You’re planning a visit to New Zealand. Perhaps you’ll be on a cruise and are looking at shore excursion choices. Maybe you’ll be staying with family or friends or simply driving yourself wherever whim takes you.

You’re keen to be relatively independent but also to get a good understanding of what makes New Zealand tick, naturally and culturally. You need a guide to answer your in-depth questions, who will design a hands-on, interactive experience to suit your particular interests and can take you to places every other visitor doesn’t go to…

Look for more suggestions at the bottom of this page!

New Zealand’s natural wonders are a fascination for everyone who visits this country and we happen to know more about them than most. After all, students have to pass exams on the material we communicate to them, so we have to get it right. In addition, if we can keep our teenagers interested in the interactive programmes we provide, then holding the attention of our adult guests is easy!

“Interactive” means a wide range of things. Perhaps you’d find yourself sampling some of the forest’s traditional medicinal plants. Kawa kawa, for example, is a relative of kava without the narcotic properties. Here it was, and still is, used to treat circulatory problems and arthritis and as an insect repellent. If chewed, the leaves anaesthetise aching teeth and, brewed with hot water, make a warming tea.

Can you see yourself exploring rocky shores, gazing into rock pools, turning over boulders and becoming acquainted with crabs and starfish? Perhaps you’d enjoy the formality of an ecological survey, using quadrants and transect lines, followed by the opportunity to snorkel among the teaming fish life in our oldest marine reserve.

How about enjoying our hot springs and mudpools, not just through the lens of a camera, but by collecting and testing your own water samples, in the same way that geologists monitor them as indicators of possible volcanic activity? We can guarantee this a hit as a family activity if your children are accompanying you on your New Zealand adventure.

You'll find details of the learning modules we’ve developed for our high school students from New Zealand, Singapore, Australia and Great Britain here. Individually they make fascinating day tours. Combined with each other, and with the right mix of recreational and cultural activities, they are the building blocks of a fascinating insight into New Zealand’s geography, geology and ecology. Whether you travel by Rolls Royce or coach, stay in five-star lodges or youth hostels, spend just a day or travel the North and South Islands with us, you’ll have to agree that the way Learning Journeys presents this wonderful destination is different!