Australia and New Zealand Senior Trip
Our Australia and New Zealand senior trip — which would mark our seventh continent — had been in the works since before COVID locked things down. Like many others, although we are experienced travellers, we were uncertain how to address the complexity of such an adventure — particularly with the scale of Australia.
We are also seniors, who preferred not to travel as part of a large group, and then we had a milestone birthday coming up to celebrate.
Fortunately, we found Dianne and her company, Go Walkabout Travel, during an internet search and that changed everything! The result, following her well designed process with her careful planning and truly expert advice in determining our itinerary, was a 39-day trip we shall never forget. Her attention to detail and the quality of her stable of suppliers/contacts made it simply incredible for each of us in every respect. Each day provided new and unique experiences for us as our trip unfolded.
The App she used to capture and share our full itinerary for our use each day and her use of WhatsApp to remain in contact along with local travel agent support in both countries gave us complete reassurance each step of the way as did having eSIM cards to use local phone numbers from our iPhone.
We experienced no issues of any kind throughout the trip but always knew that Dianne was watching our progress carefully.
The number of our trip highlights is simply amazing. Dianne customized everything to our particular interests, even including the selection of hotels and, periodically, apartments with laundry facilities.
The result is a trip diary for me that is 120 pages in length with hundreds of photographs.
We chose not to self drive to ensure that we both could fully experience the unique beauty of all that we saw along the way. This meant Dianne booking 11 internal flights for us, which were used without issue including all of the related transfers. Our drivers were always waiting for us. Interestingly, all our internal Air New Zealand flights were turboprops, which require no security inspections — you simply presented your boarding pass at the gate!
As one of the many trip highlights for two now 80 year olds, we decided at the last minute to paraglide from the top of the gondola over Queenstown on a perfect sunny morning. Dianne immediately adjusted our departure time for Melbourne that day, without being asked, to give us a little more time to do so!
I cannot imagine a better person or company to advise on travel to this magnificent region of our world! She is now a true friend.
Ken & Carolyn W – Toronto, Canada
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