Experience spotlight: New Zealand, Red Carpet Tours
- phoenixxpheasts
- May 7
- 4 min read
New Zealand is an absolutely amazing country full of beautiful scenery and some of the nicest people I have met on my travels! What brought me out to this country was my love for Lord of the Rings and the fact that the movies were mostly filmed there. Seeing all of that in real life was breathtaking and made me wonder if that wasn't actually Middle Earth!
Now, I love a good tour and I found the best in the business with Red Carpet Tours! I actually had this trip booked since 2020, but, a deployment, COVID, and then me being sent to Korea with the Army got in the way of me actually taking this trip until 2024. WORTH THE WAIT!
Red Carpet Tours
By buddy and I did the 14 day tour but they have other options available as well if you aren't keen to spend that much money or that much time, BUT....I would recommend the 14 days. 14 days didn't feel like enough to me even still! Red Carpet Tours was easy to book, super helpful and amendable to changing my reservation and very professional. They are also a bunch of Lord of the Rings nerds like me so that made the experience even better. Now, while this tour is a Lord of the Rings Tour, it was still a fantastic way to see New Zealand! With the two week tour, you are taken to the North Island for one week and then the South Island for the next!
If you book the tour as a single person it costs more money but I booked it with a friend and it was around $4,420 per person (this price was as of 2020 when I had originally booked the trip). Included in this are the hotel rooms, they drive you around everywhere, you get exclusive access to Lord of the Rings filming locations, some awesome dining spots, the ferry fee from the North to the South Island and a bunch of other stuff! Really, so worth it! In addition to the base price, there are other items that you can add on such as a safari and a helicopter ride just to name a few!
The tour starts off in Auckland (where they recommend everyone lands on the first day) and we began with a nice dinner in our hotel where everyone introduced each other. Seemed like quite a few of us had actually booked this tour back in 2020 as well and were finally being able to take the trip! The full itinerary is on their website but here are a few of my favorite pictures from the trip and some of my favorite spots!
The photos above are from when we got to stop in at Hobbiton. We also had a nice feast for dinner there and couple of drinks at the Green Dragon! Surreal experience!
The above photos are from Trollshaw Forest where we were guided by the very people who owned the land! They have their own business where they offer tours and it's called Hairy Feet (Waitomo) and this is the link to their website: http://hairyfeetwaitomo.co.nz/. Very nice people and many scenes from the movies were filmed there such as the Warg attack on Thorin and company in the Hobbit movies!
We also got to meet the amazing Daniel Reeve who did the calligraphy and everything for the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and I got the above art in the left picture from him. The image on the left is the map of Bilbo's Hobbit Hole of Bag-End, also drawn up by Mr. Reeve! Was so awesome to meet him and show him some of my own drawings as well. What is also astounding is that he did the calligraphy all by himself and if you remember that contract that Bilbo had in the Hobbit movies, he hand wrote that...ALL OF IT! MULTIPLE TIMES!! Crazy dedication and amazing craftsmanship.
Edoras (Mount Sunday) was my favorite place I think on the trip (pics above), it was just absolutely beautiful and you really felt like you were in Middle Earth. Another surreal experience.
Our time in the South Island was another favorite of mine with my favorite spot actually being our last stop which was Queenstown. It is a quaint little town which is bustling until late in the evening and has a generally younger crowd than some of the other places that we had stopped at. There was a bar that served cocktails in teapots and also one day had a skate ramp outside of it (seems like a bad idea when you're drunk but YOLO right? *yea I am bringing back YOLO).
Anddddd of course we were able to visit the makers of the One Ring! That giant ring that you see in the picture on the top right was what they used in close up shots of the Ring in the movies like when Frodo falls and the Ring falls off of his neck and is laying the snow until Boromir picks it up.
And who could forget Weta Workshop! There are actually two locations, one in Miramar and one in Auckland and I recommend that you go to both if you can. They both offer different experiences and have different merchandise for sale!
Overall, this was such an amazing trip and the team at Red Carpet Tours really were incredible and made us all welcome! It was also awesome being around others who are also nerds about Lord of the Rings and Tolkien and everything like myself, it was nerd heaven. Now again, don't let this discourage you if you are not a Lord of the Rings fan, this trip can be for everyone to see the amazing scenery and experience all of New Zealand! I cannot recommend this tour enough to anyone :)
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