Wellington packs its best into a walkable 2 km, and most of it is free: the botanic garden, koha-entry museums, the town belt lookouts and a fur seal colony on the south coast. Add $10 night-market plates and a $2.65 bus fare and three days cost less than one Auckland night.
25 hectares of native bush, a rose garden holding 3,000 bushes and the Carter Observatory grounds, open dawn to dusk every day with no gate fee. Walk up through Bolton Street Memorial Park to skip the paid cable car.
Housed in the 1892 Bond Store on Queens Wharf, four floors cover the 1968 Wahine ferry disaster, Māori legend in The Attic and 150 years of harbour trade. Entry is free with a donation box; open 10am–5pm daily.
Contemporary art inside the 1940 former public library on Te Ngākau Civic Square, with four spaces rotating New Zealand and international shows every few months. General admission is free, open 10am–5pm Tuesday to Sunday.
Golden sand barged up from Golden Bay lines this sheltered city beach, a 15-minute walk from Te Papa. Swim off the Freyberg pontoon, watch the Norfolk pines light up along the parade and spend nothing at all.
Wellington's biggest produce market runs Sundays 7.30am–1pm beside Waitangi Park, with growers selling $2–5 seconds bags alongside hot dumpling, paella and crepe stalls that rarely break $12 a plate.
A no-frills Malaysian counter on Dixon Street where roti canai, nasi lemak and char kway teow land around $16–19. Order at the till, grab a stool at the shared tables and expect a queue out the door at lunchtime.
The Tory Street roastery pours flat whites from about $5.50 in a corrugated shed full of Cuban memorabilia and working roasting drums, with free counter tastings and the cheapest fresh beans in the city.
Friday and Saturday evenings from 5pm around 30 stalls fill the lower mall with Malaysian, Turkish, Indian and Filipino plates in the $8–14 band, eaten standing up beside the Bucket Fountain.
A 196 m summit reached in roughly 40 minutes on foot from Majoribanks Street through town belt pines, ending at a 360° platform over the harbour, Miramar and the Remutaka Range. No gate, no ticket, open always.
Free one-hour guided tours leave the Visitor Centre hourly from 10am, covering the Beehive, the 1922 Parliament House debating chamber and the rubber base isolators installed under the whole complex.
From the Owhiro Bay quarry gate a flat 4 km gravel track runs west to rust-red pillow lava roughly 200 million years old and, between May and October, a haul-out colony of male New Zealand fur seals.
A WWII coastal battery at 350 m above Karori, with gun pits, magazines and a clear-day view across Cook Strait to the South Island. Summit road and lookout are open free daily; the tunnels open a few days a year.