He Tangata: A chat with Ryan Sanders of Haka Tours

Ryan Sanders, of Haka Tours.

Elisabeth Easther meets the founder of Haka Tours

Growing up in Christchurch, we'd go to Kaiteriteri for our summers. We'd drive north and spend weeks on the beach with a caravan and a couple of tents at the motor camp. I remember a real sense of freedom, meeting other kids and disappearing for the day, playing in the water with my new best friends. The days seemed like they went on forever, but in a good way, as so much happened every day.

I never went overseas with my parents, and my first trip outside New Zealand was to the States when I was 19. I worked in Colorado in a cafe on the mountain, washing dishes. It took 45 minutes to snowboard to work, we had to take gondolas and lifts and, as we were only working part-time, we got heaps of snowboarding in.

Once, in Whistler, I went out of bounds with some friends and we got completely lost. We had to ditch our snowboards and wade through icy cold streams. It got dark and we thought we were going to die. We were super-close to frostbite and it took us eight and half hours to get out — and it was the scariest thing ever. We finally found a snowmobile in the distance, we saw its lights, and the driver directed us out. When we got home, we bought a lot of beer and went clubbing to celebrate being alive.

I'm really glad I was away when there was no social media. That feeling of anonymity, being far away and having the freedom to do whatever I wanted was liberating.

Ryan Sanders

After graduating from Canterbury, I moved to Scotland to play rugby but I kept snapping my Achilles so I gave up rugby and took a job with a global bank. I quickly knew a corporate career wasn't for me. Even though I was being promoted and things were going well, I was just one part of a much bigger puzzle. But I travelled a fair bit during that time.

A most memorable trip was a month driving the length of Croatia. There's so much beautiful coastline, the history is amazing and it was pretty quiet on the tourist front, with beautiful beaches, amazing food and people, lots of national parks and little islands you can boat out to.

Another month I went to Bordeaux, working my way down to San Sebastian. The night after the Running of the Bulls we got really drunk on sangria, and had nowhere to stay so we slept in the park. When I woke up, I found my backpack had been stolen with everything in it. I had to make do with no money for a few days, but you deal with it. My phone was just an old Nokia, and all you could play on it was Snake. I'm really glad I was away when there was no social media. That feeling of anonymity, being far away and having the freedom to do whatever I wanted was liberating. I had to call home once a month and that would be the only time I'd touch base.

In 2011, I travelled around the Middle East for a couple of months, going through places with travel bans, so there were hardly any travellers. Flying into Tel Aviv, we headed to Jerusalem, then to the very south, to the diving town of Eilat. Working our way though Jordan, then to Amman for a few days, we flew into Beirut where there are Ferraris and Porsches everywhere and heaps of rooftop bars. It's where the Middle East goes to party, it's opulent and not at all war-torn. There are guns everywhere but you just get used to it.

Working for the bank in Manchester, I was sitting in my office one day thinking, this can't be it. So I thought, what am I passionate about? And I realised I was passionate about travel and creating experiences, regardless of the financial end-game. I decided it had to be a tour company, so I started working behind the scenes, researching, doing analysis, writing a business plan. To earn the right to use our name, we went through a lengthy intellectual property process and submitted to the Maori Advisory Committee to ensure we had the rights to use both the word "haka" and our kiwi logo.

Our first tour was a 26-day tour of New Zealand and there were only five people on it. We didn't have enough money to hire a bus let alone buy one, so Steve, the tour manager, used his own Pajero. From humble beginnings, we slowly gained momentum and this year Haka Tours celebrated our 10th birthday and won the Air New Zealand Supreme Tourism Award.

I think travel is great for growing your worldview, understanding different cultures and seeing different ways of life. Travel is the best classroom in the world.

Further information: See hakatours.com

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