Puhoi, 50 km north of Auckland, means "slow water" in Māori — a nod to the unhurried Puhoi River running past it. European settlement began in 1863 with German-speaking migrants from Bohemia, led by Captain Martin Krippner. The mostly Catholic settlers built a church dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul that still stands, and the village keeps its 19th-century charm today in buildings like the Puhoi Hotel and the old Catholic school, now the town library.

Warkworth, known to Māori as Puhinui, sits 64 km north of Auckland on the Mahurangi River, a spot Māori tribes used for centuries as a crossroads for overland and waka traffic. European settlement began in 1843 with a timber mill, and the town was named in 1853 after its English namesake, whose river reminded the settlers of home. It grew into a timber and shipbuilding hub, later added a cement works, and even hosted over 40 American army camps during World War II. Its streets, named after villages in Northumberland, still carry that English inheritance — as does the Warkworth Radio Astronomical Observatory, established in 1971.

Whangārei is the northernmost city in New Zealand and the largest settlement in Northland. Its harbour was long a landing point for migratory waka and a trading hub connecting Māori across the region, and European settlement in the mid-19th century grew around the kauri gum trade and, later, coal and limestone. It became a city in 1964 and now serves as Northland's main service centre. Its most striking recent addition is the Hundertwasser Art Centre, a vividly unconventional building inspired by the Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who spent his later years living nearby.

Paihia, the main tourist town in the Bay of Islands, began in 1823 as a mission station founded by Henry Williams, and went on to host New Zealand's first church, its first printing press, and — famously watched by Charles Darwin in 1835 — the country's first recorded cricket match. The mission closed in 1850 and the town declined for decades before reviving as a holiday destination in the 1930s. Today it sits right next to Waitangi, which gives it more historical weight than its beaches alone would suggest.

Waitangi is where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed on 6 February 1840, on the grounds of British Resident James Busby's house, marking the start of British governance in New Zealand. Many Māori chiefs initially opposed it, though influential figures like Tāmati Wāka Nene eventually supported it; not every chief signed. The grounds have been open to the public since 1934 and today include the restored Treaty House, the carved meeting house Te Whare Rūnanga, and two museums covering the treaty's history and its ongoing significance. The name itself means "noisy waters," likely a reference to the nearby Haruru Falls.

Kerikeri calls itself the "Cradle of the Nation," home to New Zealand's first permanent mission station and some of the country's oldest surviving buildings. It was also the first place in New Zealand where grapevines and citrus were planted, and its subtropical climate still supports a strong horticulture industry today. Its local slogan — "It's So Nice They Named It Twice" — undersells the history a bit, but does capture the general mood.

Mangōnui grew up in the early 19th century as a service port for whalers, and later expanded into a trading hub for kauri sawmills and farming, briefly the main centre for the entire Far North. It faded once Kaitaia took over that role in the early 20th century, but stayed alive as a fishing and farming town — and, these days, mostly as the place with the fish and chip shop everyone stops at.

Kauri gum is the fossilised resin of the kauri tree, called kapia by Māori and used long before Europeans arrived — as chewing gum, fire-starter, tattoo pigment, and material for jewellery. From the 1840s it became a major export, prized for varnish; by the 1890s, 70% of England's oil varnish relied on it, and it was Auckland's biggest export commodity, peaking at over 11,000 tonnes in 1899.

As surface gum ran out, digging took over — often in swamps and hillsides across Northland, Coromandel, and Auckland. By the 1890s an estimated 20,000 people worked the gumfields, Māori, European settlers, and a large Dalmatian community among them, in poorly paid but steady work regulated from 1898 by the Kauri Gum Industry Act. The trade collapsed with synthetic alternatives in the 1930s, but the diggers' legacy — and the odd museum full of polished gum nuggets — is still part of Northland's identity today.