The summer of your dreams beckons...
Bored of the 9 – 5? Come guide for us and make every day extraordinary!
If you were to dream up your perfect job would it be filled with action-packed days hiking in Mt Cook, swimming with dolphins in Kaikoura, heli-hiking on the Kepler, and kayaking in Queen Charlotte Sound? How about a morning commute that involves a bush plane and a jet boat to your day at “work” hiking with an awesome group of people in the remote Siberia Valley? Do you dream about working in NZ’s outdoors, guiding visitors on unforgettable adventures, meeting interesting people from all over all while working for a company that cares about YOU, with a team that’s got your back, in a role that YOU care about... not to mention saving up a bit of coin!
New Zealand Trails is Queenstown’s fastest growing adventure travel company. We host guests from all over the world on our New Zealand-wide adventures. We are passionate Kiwis doing what it takes to deliver each of our guests an unforgettable experience as they hike, bike, kayak and adventure their way around our amazing country. Our biggest summer yet is around the corner and we need more Kiwi guides. So if you’re fit and energetic, independent and can solve any problem with a smile, love to travel and learn, and love the great outdoors we’d like to talk to YOU!
Our tours are guided by two guides - a Driver who is responsible for driving our group safely around the country and a Co-guide who is responsible for the food side of the tours. You’ll have equal responsibility for the guiding side of things which includes sharing commentary about New Zealand, giving hiking/activity briefings, keeping things running smoothly behind the scenes, and making sure our guests have the time of their life here in New Zealand. You will need to have (or be able to get) your Class 2 and P Endorsement to drive (Driver Guides) or be reasonably confident in the kitchen (Co-guides). For both roles, you’ll need to have a first aid certificate and food safety certificate before you start your first trip. You can apply as either a Driver or Co-Guide, or both! Our trips depart from Queenstown and Auckland, and you can be based anywhere in the country in between your tours. The summer season runs between October and April and different scheduling options are available.
*Scroll further down the page to apply (look for the big orange button) and to read some frequently asked questions about guiding for New Zealand Trails.*
How to apply…
Our comprehensive training trip heads out at the start of October and we are accepting applications now!
Please click the big orange button below to complete our guide application form (the form will only takes a few minutes to complete) and then email your CV to guidejobs@newzealandtrails.com.
You must be a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident to apply.
If you have any questions at all just flick us an email at guidejobs@newzealandtrails.com.
Applications close as soon as we find the perfect people!
- What are our trips like?
- What does a typical day on a trip look like?
- What we look for in our guides?
- Do I need lots of outdoors experience?
- Do I need previous guiding experience?
- Already a guiding pro? This part is for you…
- What does a guiding season for NZ Trails look like?
- What type of food preparation skills do I need to be a co-guide?
1. What are our trips like?
We have seven guided hiking and adventure trips which are all between 5 and 14 days long. Our most popular trips are two week long loops of the South Island where we explore all the bucketlist destinations like Mt Cook and Milford Sound along with our favourite off the beaten track spots like Queen Charlotte Sound and Stewart Island. Our guests are typically in their 50s and 60s from the US, Australia, Canada and the UK. We keep our group sizes small (a maximum of 14 guests with two guides) this means you’ll have the time to get to know each person and you’ll leave each trip with a bunch of new friends (and maybe the offer of a holiday house to stay in at Lake Tahoe!). We travel around the country in late model 17-seater Mercedes Benz Sprinters and spend the days hiking, biking and kayaking in all our favourite places across New Zealand.
No day on our tours looks the same as any other. Each day is filled with a mixture of travelling from one location to the next while exploring the local-known spots along the journey, a couple of different hikes or activities, and lots of yummy meals.
Most days we are up and at it nice and early for breakfast at roughly 7am, which will be either prepared by the guides or out at a café. You may then drive an hour or two to your next stop where you guide your guests on a hike for a couple of hours, providing safety briefings and commentary/interp along the way and stopping for a tasty packed lunch along the trail. You’ll then jump back in the van, drive another couple of hours, and drop them off for another activity such as kayaking. After getting the group settled in at your accommodation for the evening, you’ll whip up a classic Kiwi BBQ, or take them to the local pub for dinner.
You can expect each day to be an average of 10 hours of work, including around 3-4 hours of driving and 4 hours of hiking/other activities. Some days will be longer (up to 13hrs) and some will be shorter (eg. a hike in the morning and the guests have the afternoon free to themselves). You will also get a day off in the middle of 14-day tours where the guests are on their own for the entire day.
During a 14-day trip, co-guides will prepare roughly 4 dinners/breakfast, and 7 packed/picnic lunches. The rest of the meals will be at local cafes and restaurants.
We have a dedicated operations team that handles all the behind the scenes details so you spend your time exploring and sharing NZ with your guests rather than being bogged down with paperwork.
If you like a lot of variety in your day, and enjoy every day being entirely different to the last, guiding is the job for you!
We are looking for Kiwis who are exceptional leaders, are genuinely interested in other people, and are positive team players. Our guides come from a wide range of interesting backgrounds from journalists to paramedics, chefs to marketing assistants. You don't need previous guiding experience to work for us. The guides on our team range in age from their early 20s to early 60s – age really is just a number when it comes to guiding, it’s all about how you can relate to our guests and the energy you bring to the job!
Our tours are guided by two guides - a Driver who is responsible for driving our group safely around the country and a Co-guide who is responsible for the food side of the tours. You’ll have equal responsibility for the guiding side of things which includes sharing commentary about New Zealand, giving hiking/activity briefings, keeping things running smoothly behind the scenes and making sure our guests have the time of their life here in New Zealand.
You will need to have (or be able to get) your Class 2 and P Endorsement to drive (Driver Guides) or be reasonably confident in the kitchen (Co-guides). For both roles you’ll need to have a first aid certificate and food safety certificate before you start your first trip.
You can apply as either a Driver or Co-Guide, or both!
You don’t need to have a lot backcountry or “outdoor” experience to guide for us. We have a comprehensive training trip that will teach you all the hard skills you need to know from how to read a topo map and interpret weather forecasts to how to deliver a hiking briefing and adjust hiking poles. You do need to be keen to learn, enjoy the great outdoors and be fit and healthy enough to keep up with our guests who are in their 50s and 60s.
If you’ve never guided before that’s no worries at all. If you’re trainable and have the right personality, we’ll teach you the rest. Tourism and/or outdoors experience is beneficial but not required. You don't need to be Bear Grylls or Gordon Ramsey. You do need to enjoy the outdoors and have a passion for meeting new people and sharing the real New Zealand with them.
We take all of our new guides on a two week long training trip that will teach you all the skills you need to guide our trips. We then pair all new guides up with a returner guide for their first trip.
If you’re looking for a close-knit team, extremely competitive pay, great guests, and a company that actually has your back, you’re in the right place. Most of our Ops team and our GM started their careers with NZ Trails as guides, they understand what it’s like to be on the road, they know the trips inside and out and they’ve got your back. We also try really hard to promote from within Trails whenever we can, and bring guides in from the road to a cool job in the office if they're keen and ready for a different sort of challenge.
Guiding isn’t a regular boring job – it’s a lifestyle! Our trips run between October and April so this is a seasonal job and a roughly 2-week-on/2-week-off schedule means that you’ll work hard and then play (or relax) hard. You’ll work a mixture of different tours throughout the season to keep things exciting, and have a week or two off in between trips to spend on your favourite hobbies.
8. What type of food preparation skills do I need to be a co-guide?
Our Co-guides look after the food side of our trips. This includes arranging pre-orders with the restaurants we visit, making sure any guests' dietary requirements are catered for, and shopping for and cooking some meals throughout the trip. You don't need to be Gordon Ramsey, you just need to be organised, know your way around the kitchen, be able to follow a recipe, and enjoy cooking. We cook around one third of the meals on our trips and the rest are eaten out at our favourite restaurants. We give you a food plan for each trip that lays out exactly what you will be doing for each meal and gives you full recipes and shopping lists for the meals that you will be cooking. Typical meals are pretty simple and include things like BBQ's and salads, packed and picnic lunches and cooked breakfasts (bacon and eggs, pancakes, and the like).