Tour Companies for Australia/New Zealand

How much time do you have, what is your age bracket, travel style, land tour (which will include flights) or cruise?

A quick Google search brings up lots of options such as G Adventures (for the younger set), Road Scholar (for the 50+ group), Gate 1 (budget minded), Tauck, Trafalgar (both more high-end), Smithsonian, and more. I imagine Odysseys Unlimited and O.A.T (Overseas Adventure Travel) are there too.

As far as time, I would say 3 weeks is a minimum. Note that with tours, you lose 3 days of the stated length just in travel there and back.

You will see 14-day tours,like the Gate 1 offering: 3 nights Sydney, 2 nights Melbourne, 3 nights Queensland (NZ South Island Adventure Central, 2 nights at Bay of Islands (North Island) and 1 in Auckland. The rest of the time is travel. I think it would be a shame to travel so far for so little time on the ground.

Here is an example of a nice 3-week itinerary from Smithsonian:

https://www.smithsonianjourneys.org/tours/australia-new-zealand/itinerary/

And here is what you can see on a 31-day tour with Road Scholar:

https://www.roadscholar.org/find-an-adventure/16434/An-Odyssey-Down-Under-Australia-and-New-Zealand/

Basically, they have a week on the North Island, a week on the South Is. then fly to Australia to see Sydney, Melbourne, Uluru, and Cairns (more flying involved there).

My husband and I are generally independent travelers, and we planned and executed our own itinerary for our southern hemisphere visit, with a week in Oz (where we had been before) and 2 weeks on the South Island. We barely scratched the surface, and did not make it to the Australian Outback, but we had a great time.

It would not be difficult to look at one of those tour itineraries and book it all yourself, but you would probably need a rental car in some places. And it takes a lot of research to find the lodging, activities, etc. So a tour is not a bad choice, especially if you enjoy the social aspect.

We have no experience with any of those companies I mentioned, apart from Road Scholar. We did a winter trip in Puglia with them last year, because we did not want to rent a car (after 3 trips with driving in Italy without a ticket, we decided to quit while we were ahead). I would give Road Scholar high marks for our excellent guide, good food and accommodations, and good activities and logistics planning. In other words, I think they do a good job.

Thanks Lola for your reply! You have given me a lot of information to consider! I am trying to figure out the best time of the year to travel there. We are in our 50s, and have mostly traveled to Europe in the past. We enjoy the tours because they mostly take care of the transportation and lodging and also the social aspect of traveling with others. Thanks! :)

I took a 2-week tour of New Zealand with Mondumo in the spring and I really enjoyed it. I also spent an extra 3 nights before and 10 nights after the tour traveling independently in New Zealand. Some of the people on the tour visited Australia before or after the tour. The company is run by Colin Mairs who is also a Scotland tour guide for Rick Steves and the format of the tour is very similar to how a RS tour operates. His company also has an Australia tour.

https://mondumo.com/

Colin did a Monday night travel talk on New Zealand with RS:
https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/travel-classes/monday-night-travel/new-zealand

Unless you have a lot of time, I’d suggest visiting Australia and New Zealand on separate trips. You can easily spend several weeks in either country.

We took a Globus small group tour to these destinations in Jan/Feb of this year. It exceeded our expectations and went everywhere we wanted to go. It did not go to Ayers Rock, which we had no interest in seeing. All the included meals would be highlight meals on many tours. Our tour director was excellent.