Testimonials

42 Days, 2 Countries, 6 States, 1 Territory, 15 Cities/Locations, 14 Flights and not a single mishap. On top of that, we had a GREAT TIME! A TRIP OF A LIFE-TIME! Our six week adventure to Australia and Singapore was our most memorable vacation to date.

We saw and experienced more than most of the travellers we met en-route and we were the envy of many of the Australians we met; we saw more of Australia than most of them have. We not only saw all the iconic tourist sites but also saw and experienced some of the many sites that most tourist would not know existed. Examples would be the Mail-run through the outback of the Northern Territory; we accomplanied the mail contractor when he did his 600 plus kilometre route in delivering mail to a few outback cattle stations and we stayed in an underground hotel in Coober Pedy, the Opal capital of Australia. A large part of this was because Dianne organized it for us.

This flawless trip did not happen on its own. Dianne listened to our wants and offered suggestions to enhance it with “what we didn’t know that we wanted”. She organized, check and double-checked each and every component to ensure it met with our wishes. She did such a great job that in our 6 weeks of travel through every Australian state and territory, we did not have one “hiccup” or disappointment. To ensure that our trip was on track, she and her Australia liasion agent monitored our travel and contacted us periodically to ensure that “everything was ok”. We have travelled to many locations with the aid of many fine travel agents but we did not have until now, the service of a true professional who is knowledgeable and caring. Dianne is a wonderful find and without hesitation we recommend her to family and friends. Dianne will certainly be organizing our next adventure.

My wife and I worked with GoWalkabout Travel for a magnificent 38 day trip to Australia. Dianne was attentive in listening to what interested us and worked with us to develop an itinerary that 100% met our wishes and expectations. She takes into account all the little things for daily living such as easy access to get groceries and in house laundry facilities. She booked us on small and intimate tours with tour guides who took us places that we would have never seen on our own or would not have been given access on large bus tours. The guides were great and the sites were spectacular. She even built in “down time” so that we weren’t exhausted by the time we returned home. Every holiday needs some time to relax and Dianne is a master of knowing when and how much. We can’t recommend her highly enough and we would definitely work with her again.

Dianne planned a fantastic honeymoon for us. We travelled to New Zealand and a Roratonga (Cook Island). We gave her an idea of the things and activities that we like to do and she just rolled with it! We didn’t really know much about either place, so didn’t have too much of a preference of where we wanted to go, but with her knowledge she was able to send us to some amazing places. We were also on quite a tight budget, but Dianne was able to make it work for us while still having us experience some great hotels/motels and do some fabulous tours. The itinerary she planned for us was so nice to have and so easy to follow. Since we were on our honeymoon, we just wanted to relax and didn’t want to have to plan anything. She detailed everything by day, when to pick up our car hire, when to go to the airport, times for tours and also reminded us to check in with our flights. She also provided us with numbers to call in case we had any issues, so we felt very secure. Thanks for planning us a wonderful honeymoon!

Kia Ora, Dianne. Just wanted to let you know how much we enjoyed our trip. There was not even one little hiccup in our itinerary: each time there was supposed to be someone there to pick us up – there they were with big smiles and greetings. The tours were well organized and interesting. We enjoyed the hotels in each place and would highly recommend the boutique hotels. Each place we stayed in both New Zealand and Australia left us feeling as if we had made some new friends along the way. Doubtful Sound was everything I had imagined and more. We have some absolutely stunning photos of sunrise over one of the arms of the Sound. Australia was beautiful. I enjoyed Sydney more than I thought I would. The opera house is amazing, and we even went to see the Soweto Gospel Chorus perform there the first night we were in the city. Not a bad seat in THAT house. The whole coastal area that we saw – including Fraser Island – is unbelievable and again, everything and more that I thought it would be. So, again, thanks Dianne for making our trip so special. We couldn’t have done it without your help. Ka Kite Ano.

G’day Dianne. Thank you! You listened well and organized our trip extremely well. Pick up and delivery times were spot on. The hotels were all good to great. The next time we travel to Australia – which will be on our dollar we will fly business class. Too long a trip to not be able to stretch out and sleep. If we hadn’t taken so many people we would have flown business class. The last three days in Sydney went by very quickly. Our city tour guide, Linda was knowledgeable and did an awesome job. Mackie, our tour guide to the Hunter Valley was good. He drove us out to give us a couple of views of the entire Hunter Valley. We sampled wines, cheese, olives. I got carried away and brought home 9 bottles of wine. I just wanted to let you know that we appreciated everything you did to arrange a wonderful trip.

I want to thank you for the outstanding job you did preparing our group of 45 people for our trip to Australia, for the Pacific School Games in Melbourne Australia.
From the time we committed to the trip, you did everything possible to make sure that all bases were covered and that our experience in Australia was as trouble free as possible. The accommodations you chose for us were excellent as were the bus companies and tourist attractions. The fact that you took the time to attend several meetings of our group, in addition to the countless communications you had with us which kept us in the loop – there was never guesswork about anything. And it did not stop there; I appreciated the fact that you called us upon arrival in Australia to check that everything was OK with our transfers and accommodations.
Dianne, there are so many things you did for us that I cannot list them all in a letter. However, I can say that I have never worked with a travel agent before who took as much time to deal with all the details – big and small. It was like we were part of your extended family and you took full responsibility for our wellbeing. I would recommend you to anyone looking for a great travel agent, and I wish you the best of success in the future.

My husband and I have used GoWalkAbout Travel twice now, once for a trip to Australia, and another to New Zealand. In both cases they did an exemplary job. She listened to our wishes, and matched the activities, accommodations and travel agenda to us perfectly. Lots of helpful information, and follow up. Would highly recommend their services to anyone wanting a better quality of experience.

We really enjoyed working with Dianne in planning our trip to Australia. She was very efficient and gave us great recommendations. Prior to our departure, she ensured we had everything we needed including packing tips, in order to have a great trip. We would highly recommend using her services.

After a great deal of difficulty in finding a travel agent who could put together a trip to New Zealand for my family in Ontario… I found Dianne who did it seamlessly from across the country. We needed a specific itinerary- taking several days out of the trip to visit friends in Christchurch over Christmas. Dianne put together an incredible New Zealand trip for us – we travelled from one tip to the other, East and West included. I would have thought Dianne knew me from childhood as every spot we visited or stayed at – was exactly what I would have chosen myself (had I known the country). Dianne also suggested a stopover in the Cook Islands- which I would never had thought to include – and was a highlight. Well done Dianne!

Hi Dianne, Everything went very smoothly, thanks to you and your organizational skills! We really appreciate everything you did for us! The unseasonably hot & humid weather at this time of year around Darwin took a lot out of us, but we enjoyed the trips to Litchfield, Katherine Gorge, & Kakadu very much. We especially loved Port Douglas & Cairns. Your friend Warwick and his food tour were lots of fun – we had a great little group of 6 people and the day was a lot of fun! We brought a number of itchy sand fly bites from the Mangrove walk home with us as souvenirs. Hopefully they will be gone soon! I want to thank you for all the work you & your colleagues did to ensure that we had an enjoyable holiday.

Dianne Hall and GoWalkAbout Travel are amazing. We celebrated our 30th anniversary with a 5 1/2 week trip to New Zealand and Australia. We gave her our dates and she planned every detail. It was perfect from start to finish! She was in constant communication with us in the planning stages, gave us detailed itineraries and assistance until the moment of departure, and checked in with us throughout our journey to make sure everything was going according to plan. The adventures she planned for us were fantastic and in several cases were some we had not heard of. We highly recommend Dianne and her team to everyone and are already planning our next adventure with her!

When we were planning out trip to Australia, we contacted several different tour companies. From the beginning, Dianne really stood out. She spent a significant amount of time on the front end learning what we were interested in and what we did not like about previous tours. Her insights and recommendations were spot on, and she did not hesitate to caution against a plan if she felt it would not be a memorable experience. Her attention to detail and availability were unparalleled. I would definitely recommend GoWalkabout Travel to any of my friends and family. Thanks again for our trip! We had a fantastic time!

It was a trip of a lifetime!! 42 days down under without a mishap. Every thing was working like clockwork. Every person was there to pick us up or to drop us off. If they were late (happened once, accident on a bridge in Sydney, they called and let us know) The side trips were well done, very informative and diversified. The accommodation was sometimes out of this world. Thanks Dianne and it was a pleasure meeting you and you taking the time to meet us in Sydney.

We are back into the reality of life, and I think fully recovered. We had a fantastic time! Thank you so much for the great itinerary. New Zealand was absolutely beautiful! Our first week on the South Island we kept saying it couldn’t get any better and it kept getting better. We did a couple of our tours in the pouring rain but even with that we loved it. Our overnight on Doubtful Sound was one of the rainy ones but as a result we saw so many waterfalls and were able to kayak in the rain which was a great experience. I loved the Te Anau Glow Worm tour. Our favorite of all was the Moreaki Wilderness Lodge. Everything about it was fantastic. We hiked, we kayaked, we took a late night walk with the host who is a naturalist and his insights enhanced the experience. We saw glow worms and stars like we never had seen before. It was a great place in the middle of nowhere with lots of birds and the sound of water outside our window. We would highly recommend it. We really enjoyed both our farm stays. The tour in Auckland was good because it showed us the city and the countryside and the dinner cruise was a great way to end our time in New Zealand.

The itinerary was set up with enough time that we could fit in some things that weren’t on the list but we were glad we didn’t miss like a drive through the Crowne Range and the Catlins Coast Drive. We adjusted quickly to the driving and we both kept saying how glad we were that we didn’t do a bus tour and had our trip designed instead! We liked the B&B’s because we got to visit with other people from around the world.

Thank you again, Dianne. It was a fantastic trip, and we felt we could have stayed a couple more weeks.

GoWalkAboutTravel has organized major trips for us to Australia and New Zealand. We worked together to define our itineraries and then travelled on our own in both countries, moving from one location to the next seamlessly. We wouldn’t hesitate to recommend GoWalkAboutTravel as the “go-to” expert for adventures in Australia and New Zealand. In fact, friends who acted on our referral, were very happy they did so.

The trip was amazing – we all had a truly memorable time. We felt like we were on vacation forever, although we started to get a little tired of travelling towards the end. We did a lot of sight-seeing in New Zealand, and having to move so frequently it definitely was more hectic than our time in Australia. The weather was great the whole time, and surprisingly hot in NZ! Fortunately for us, the kids were wonderful travelers. The size of the mini-van was perfect because it allowed us to sit all three boys in the second row – perfect for the older ones to entertain the baby when he woke up and needed some attention. We also used the generous trunk space at the back as our own private changing room for all the beaches we went to.

Too many highlights to pick just one, but we really enjoyed Sydney (probably our favourite global city so far), the apartment in Mooloolaba was perfectly located for a nice relaxing stay by the beach and in NZ we were blown away by the beautiful scenery of the Coromandel Peninsula. The farm stay was also a nice relaxing touch at the end and we were able to have a late check-out allowing us to take our time packing up for the return flight home.

Thanks so much for all your help in making this dream come true for us! Who knows… we could go back again to catch some of the many things we didn’t get to see or do when the kids are older – will let you know if we do!

We had a GREAT experience working with Dianne and her firm GoWalkAbout Travel:
1. No detail was too small for her to get it exactly right.
2. It was a matter of pride for her to craft a vacation to Australia and New Zealand that exceeded our expectations.
3. She has deep knowledge of the accommodations, sights and adventures, earned over many years of experience, but happily finds the new and innovative.
4. She was SUPER organized yet personalized and tailored our trip to our specific interests.
5. It was a wonderful 30 year wedding anniversary trip.
Thanks for the wonderful memories Dianne!