A Queenstown crew
with good taste
Feel Good Adventures started in 2016 with one van, three favourite trails and a stubborn belief that trips should feel planned by a friend. Nine seasons later we're still small — on purpose.
Built on weekends
we didn't want to end
Back in 2016, Jack was guiding other companies' groups by day and planning mates' trips by night. The mates' trips were better — better lunch spots, better timing, better stories. So he rented a desk on Ballarat Street and started charging strangers to come along.
The philosophy hasn't changed: small groups, local guides, food worth photographing, and honest advice even when it costs us a booking. If a trail's overrated, we'll tell you. If a rainy-day backup will beat the original plan, we'll say that too.
"If we wouldn't put our own families on it, it doesn't go on the site."
— the house rule, unchanged since day one
First paid trip: six backpackers, one Routeburn crossing, zero disasters.
Milford overnight partnership signed — our first "sleep on the fiord" departure.
Survived the quiet years by running locals-only weekends. Kept every guide.
Added hosted evening packages with our casino hotel partners.
Named a finalist for Boutique Operator of the Year at the NZ Tourism Awards.
Nine seasons,
zero regrets
The numbers that matter to us — size isn't one of them.
0+
Trips delivered
0/5
Guest rating
0
Local guides
0
Routes scouted
The people behind the plans
Four full-timers, fourteen guides, one office dog. The humans you'll actually talk to:
Jack Reihana
Founder & head planner
Ex-guide, chronic optimist, still insists on walking every route before we sell it.
Sam Kahu
Lead guide
Twelve seasons in Fiordland. Reads weather maps the way other people read novels.
Maya Olsen
Guest experience
Answers your emails, fixes your bookings, remembers you said "no coriander" six months ago.
Renata Doyle
Evenings host
Runs our hosted nights out — knows every venue manager in Queenstown by first name.
Projects we're proud of
A few of the trips and side-projects that shaped how we work.
The Ridge Lunch — our heli-picnic route, now the most-requested proposal spot in the region.
Trail Fund Weekends — every spring our guides volunteer a week of track maintenance on the Routeburn.
The Evening Series — our hosted nights that turned "what do we do after dinner?" into a product.
Route Lab — the scouting programme that keeps our itineraries fresh: two new routes tested every off-season.
Three rules we don't bend
Small groups, always
Eight guests is a crowd here. Anything bigger loses the thing that makes it good — we'd rather turn bookings away.
Honesty over sales
Wrong season, wrong trail, wrong budget — we say so and suggest better. Half our replies end with "actually, wait a month".
Leave it better
Carbon offsets on every departure, trail-fund donations, and a strict pack-in-pack-out rule on every route we run.
Sound like your kind
of people?
Come say hi at the studio on Ballarat Street, or start with a look at the trips.
Get in touch