When his father obtained a position at the Colonial Treasury, the family moved from its farmstead at Grasslees Farm to Wellington, where Best, aged 9, went to school.

Based in the Taranaki at a time of increased tensions between the Māori and the colonial settlers in the area, he became involved in the arrests of protesters.

He also came into increasing contact with the Māori and, encouraged by Gudgeon and other notable settlers from the Taranaki, including Percy Smith, studied their language and culture.

[2] In 1895, when the Urewera district began to be opened up for European settlement, Best took a position as quarter-master with the road works, beginning in Te Whaiti.

[3] Best's devotion to his study, together with his facility in Māori, allowed him to win the confidence of the Tūhoe, whose traditions he published in a series of articles in the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute and the Journal of the Polynesian Society.

In 1897, he published the monograph Waikaremoana, the Sea of Rippling Waters, With a Tramp through Tuhoe Land, in which he presented the lore of the district.