NOTICE: All spots except 4 spots in shared rooms have been taken by NextTribe members (who get first crack at signing up). If you’re interested don’t hesitate. If trip is full when you go to sign up, please join the waitlist. This is a good reason to be a NextTribe member.

Dear NextTriber,

I'm sure you've dreamed about New Zealand. I sure have!

Turquoise lakes, green hills, glowworm caves like something out of a fairytale.

Maybe it's always felt too far away, too big, too hard to choose where to go, or plan on your own.

We’ve got you.

This trip includes both North and South islands.

It’s a new NextTribe journey the length of the country, built with a New Zealand-based, women-owned local team who know these lands — and the women who live there. In fact, they are women who live there. Full-time.

Fourteen days, both islands, no rushing.

This isn't the version of New Zealand where you snap a photo at a lookout and move on. No hard-core adventure-tour pace, but enough to get your fitness in. No checklist ticked off from a bus window, but you’ll see gorgeous countryside the whole trip.

This trip is glowworm caves and geothermal spas, a Māori welcome onto tribal land, a jet boat captain who'll tell you what it's like to build a life at the edge of a World Heritage wilderness.

This is the New Zealand that New Zealanders actually live in — and it's far more interesting.

Come with us November 5-18, 2027 for 14 days!

Check out the itinerary

We've all seen the postcards: fjords, sheep, hobbit holes. What the postcards don't show you is what makes this country a place of cultural depth and natural wonders — Māori traditions coming to life on tribal land, a geothermal spa still run by the tribe that's used its waters for centuries, sophisticated waterfront cities just an hour from ancient rainforest.

You can't Google or ChatGPT your way to this New Zealand. Well, you could, but why would you? We’ve spent months back and for with our local team planning a trip that we know NextTribe travelers will find unforgettable.

You’ll meet women who've spent their whole lives in these islands: Ruth, a former commercial pilot who's spent well over a decade driving a jet boat up one of the country's wildest rivers. A Māori guide who'll share her own story of growing up as wahine whenua, an indigenous woman of this land. Fiona McDonald, once a prop maker on The Lord of the Rings, now a silversmith working out of a studio on the edge of the West Coast.

They shape this trip — and you'll meet them.

🍷 Wine, Twice Over — A Waiheke Island vineyard tasting overlooking the Hauraki Gulf, and a Central Otago wine afternoon in the shadow of the Southern Alps.

✨ Glowworm Caves — A spiral walkway down to Ruakuri Cave, where thousands of glowworms turn the ceiling into a surreal night sky.

🌿 A Māori Welcome — A pōwhiri onto Ngāti Manawa tribal land, morning tea with elders, and a hike in a 1,000-year-old rainforest.

♨️ New Zealand's Only Māori-Owned Spa — An afternoon of geothermal pools, mud, and fire-and-ice contrast bathing at Wai Ariki, on the shores of Lake Rotorua.

🛶 Ōkārito Lagoon by Kayak — New Zealand's largest unmodified wetland, paddling past 70-plus bird species with Aoraki/Mount Cook rippling on the water.

🚤 A Jet Boat Safari with Ruth — Deep into a World Heritage wilderness with the company's co-owner, a former commercial pilot, at the helm — followed by a Kiwi barbecue. No, not barbecued, kiwis. You know what I mean. :)

💍 A West Coast Silversmith — A morning with Fiona McDonald, once a Lord of the Rings prop maker, now handcrafting jewelry from her studio on a wild stretch of coast.

🏔️ Milford Sound or the Routeburn Track — Your choice: a fly-cruise-fly over Fiordland, or a day hike on one of New Zealand's Great Walks.

🥩 The Food — Ten dinners across the trip, lunches galore, plus that Kiwi barbecue on the Waiatoto River.

We didn't design this trip around the women who live here. A New Zealand-based, women-owned logistics team helped us put this itinerary together, and you’ll notice the difference between this and other itineraries. You know us: working with local women is a feature, not a fluke.

We've built in structure where it matters — the hikes, the cultural visits, the dinners — and freedom where you need it, like the free afternoons in Wānaka and Queenstown. Every hike is kept moderate, capped around three to four hours, with a gentler option offered whenever the terrain allows.

The hotels change with the landscape, too: a stylish, art-inspired stay in Auckland's CBD, a thermal-pool retreat in Rotorua, a coastal lodge on the wild Punakaiki shoreline, a mountain resort on Lake Wānaka, and lake-view suites in Queenstown under the Remarkables.

In November, it's early summer — the weather fair but famously changeable, especially on the West Coast and in the mountains. Layers are your friend, and the payoff is a country in bloom, without the peak-summer crowds.

You arrive in Auckland on November 5th. By early evening, you're walking the Wynyard Quarter waterfront with the group — Auckland's old industrial harborfront turned promenade of bars, restaurants, and boats bobbing at anchor — before a welcome dinner that's your first real look at the women you'll be adventuring with for the next two weeks.

Day two: a ferry across the Hauraki Gulf to Waiheke Island, tracing its coastline before a vineyard tasting — sea breeze, rolling vines, New Zealand's cooler-climate reds and whites at their best.

Day three, you drive south through the green patchwork of the Waikato to Waitomo, descending into Ruakuri Cave by spiral walkway: crystal-laced limestone, the rumble of an underground waterfall, and thousands of glowworms lighting the ceiling overhead. By evening, you're in Rotorua, a region defined by geothermal steam and deep Māori culture.

Rotorua goes deep. A pōwhiri welcome onto Ngāti Manawa tribal land, morning tea with elders, and a hike into Whirinaki's ancient rainforest with a female Māori guide who'll share her own story of growing up as wahine whenua. Then Waiotapu's bubbling mud pools and mineral terraces, followed by an afternoon of stillness at Wai Ariki — New Zealand's only Māori-owned luxury hot springs spa.

A short flight carries you to the South Island, where the landscape changes noticeably: farmland into foothills, foothills into the Southern Alps. You cross Arthur's Pass and land on the wild West Coast, where a morning with silversmith Fiona McDonald is followed by an afternoon free to wander the beach or hike the Inland Pack Track.

Next, Ōkārito Lagoon by kayak, gliding past more than 70 species of wading birds with the Southern Alps as backdrop. Then south to Hannah's Clearing and the Waiatoto River, where Ruth pilots you deep into a World Heritage wilderness by jet boat, stopping for a barbecue among giant beech trees. In the afternoon, you’ll take Haast Pass into Wānaka as the light turns golden over the lake.

Wānaka slows the pace. A hike above Lake Wānaka with sweeping alpine views, then a Central Otago wine afternoon in pinot noir country, with the rest of the day entirely your own.

You'll cross the Crown Range into Queenstown, stopping at Ayrburn — a 160-year-old farm turned restaurant-and-garden precinct — before choosing between a Milford Sound flight-cruise-flight or a day hike on the Routeburn Track. A farewell dinner on Lake Wakatipu closes out the trip before flights home on November 18th.

🔥 Here is your early bird pricing.

$9,399 for doubles

$11,299 for singles

PRICE GOES UP SEPTEMBER 5: Tick Tock

$500

DEPOSIT

+

12 PAYMENTS (Interest Free)

Starting September 5

As newsletter subscribers, you’re among the first to know about this new trip.

Remember price increases on September 5.

So if you’re interested, don’t hesitate! Save your spot for $500!

Jeannie Ralston, Co-founder and CEO