New Zealand Self Drive Tour Reviews

First light travel (Taylor) organized our 8-day trip to the South Island of New Zealand, and she did a great job of organizing our itinerary, accommodations, and activities to make our trip comfortable and enjoyable. Next time I want to travel to the North Island of New Zealand, I will definitely book with them again.

Driver (Terry) is very professional and familiar with the tour route. Attentive to details. As he is familiar with the route, he knows where has good food and coffee places. As our helicopter ride was postponed (weather condition - Franz Josef), and we do not have next plan. Terry is quick in planning where to go next and also taking consideration of my mum walking speed. He followed us throughout the walks / hiking make sure we don't lost our way too. Very lucky, we able to take the Helicopter the next day! The original plan was delay a little bit but we manage to complete all the places that was plan in the itinerary. Thank you First Light Travel and also our driver Terry Looyer. After so much fun in South of New Zealand (Christchurch, Franz Josef, Queenstown), I love New Zealand! I will be back again to visit Auckland and Rotorua and will also definitely get First Light Travel to plan my trip again!

We absolutely loved Hobbiton, the redwood tree walk, and the Glacier Explorers Tasman boat trip. Also really enjoyed the bike trip in Queenstown and loved Onsen Hot pools. The Milford full day trip in a small coach + boat trip was the way to go vs. self driving. The 2 kayak trips - Okarito and Abel Tasman were definitely highlights!! All the wine tours were also really wonderful. All of the Sydney stuff was also great. Zoo + Biking + Opera House. - awesome.

Our experience with you - guiding us through the planning process was amazing. I had lived there and travelled pretty extensively years ago. As I began this on my own - I quickly became overwhelmed. You listened, made great recommendations, shifted things around to suit our needs and thankfully booked everything for us. You really made the experience stress free. We are grateful! I would definitely work with you all again and we have already recommended you to friends considering trips to NZ!

Taylor booked for us a self drive from Christchurch, to Mount Cook, Queenstown, Milford Sound, Wanaka, Franz Josef Glacier ending with a TranzAlpine Train ride back to Christchurch.

She was very responsive and took notes of our requirements and needs, making sure the holiday was slow and well paced as we requested. We didn’t want to see everything but instead, savour the memories together. Throughout the booking process, she listened patiently and went through multiple iterations of the itinerary until we crafted what we were looking for.

The lodges were well chosen, a mix of luxury hotels and well curated lodges with friendly and knowledgeable local hosts. The experiences were bespoke and we especially enjoyed the horse riding experience in Glenorchy which allowed us to the experience the great New Zealand Outdoor off the beaten path with our enthusiastic guide.

When things didn’t go as planned due to weather issues, she was quick to response in country and help us resolve and find alternatives.

Looking forward to our next holiday with First Light Travel and Taylor.

First Light Travel and Gina, my Travel Adviser, in particular were amazing! From helping with suggestions initially, to detailed planning - flights, transfers, car hire, fantastic hotels, amazing attractions and expected travel timings, throughout, they had our back. My wife and I fell in love with this amazing country, it's people and culture and this was made possible with Gina's itinerary. Can't wait to come back.

My husband and I planned to take a one month driving holiday in New Zealand as we had done in 2019 in Australia and luckily my earliest internet search found First Light Travel’s site. I had done all the investigation, planning and booking on the internet myself for our Australia vacation. It was incredibly time consuming and resulted in a trip which was not nearly as educational, nor exciting as the New Zealand trip First Light Travel created for us.

We spent some time on the phone with Anna Caudle to find out what was available and to give her an idea of what we were looking for. Within a few days she provided us with a fully outlined and costed trip plan. The plan was significantly more detailed and vastly superior to the one I had developed for Australia.

Over the next short while we spoke with Anna on the phone a couple more times which enabled her to really personalize it to our dream trip and we decided Version 3 was the one.

When we arrived in Auckland she had a driver waiting at the airport to pick us up and from that point on every day was enjoyable and we never had to feel uneasy about where we should be or how to get there. With the number of activities planned it was inevitable that a couple ended up being cancelled and whenever there was an issue First Light answered the phone and resolved it quickly. At the end of the trip they refunded the cost of the couple of cancelled activities.

One of the earliest activities was a visit to the Kauri museum and neither of us had any knowledge about Kauri but we spent a fascinating few hours learning about this amazing period of New Zealand history. The rest of the trip provided many more educational opportunities and we enjoyed every moment of every day. Anna’s experience curating the trip showed over and over again. An example was when we did a half day bike ride from Arrowtown to the Gibbston Wine Valley along the river valley and over the historic Kawarau Bungy Bridge (the place where bungy jumping was invented). The path we rode about 20 Km on had many hills and would not have been enjoyable but for Anna arranging for our bikes to be electrically assisted. A very nice surprise!

In summary, unlike our Australia trip we did not have to spend countless hours doing research and booking accommodations and activities and transportation. First Light’s trip was far more interesting and enjoyable than what we would have booked. We had the comfort of having First Light available to assist us if we experienced any issues. I am convinced that we would not have saved money if we had booked it ourselves on the internet. I believe that First Light’s professional relationships in the travel industry provide them with lower prices than a consumer can obtain on their own. As well, we found that the service providers gave us “frequent flyer” style service. When we checked in we always stated that we were there as First Light had booked it and they always appeared to treat us in a way that would be positively conveyed by us to First Light. We rate our First Light trip to be 11 on a scale of 1 to 10!

Gina and the team at First Light Travel took care of all the details for our 30 day self drive vacation and made our "retirement trip" a pure joy. She took our wish list of activities, locations, and budget and devised an itinerary to meet those requirements. The accommodations were a mix of unique, charming, and spectacular- most of them I would never have found on my own internet search. The daily itinerary we received was detailed and thorough - right down to expected drive times, hotel check-in times, things to do in that area, and contact numbers for every activity we had planned. 30 days and we STILL were not ready to leave this amazing country! We can't recommend First Light Travel enough.

First Light did a wonderful job with all activities, accommodations and scheduling. They made a big job a very simple thing. Easiest and best trip ever.

First Light Travel provided us with a wonderful brush stroke of New Zealand! We toured both Islands with a private driver, experiencing fine wine, food, and the beauty of the country! We will be back!

28 Days in New Zealand – the trip of a lifetime, thanks to First Light Travel

We just returned from 28 unforgettable days in New Zealand, organized by Gina O’Neill at First Light Travel.  FIVE STARS!  We could not recommend Gina and First Light Travel more highly.

Gina organized a top to bottom adventure- and activity- packed trip which met our budget, responded to our desires (and “non-desires”), and exceeded our expectations, including both North and South Islands.  Every day we did something “cool” – there were no wasted travel days or waiting-around days – Gina organized the logistics so that we never had to drive more than 3 hours in a day and could always do something fun every day.  Reservations worked flawlessly – every hotel and every activity had our reservation handy, and off we went. 

I would also say, without looking an itemized budget for every hotel and activity, that we felt we got very fair value for our money.  In many instances, we stayed in hotels we would have been too cheap to book ourselves (!), so we were frequently surprised by the quality and comfort of our accommodations.  In addition, all of the “activity providers” (be they rafting, boating, kayaking, hiking, ballooning, etc.) were excellent: professional, super friendly, safe, funny, engaging, simply first rate.  We never could have found these folks by ourselves, nor felt secure in advance that we had found the right people even if we had.  In short, Gina made great recommendations and choices for us.

Finally, this is the first time we have ever worked with a travel agent.  I am typically skeptical and usually arrange all our own hotels, cars, activities, etc.  But I can say that we are unequivocally HAPPY that we engaged Gina at First Light Travel to do this work on our behalf, so that our only responsibilities were to have a BLAST in New Zealand.  Thank you.  
Sam and Linda.