New Zealand Self Drive Tour Reviews

Michelle Srzich, your knowledge of your country as a holiday destinations was "brilliant". We chose First Light Travel with a sceptical mind whether we will be in trouble or not ?, but our May 2018 family vacations went on just beautiful as exactly like the itinerary made by Michelle. Your patience in replying to my silliest doubts were highly appreciated. I recommend First Light for New Zealand vacations to anyone.

Praveen & Sudha Menon & Meera Praveen - India

Shelley Kirk, our consultant from First Light Travel did an amazing job organizing our 6.5 week trip to New Zealand. We found First Light Travel on the internet and were extremely happy about the product they prepared for us. Shelley solicited lots of information from us and then organized a brilliant trip. We saw more of New Zealand than many Kiwi and had many wonderful experiences. Each day was a new adventure. Everything went off like clockwork and we met other travelers who had experienced lots of hitches. Shelley found us great accommodation, consistently, and there was good variety. When a scheduled outing was cancelled by the provider, Shelley was on top of it and quickly arranged a similar outing in a different city. When we ourselves had to cancel an outing, again Shelley was responsive and took care of it. One of our accommodation hosts commented to us that she liked working with Shelley because of her high level of organization, sending a reminder email the day before a guest was arriving. With the detail provided by First Light Travel, our Lonely Planet guide to New Zealand was superfluous,not needed and of zero help. Thanks so much to Shelley and First Light Travel for organizing a trip of a lifetime, which was a celebration of 50 years of marriage.

Walter and Janice Hambley - Canada
 

First Light Travel, and our agent Chrissy Sun, helped us plan the trip of a lifetime to New Zealand. We are a mother (age 64) and daughter (age 35) who executed a self-guided vacation involving many transportation modes (boats, planes, helicopter, bus, and car rental), excursions (bush walk, glacier, cave, and sounds), and places (Auckland, Wellington, Picton, Queen Charlotte Track, Punakaiki, Franz Josef, Queenstown, Lake Tekapo, and Christchurch). The trip was beautifully organized and easy for us to execute on our own due to the thoughtful attention to detail provided by First Light Travel. All of our accommodations were first rate – comfortable, centrally located to our activities, and with great views. The vendors handling our excursions were very professional and gave us unique experiences as we explored New Zealand. The cost of our trip was very reasonable, giving us great value for our money. The professional advice and expertise offered by First Light Travel was invaluable – they listened to our desires and developed a customized vacation plan to meet our requirements. And they gave us the confidence to execute the trip on our own because we knew they would be there to help us out if a problem arose (luckily, none did). I highly recommend First Light Travel for planning your dream vacation to New Zealand!

Elisabeth (Lisa) & Anne  - USA

Jo Taylor was right on the money with all the activities she had set for my NZ holiday experience, having my own mode of transportation was a good decision, being a loner and used to doing my own thing, was amazing to have my own mode of transportation.

I would highly recommend First Light Travel. From the outset, Jo Taylor was extremely helpful and attentive and I knew we'd be in safe hands. We had a very short time to pull an itinerary together for our 11 day tour of the South Island but Jo listened carefully to our needs and pulled together the most amazing trip we have ever had. We wanted to experience the spectacular scenery of New Zealand whilst also enjoying comfortable 4*+ accommodation and we were not disappointed. Everyday, we thought it couldn't get any better but the south island just kept exceeding our expectations. Milford Sound, The Milford Track and the Rob Roy Glacier Trek were all absolutely stunning and after a long day hiking, we'd always return to wonderful, comfortable, cozy accommodation with great people and great service. Thank you First Light Travel and Jo for a vacation we will never forget!

Sheryl & Troy Muniz Singapore

Shelly:

Thank you again for a wonderful trip.

I am pleased to provide a review of First Light Travel and their knowledgeable travel agent, Shelly Kirk. My wife and are experienced travelers and our expectations are extremely high. First Light Travel is a boutique travel agency that designs individualized itineraries for discerning travelers. After identification of our travel likes and dislikes a nearly thirty day New Zealand adventure/itinerary was specially prepared by Shelly Kirk (a New Zealand resident). When the travel packet arrived we were impressed with the abundant information as well as the detailed day-to-day specifics. Driving distances, recommended restaurants and special information for each day were detailed and easy to understand. Ms. Kirk designed a wonderful once-in-a-lifetime New Zealand trip as the accommodations, visual sights and specialized side trips were perfectly planned. Because of Shelly Kirk’s attention to detail we saw and experienced the best that New Zealand has to offer. Amazingly we did not experience a single negative experience during our trip. With highest accolades am pleased to recommend First Light Travel and their agent Shelly Kirk to future KIWI travelers. The personal touch and attention to detail is evident as during our trip Shelly Kirk arranged to meet us for lunch to insure our needs were being met. That personal encounter reveals the specialized treatment that one encounters with First Light Travel and Shelly Kirk. Please email me at [email protected] if you would like additional information.

Again, thank you for a wonderful trip.

Your New Friend.

Allen and Geraldine Varner - USA

Hi Jo!

It is Richard Tan. I would just like to thank you for organising such a wonderful and enjoyable trip. We really enjoyed ourselves very much. Both Heather whom we had as a guide in Wellington and Godfrey , who drove us to Martinborough and our guide there too were Super. They were simply fabulous. They were the best we had throughout our trip. Godfrey took care of us as though we were his family. Very professional.

Once again thanks a lot for showing us the best of your beautiful country, those places we had been to.

Have a great weekend.

Best regards

Richard Tan - Singapore

We traveled to the South Island of New Zealand with another couple and planned to stay 3 weeks to have a good look around. I started Googling what to see in NZ and came across First Light Travel, we didn’t look back. Kasey Yee was very professional and informative and came back promptly with an itinerary. We tweaked it a little until we were happy that our trip would be exceptional. Accommodation was very clean, centrally located and a great variation, from high quality hotels to a magnificent farm stay. Activities were very well thought through and even though we didn’t do anything extreme it suited ours needs. I thoroughly recommend First Light Travel …Kasey in particular, she took away all the stress of booking everything ourselves.

Kym Schwark & Helen Preston - Australia

We had a wonderful 10th anniversary trip to NZ South Island organised by First Light Travel :). Christine Goodger was a wonderful agent and arranged things such that the itinerary planned went very smoothly. She was able to adapt the plan when I unfortunately injured my knee and suggested good alternative activities to original ones we planned. We had no Issues transiting from the Transalpine railway to rental car. And the daily activities were not too tiring. The accommodation planned was also superb with friendly hosts and good locations.

I really thank Christine and the team for organising such a memorable trip.

Geoffrey Samuel & Michelle Tan - Singapore

We would definitely recommend First Light Travel. We booked our trip to New Zealand with First Light. Shelley was great to work with through the whole process. Very responsive, even when we cancelled one of our accommodations at the last minute she helped us get our money back. We had a general idea of where we wanted to go for our two week trip, but Shelley gave us great advice on places to go, things to see and do, and more than anything, found us excellent accommodations.

Mark and Christy Granger - USA