About glowwormcaves.com
glowwormcaves.com is an independent guide to New Zealand's glowworm caves — Waitomo on the North Island and Te Anau on the South Island — and the tours that visit them. This page explains who runs it, how it is financed and where the data comes from.
Who is behind this site
glowwormcaves.com is run by Patrick Kühne, an independent travel publisher based in Markkleeberg near Leipzig, Germany. He builds and maintains a small portfolio of guides to attraction tickets and day tours. There is no agency and no rotating editorial team behind this site: the pages are researched, written and kept up to date by one person — the same one who answers the e-mails.
What this site does
New Zealand has glowworm caves on both islands, and the tour listings rarely make the differences obvious: the classic Waitomo boat ride is short and bans cameras, the Ruakuri walking tour next door allows photos and takes wheelchairs, the Te Anau caves come with a lake cruise attached, a small-group tour goes caving in a private cave near Waitomo, and the day tours from Auckland either bundle Waitomo with Hobbiton or head to the Spellbound caves. We describe what actually separates these tours — how long you are underground, whether you can take photos, how you get there — and show live prices so the choice can be made in one place. We are not a booking agent: every reservation happens on GetYourGuide or Viator.
How we earn money
When you book through one of our links, GetYourGuide or Viator pays us a commission. Your price stays exactly the same: the commission comes out of the platform's margin, not your pocket. No contract obliges us to favour a particular cave or operator, and our comparisons are ordered by what suits the visit, not by what pays us best.
Where our data comes from
Prices, ratings and review counts are pulled from the live APIs of GetYourGuide and Viator and refreshed automatically several times a day, so the number on the page is the number at checkout. Opening details, accessibility notes and cave facts come from the operators themselves and are re-checked regularly. Found something out of date? Write to us and we will correct it.
What we are not
We do not run any caves or tours and we are not affiliated with THL / Waitomo Caves Group, RealNZ, Auckland and Beyond, Down to Earth or Expedigo. They run the experiences; we describe them. For binding information — cancellations, closures, departure times — the operator's own channels take precedence.
Contact
Questions, corrections and press enquiries are answered by a person, usually within a day or two. The contact address, the full postal address and the VAT ID are in the legal notice.