New Zealand Self Drive Tour Reviews

This trip completely exceeded our expectations!! We are grateful to First Light Travel for helping make this "bucket list" trip a reality for us. Kasey Yee was incredibly instrumental in taking the information we provided about where we wanted to go, what types of activities we wanted to do, and the types of lodging that we preferred, and creating an awesome itinerary for us for the entire month of March!  She found lodging accommodations within our budget that were exactly what we asked for! It's hard to believe all of the work First Light Travel agents do for their clients at no cost!! We have already recommended them to family and friends interested in traveling to New Zealand - especially once we came back and shared our stories and pictures!

Thank you again for helping us with this dream vacation!! 

Michael & Dawn Jennings - USA

Our two week trip to New Zealand was a complete joy, and we credit much of that to Chrissy at First Light Travel. She was prompt, honest, and creative in the planning process and made accommodation and activity recommendations that not only fit our interests but also our needs (we traveled with a 4-year old). The pre-travel materials provided by First Light were helpful and their voucher system made the accommodation and activity check-in process a breeze. Thank you, Chrissy, for all you did to make our trip to New Zealand the adventure of a lifetime!

Kelly, Ryan, Sawyer & Mary Habbley - USA

Kia Ora,

I and a group of 5 friends traveled to NZ last March 2017, and Ms. Shelley from First Light Travel helped tailoring our itinerary to best-suit our interest, helped getting us the best experience for our budget.

Multiple email exchange, change of destination, modification of arrangement, she patiently helped us through all. We had an enjoyable 17 days exploring North and South island, one of the best trip ever. Best of success Ms. Shelley and First Light Travel.

Regards

Damar Pracoyo & Friends

Was a trip of a lifetime, all our expectations were met, had a great time, food was awesome and First Light are great people to work with. Along the way we met many great people from all over the world. Milford sound boat was nice. Elm tours was very accommodating, fun people, very thoughtful, and great tour.

As Sam Neill (who is a Kiwi) said in the NZ movie The Hunt for the Wilderpeople....it's fantastical! A very magic place indeed.

Erv and Marianne Kanieski

We travelled in March 2017 to New Zealand and Australia. We contacted First Light Travel only a few weeks before we were going. We were highly recommended to Jo and she did not disappoint us. We had nightly phone calls because of the time difference organizing our trip. Once she understood our budget and requests, she got to work and put together an amazing trip. Every hotel was excellent. Every tour was on time and perfect, and our vegetarian diet requirements were never missed. Jo recommended that we take a bus to Milford Sound and the flight to return only to guarantee that we would get there. She had experience with flights being cancelled and guests not getting to Milford Sound. At about 8 pm the night before we were supposed to leave, we saw that the weather was supposed to be excellent. We called Jo and she was able to get us onto the morning flight rather than the 5 hour bus ride. This professionalism and quick reaction is what makes First Light an amazing travel company. I couldn't begin to mention all of the amazing activities she put together, but the Milford Sound gives a good example. One hotel I would strongly recommend is the Tin Tub Lodge in Wanaka. Book early because there are only a few rooms and it is worth the stay.

A big thank you to Rhodri for all his r help in organising the trip of a lifetime - his arrangements were top notch. The car hires went seamlessly; the accommodation was superb and the trips and activities were brilliant, informative and exciting. Our highlights being the helicopter onto the Franz Josef Glacier, Doubtful Sound cruise(the weather was kind) and the Dart River Jet Boat Safari although picking favourites is probably doing an injustice to the others.

Ian and Lesley Robertson - UK

We just returned from 3 wonderful weeks in New Zealand with our best friends. This was a trip of a lifetime and Amelia worked with us to make sure we could jam as much as we wanted into our time. We snorkeled and scuba dived, dawn hiked the Tongariro Alpine pass, marveled at the glow worms at Black Water Rafting, enjoyed the eye-watering but beautiful thermal wonders of Waitotapu, canoed down from the Bridge to Nowhere. In the South Island, we loved cycling to the wineries of Blenheim, hiked everywhere we could around the Glaciers, had an amazing Horseback trek through forest and over rivers to a sunset ride on the beach. Ended our time in Queenstown with jet boating and jumping off high cliffs with the Canyon Swing. We had several glitches along the way- some caused by the tour operators, some caused by weather and wildfires, but Amelia worked with us to make sure everything stayed on track.

Thanks for all your hard work!

Jan & Scott Kuba, Sharon & John Tolomei - USA

It was a breeze getting my plan secured and making sense of my itinerary. Chrissy did an amazing job in assisting me to put everything together. It's a relief to have someone to help with the bookings when you're really busy. Appreciate that a lot and another thing i would like to highlight is that i do have concerns about liaising with someone just over email, however the replies are really prompt and i never had to go through any anxiety whether or not my booking has been made. NZ is so beautiful and I will definitely be back.

Cheers to the great team at First Light!!! 

Shuhui (Coady) Chuan & Samantha Neo - Singapore

Hi Amelia

Hope this email finds you well. We are back home and I must say this was my favourite holiday ever. You have an amazing country it was like living in a postcard and I couldn't stop taking photos. In addition everything was well organised and we didn't have any issues, thanks again. I am already recommending you to my friends.

Tiziana Bugeja - Malta Europe

Hi Amelia,

It is Nancy Patterson - Colleen Clower's sister. We just arrived home from the most incredible trip - thank you so much!!! I LOVE New Zealand. I have never met such nice people and seen such a beautiful place. It was the most exciting trip of my life - once in a lifetime event. Thank you for everything you did to make this trip so special.

I definitely want to go back to New Zealand - there was so much we didn't get to see because we just didn't have the time. Would still like to buy you lunch or dinner if we come back.

Nancy Patterson - USA