A trip to New Zealand and Australia was our retirement celebration trip. Our number one priority was to hike the Milford Track so we went ahead and booked that a year ahead of time.
Outside of the hike we weren’t sure where we should go, so we started looking for help, and we were very lucky to find Dianne and Go Walkabout Travel.
The process started by meeting with Dianne to discuss the planning process, budgets, our travel requirements, and interests. From there Dianne prepared a very detailed preliminary itinerary for us to review and tweak until we had exactly what we wanted.
We spent 4 weeks in New Zealand, including the Milford Track time, and 2 weeks in Australia and it was the smoothest trip we have ever taken. Just before we left, we received a very detailed itinerary that included: contact names and numbers of local support staff, contact info for every tour and accommodations, descriptions of each location, car rental details, vouchers, and driving information. All we had to do each day was look at the agenda and go have fun.
We did a self-driving tour around New Zealand, and the driving was planned out very well. We were supplied with background info on driving in New Zealand and each day’s drive was planned so there wasn’t too much road time without a break and the trips were incredibly scenic.
The accommodations were all top notch and arranged so that we had access to laundry facilities, very important on a 6-week trip. Dianne also supported us with logistics issues such as: visas, sim cards for our phones, and very fast support for any questions we had in our travels.
Basically, all we did was book our flights to and from the US, make dinner reservations and follow our itinerary and had the trip of a lifetime.
We have done a lot of international travel and I don’t think we have ever worked with a better travel agency. If you are considering travel to New Zealand and Australia we highly recommend that you contact Go WalkAbout Travel to discuss your plans.
For more info on hiking the Milford Track, read our tramping and hiking guide.
Our trip to New Zealand started as a credit with Air New Zealand from a European trip cancelled by the pandemic in 2020. Since the travel restrictions were lifted and the credit was expiring soon, we decided to change destinations and head to NZ instead! We quickly realized that we were in over our heads trying to plan our trip. With a little research, we found Go Walkabout, and instantly felt that we had made the right choice. Dianne was such a pleasure to work with from start to finish, and almost all of the stress of planning our trip melted away.
She was very proactive in determining what we wanted out of the journey and what our preferences were. From there, she really delivered on crafting the itinerary! I can only imagine some of the logistical strategizing that must have taken place securing lodging and activities after a 2-year national lock down, as we sometimes were able to get the last room or ticket available!
Our 16-day visit to both islands was the bare minimum amount of time I would recommend to anyone wanting to explore New Zealand. Dianne deftly made it all work somehow, though! We never felt rushed or crammed with too many (or two few) activities, and the whole trip had a wonderful flow to it. We also felt her choice of accommodations were perfectly inline with what we were looking for. We wish we could have stayed longer and done even more. There’s always next time, and we would love to work with Dianne and her support team again someday (special thanks to Nienke as well)!
Solo Female Trip to New Zealand
Dianne was an absolute pleasure to work with. From the beginning she was engaging and made me feel like scheduling the best trip was just as important to her as it was to me! She asked a ton of questions and planned a trip that hit all my goals. Don’t miss the tree walking in Rotorua! She meshed personal time with group excursions fantastically and found hotels that were perfectly located for a single female traveler. Definitely will use Dianne again and again!
Thank you!!
Rebecca J. McDade – Chicago, Illinois, USA
Ready to plan a custom New Zealand trip for a solo female traveler? Browse our Australia itineraries for single female travelers and New Zealand tours for solo female travelers, or let us design a bespoke journey just for you.
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
Ready to create your own adventure? Browse our Australia itineraries and New Zealand tours or let us design a customised trip just for you.
Shelby & Michael’s Custom New Zealand Honeymoon from Pennsylvania
We scoured the internet in search of the right Travel Agent to plan our Honeymoon and 30th Birthday trip to New Zealand and we are so lucky to have found Dianne! She listened to what we wanted out of the trip and was able to curate the best itinerary for us. From her excellent choice in accommodations to her selection of tours/attractions – this was surely a trip of a lifetime! We know that when we decide to travel to Australia, Dianne will be the first to know, so that we can have the pleasure of working with her again!
Go Walkabout Travel helped plan my wife and our 30 year anniversary trip. Dianne and her team helped arrange an amazing trip with accomodations, transportation and site seeing for a short 2 ½ weeks trip to Australia. Snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef out of Port Douglas, visiting Wildlife Habitat and touring with local natives was amazing. She help find incredible accommodation in Port Douglas, Melbourne and Sydney. The apartment style residence in Sydney and Melbourne were centrally located, luxurious and very comfortable throughout our stay. Having private transportation from airport to residence was perfect, as it relieved stress of being in new city with lack of familiarity and the drivers often gave us “local” tips on were to eat, and what to do. Overall, we had a fantastic trip, and Dianne Hall helped make memories that will last our lifetime. We look forward to booking another South Pacific trip in the future with her! Thank you!
Dianne did a great job of matching our interests to our itinerary and adding experiences that we would not have done on our own. Everything was well planned and organized. We only had to show up and enjoy.
Hi Dianne, I wanted to take a moment to say thank you for all your hard work on our trip. We had a great time and enjoyed all our experiences, but we all agree that Milford Sound was our favorite…although Grey will say he would fly back just to do the Queenstown luge again. The places near us don’t allow everyone to go down at once, and Grey loved having the constant racing feeling 🙂
DIANNE HALL & GO WALKABOUT TRAVEL
I found Go Walkabout Travel online after a less than satisfactory experience with another company and I am very happy l did.
Dianne is wonderful! Our experience – from our initial phone conversation, through the planning stages, to building our final itinerary and our actual journey went seamlessly. Dianne provides great advice & tips about travelling “down under” and her attention to detail is impeccable. You feel very well prepared for your trip and have great confidence everything has been taken care of. I greatly appreciated having local contact numbers in both Australia & New Zealand in case we had any issues. Dianne even contacted us while we were in Sydney to let us know there was a special laser show going on to celebrate the Sydney Opera House’s 50th anniversary which we had no idea about.
Dianne worked within our budget & timeline and tailored our itinerary to cover our interests. We had a blast on our trip. There are no words for the beauty of the landscape in Australia & New Zealand. Highlights were up-close encounters with a wild wombat and wild kiwis, the Coogee to Bondi walk, Wattamolla Beach & Falls, the Wanaka to Franz Josef drive, Rotorua Redwoods Night Treewalk, kayaking in Abel Tasman National Park, the Great Barrier Reef– the list is endless. This was a trip of a lifetime for us, but if we ever manage to travel that way again, Dianne would be the first person I would contact.
A huge thank you to Dianne and her team! Our trip was an experience that my daughter and I will never forget.
We had a fantastic trip. Everything was perfectly organized. All pick up and drop offs were on time. All car rentals were seamless. Hotels were fantastic. Adventures and excursions were very well organized, and we had a once-in-a-lifetime experience. In a word, Dianne and her team were exceptional. Prepared. Responsive and always available. Even when nasty weather conspired to derail us Dianne and her team were in communication with us and made changes on the fly.
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