About Adventure New Zealand

About Us... and how you can be confident in buying tours from our site

You'll get the best trip ever...or its FREE!

You will get the most time on your activities, you'll get more fun for your money & you'll be warm and comfortable while doing them PLUS it will be at the most reasonable cost. If you are not 100% totally pleased with your trip then we will refund you all your money and there will be no hard feelings. We can't be fairer than that!

How can we promise this? We have been adventuring now for 17 years so you can be absolutely confident that we can met this promise. If we don't deliver for any reason then you get a full refund with no hard feelings. And we don't argue!

We are very confident that after your trip you will agree with us because we have been surveying all our customers now for 11 years to find out what they think we could do to improve these trips and if they think it is good value for money, so now you get the advantage of all their recommendations. We are consistently having our clients tell us these trips are great value for money and that they had a great day out and so will you!

• You know how you can arrive for a tour then find it is not as good as you thought it was going to be? Here's what we do to stop this happening to you. We give you a full and detailed description of the tour so that you have all the information needed to make an informed decision as to what would suit you. If you are not sure then we discuss it with you and provide you with free advice to help you make the right decision. If none of our tours suit we will recommend a suitable one with another company. If you arrive at our base and then find out before you depart on the tour that it isn't really what you wanted you can use your ticket to do any of our other tours that depart around the same time. If some of your group wants to do one tour and others decide to do another that is fine too.
• You know how your holiday time is valuable, that your holiday cost some hard earned money and that you want to have a great time with some great memories. Well we know that you will recommend us if we make sure that this happens to you for your holiday even if you do not do one of our tours, so you can be sure that we will give you the very best possible advice that we can.
• If after the tour on a particular day you find we still did not get it right then yes...we will buy you dinner that night!
• You know how you buy somthing and then find it wasn't worth the money you spent. What we do is continuously ask our customers if they thought a tour was worth the money! For the last 6 years we have been asking people to rate the tours on a value for money scale. They consistently tells us they thought they were good value for the money. We also check on what other companies are providing for the same amount of money and we make sure we give you more for your dollar so you can be confident that a tour purchased off us is actually good value. And yes, if you disagree on the day we will buy you dinner that night...and we won't argue about it!
• I've been adventuring in NZ and globally for 17 years, giving me the experience to know what level of adventure suits different people. Our company owns and operates many of the South Island, West Coast activities on this site and we have audited all other activities that we recommend. This means that we can give you reliable unbiased advice as to what activity or tour will suit the level of adventure you want. We call this choosing your own "fun factor" and we'll make sure you get the type and amount of fun you want
• You know how you can arrive in a town on your holiday and find that the activity you were hoping to do is closed when you get there (even when you booked) because its after hours or they are only a high season operator or they may have even shut down completely! I have been operating my company for 14 years and have a sound, reliable financial base with a great team of dedicated fulltime guides so that you can be confident we are a business that operates all year and our trips depart everyday. (unless a minimum number is needed for safety and this is specified in the tour description).
• You know how you get into your accommodation at night and go to book a tour the next day but find their booking office is closed and the telephone is on an answer phone! Well we do sleep at night but we have a roster to answer our free telephone booking service. This is open 18 hours a day to take your bookings.
• You know how when you are travelling in a new country things can be different from what you thought and they might not go the way you expected, and...and... you're not sure what to do about it!! Here's what we do to stop this happening to you. When you book a tour with us, even if it is just for a few hours, you become our customer and our friend, not just for the duration of the time we have with you but for your whole NZ trip! (our customers often become long term friends). So we give you our free travellers help telephone number that you can use at any time for help and advice.
• If you are a person travelling by yourself let us know what your priorities are, to meet others or to keep your own space for rest & rejuvenation perhaps, we can advise the right type of tour and activities for you.
• If you want rejuvenation, relaxation, adventure, education, romance, or just a great time in a beautiful part of the world, then this site is for you.

Who are we?

My name is Paul Schramm and I formed this business in 1987. I was a teacher of Science and Outdoor Recreation prior to that. I have been adventuring myself or instructing others on how to adventure safely since my midteens (I'm now 47!) so that I have gathered quite a bit of experience that you are welcome to tap into. If there is a certain travel or adventure field I do not have experience in I can certainly tell you who best to contact. I also instruct in Outdoor Medicine, carry out guide training schools and conduct or arrange safety reviews and plans. Im lucky enough to be able to reside in one of the most beautiful parts of the planet, which is the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island, along with my wife Tracey (who is a clinical pharmacist) and my two boys, Daniel (10yrs) who is currently trying to figure out how to make his own computer games instead of buying them, and Michael (9yrs) who's current mission in life is to get me to let him stay up as late as possible!

The business now has a team of up to around 12 specialised staff and guides plus a variety of other expert outdoors and travel people whom we call in on contract as the need arises.
You are most likely to meet head guides Simon Christossen, Matt Clark or Adam Bisdee if you are on an adventure tour and you will deal with Sue DeGoldi or myself for advice or travel arrangements.