dart Circuit and Greenstone-Caples Circuit in Mt Aspiring National Park, or the brutal eight- to 10-day Dusky Track in Fiordland, use smaller backcountry huts with no stoves — bring your own and enjoy the solitude. The magazine's own pick is the three-day Routeburn Track: rainforest, alpine lakes, waterfall-side huts and a superb Key Summit side trip, all in a long weekend. For a softer option, the 73.5km Queen Charlotte Track in the Marlborough Sounds lets you walk or ride lodge-to-lodge with your luggage shipped by boat.

Cyclists are equally spoiled. Queenstown and Wanaka both have bike parks and trail networks in town, including Wanaka's Sticky Forest singletrack and Bike Glendhu. The West Coast's 85km Old Ghost Road — billed as New Zealand's longest singletrack — is a two- to three-day hut-to-hut ride above the tree line, and the 56km Paparoa Track doubles as both Great Walk and Great Ride. For something gentler, the original Otago Central Rail Trail covers roughly 150km of easy gravel between Clyde and Middlemarch over three to five days, while the ambitious Alps 2 Ocean runs 312km from Mt Cook to the coast at Oamaru over six days.

Then there's the climbing. The Southern Alps punch well above their modest altitudes — Mt Cook is 'only' 3724m, but routes often start near sea level, so the vertical gain rivals much taller Himalayan peaks. Summer draws technical climbers from the Northern Hemisphere; winter belongs to ice climbers chasing frozen waterfalls around Queenstown and Wanaka. Outfitters like Adventure Consultants, Aspiring Guides and Alpine Guides run guided ascents and seven-day 'Summit Weeks' based from alpine huts such as Pioneer Hut. Just respect the weather: it can strand climbers for days.

Who is this for? Anyone who'd rather earn their views than watch them from a bus window — from families cruising the Rail Trail to climbers ticking off Mt Aspiring. The infrastructure means you can plan a serious expedition from your sofa, which is exactly what makes the South Island worth prioritising for your next active holiday.