Our Story

With a few friends, we got together (wine in hand of course) and planned what we felt would be an epic premium wine tour. Looking at each component of the tour in detail, our goal was to personalise the ordinary and systemise the extraordinary through every step of the tour to ensure we could deliver consistent, top quality and unique wine tours daily.

After significant trial and error in a historic and cluttered market, we had created the top-rated (Trip Advisor) Queenstown wine tour boosting the most 5 star reviews that year, we knew we were onto something!

With the same eye for detail, we started penning ideas (wine in hand of course) for creating or re-creating existing tour offerings and adding our own flare… fast forward 18 months and Altitude Tours was not only a wine tour company, we were taking guests sightseeing to Glenorchy, Paradise, around the Wakatipu basin and providing private charters and transport – we were becoming a ‘small group big adventure’ company.

More tours mean more staff and more space so we moved from our home lounges/kitchen benches into our own offices and operational base and soon after were presented with an opportunity to acquire the top-rated small group Milford Sound coach operator called ‘The Milford BBQ Bus’ which had been operating for over 25 years and had carved out a very unique and personal offering with a cult-like following. This acquisition was a natural addition to our own small group travel experiences and gave us an introduction to sightseeing tours into Fiordland.

Throughout our rapid growth, we committed to continually making sure our tours were delivered in line with our original vision and have spent an enormous amount of time and money training our guides, creating systems and maintaining a high level of product delivery.

Our commitment to detail extends to the creation of our own Altitude wine and beer accreditation which we established with an external consultant. All our guides must have taken and passed this course (theory and practical) to be able to guide any of our wine tours.

We love tourism and are committed to being part of its future. We’re working hard towards sustainable goals, aiming to lead by example. We believe that tourism can improve communities, people, and the environment, and we’re dedicated to showing how this can be achieved.

Covid19 has been a challenging time, so while we were either in lockdown or twiddling our thumbs with little to no customers, we have been head down tail up curating new experiences and are always in search of new adventures which sit within our vision and mission… standby for more Altitude experiences coming soon!

Our vision
To create and operate the world’s best day tours.

Our Mission
To provide unforgettable, sustainable and unique small group premium New Zealand experiences, connecting visitors and the local community in a harmonious way.

We’re serious about creating and curating experiences, if we aren’t in the office, we are on tours constantly discussing and working out how to make them better. We systemise anything we do that is extraordinary and we personalise anything that is by default ordinary.

If you’ve been on any of our tours and have any ideas or feedback (no matter how big, small or crazy) please feel free to email us.

Founders

Nigel Hobbs  – [email protected]
Heidi Farren – [email protected]