Finally scrambling out of the bush of New Zealand’s South Island, I paused, surveying the alpine valley in the foreground. Then I saw it. Nestled against a slab of moss-covered schist stood a modest structure, no larger than my 8 feet by 12 feet college dorm room. With excitement and relief, I clambered toward Cameron Hut.

As a 10-year-old, entranced by the cinematic landscapes of Peter Jackson’s “The Fellowship of the Ring ,” I wouldn’t have guessed that backcountry huts would become a focal point of my travels in New Zealand. Sixteen years later, I had come for the forests of Lothlorien, the peaks of the Misty Mountains, the hills of the Shire. But it was in the huts that I immersed myself in the culture of those landscapes and spent time with the people who know and value them most. New Zealand’s wild spaces deserve their fantastical reputation, but it is the country’s commitment to this vast network of public huts that fosters something unique: a community of strangers even in the most remote backcountry.

Approaching Cameron Hut, I wondered what I would find inside. No two huts are the same. Some are blaze orange, others beige. Some are over a century old, others less than a decade. Even if they look similar from the outside, each hut has its own quirks, stories and memories. They are a product of their environment, the people who use them, and their moment in history, all of which define a hut’s character.