Securing a Great Walk booking in New Zealand (particularly the Milford Track) is notoriously difficult. We’re talking sells-out-within-minutes difficult. Every season thousands of people log onto the Department of Conservation (DOC) website when bookings open, but many end up disappointed.
BUT there’s good news. If you missed out initially, your trip isn’t a write-off.
Great Walk bookings regularly reappear when people cancel, but the tricky part is catching them before someone else does. Trouble is – most of us can’t spend our lives refreshing the DOC reservation website every few minutes.
That’s where Schnerp comes in.
Disclosure: This is a sponsored post, but the following are my genuine thoughts and opinions after trialing Schnerp. This post contains affiliate links.
What is Schnerp?
Schnerp is a website that monitors the DOC booking system for you.
Instead of manually refreshing and refreshing hut availability, you:
- Register the huts or campsites you want
- Select your preferred date(s)
- Wait for Schnerp to notify you when a cancellation occurs. Then you can “schnerp” the Great Walk booking up!
In short, Schnerp does the refreshing so you don’t have to.
Testing Schnerp: getting a Milford Track booking cancellation
I was skeptical at first, so I tested it myself.
I checked the Milford Track one evening on the DOC website – fully booked until the end of the season in April. Zero availability.
Less than 12 hours later, I woke to alerts from Schnerp with openings for the Milford Track in March! One spot was for two people, and the other one a few days later was for one person. Within 60 minutes both Milford Track bookings had been snapped up.
This demonstrates two things:
- Cancellations happen
- They don’t last long!
Testing Schnerp: getting other Great Walk booking cancellations
I tried the same approach with the Routeburn Track.
Within 20 minutes, there were multiple options to choose from (and I could pick which direction I wanted to walk, and which campsites/huts I wanted to stay in).
While the Routeburn isn’t as competitive as the Milford, it reinforces the same lesson:
- Cancellations are common.
- You just need to know when they appear.
So how can you schnerp up a Great Walk booking cancellation for yourself?
Easy, and it’s free to try!
Try Schnerp!
Head on over to the Schnerp website, register for a free trial and choose which huts/campsites you want to monitor! Then sit back and wait for Schnerp to let you know when there’s an opening you can reserve.
If you find it helpful, you can upgrade to a monthly subscription to receive more notifications or register more requests. You can cancel once you’ve booked your dream trip!
I’ve also got a discount code if you choose to subscribe – use ALICE for 10% off.
Final Thoughts
Booking a Great Walk can feel like lining up for a race you’ve already lost.
But cancellations do happen every single week.
If you’re flexible, patient, and act quickly, there’s still a real chance to secure your spot, even for popular tracks like the Milford Track.
Have you managed to snag a Great Walk cancellation before?
Let me know how you go and what bookings you schnerp up.
Wow, this is a super cool (and useful) resource. I would love to see the DoC website allow for searching multiple tracks over a particular date range – such as you have a adventure window, but are not that fussed where you go and want to see options.
Yes that would be a very useful improvement!