How to take the Iconic Mount Cook Road photo (with location)

Your road trip through New Zealand is not complete without a series of fantastic photos of Mount Cook. On social media, you will regularly see photos back of people standing on the road with Mount Cook in the background. But where can you take this photo safely? I will tell you in this blog!

Big disclaimer: taking a photo on a 100 km/h road is never safe. Be very careful what you do when you take this photo or take your photo from the roadside.

Where Do You Take the Iconic Mount Cook Photo?

There are many spots along the route to Mount Cook where you can stop. But when do you have the perfect shot? There is a point where the highway goes uphill, curves slightly, and where Mount Cook (in good weather) is excellently visible. This is about 10 km from the end point of State Highway 80, better known as Mount Cook Road.

Enter the coordinates -43.82629144681503, 170.10845417978416 in Google Maps, or navigate there via this link. Here you will find along the road a very small parking spot (if you can even call it that) to park your car safely.

From this point, you can see far in both directions: you can see the traffic coming from both sides well if you are with two people: one takes the photo, the other poses.

Below you can clearly see the distance to Mount Cook when you zoom out.

You Have to Play with Your Camera for the Perfect Photo

Do you just take a photo with your camera? Then you will notice that Mount Cook is very small on your photo. For this, you have to use the “supersized” background trick. This effect gives the illusion that the background is closer:

The 3x Zoom Trick

1. Open your iPhone Camera app.
2. Pose for the photo
3. Zoom in to 3x while walking backwards.
4. Take the photo. Your background will look much larger and closer!

You can see a good example in this YouTube video.

The Photo Without the Zoom Trick

This is what happens if you do not apply the supersized effect at Mount Cook Road

The Photo With the Zoom Trick

As you can see, much cooler! And well… it remains a bit of fake it till you make it.

Are There Also Alternative Spots?

Yes, there are. But in my opinion, they are less beautiful. From the point I describe above, Mount Cook is actually very well visible. The closer you get, the more you will notice that a mountain to the right of Mount Cook hangs a bit in your view. You will see more and more indentations where you can park your car. I did not write down coordinates of them during my round trip, but I did see various people further along taking photos.

Of course, you can also take fantastic photos at Mount Cook itself!

Good luck with taking your iconic Mount Cook Road photo! And once again: please pay attention to your safety.