Colin Mairs

Mondumo Tours

Colin Mairs is a Scotsman living in Auckland New Zealand. “Home” is now New Zealand, but Colin regularly returns to his “first home” to lead tours in Scotland during Scottish summer. The rest of the year he is leading tours in New Zealand! He speaks fluent French, Spanish and Portuguese and is learning Te Reo Māori (the language of the first people of New Zealand).

Born and raised in Glasgow Scotland, from an early age he developed a sense of wanderlust and a desire to want to get to know and understand other cultures. He set off on his first solo backpacking adventure through France, Italy and the Netherlands at the age of 18 and from that trip onwards harbored a wish to be able to somehow earn a living as a professional traveler.

He went on to study Arts and Social Sciences at Strathclyde University in Glasgow and graduated in single honours French with a distinction for spoken French and a top grade for his dissertation about the situation of the Occitan language in modern day France. Part of Colin’s university studies were spent living in the south west of France where the Occitan language is still spoken and taught today.

Colin has lived in Scotland, France, Portugal and New Zealand and has spent extended periods of time studying and working in Spain, Italy and Brazil. He began his tour guiding career in Portugal in 2009 guiding visitors around the Offley port wine cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia near Porto. After his year in Portugal Colin completed the Scottish Tourist Guides Association Blue Badge Guide course and qualified as (then) the youngest professional tourist guide in Scotland.

Whilst visiting his brother in New Zealand one Christmas Colin met his now wife Claudia. A long distance relationship over a couple of years eventually led to Colin moving to New Zealand.

Always keen to take on a challenge, Colin knew that he wanted to continue his tour guiding career in New Zealand and he began to study the necessary knowledge and familiarize well with the country to be able to lead short local tours at first. Little by little this led to longer tours and different towns and cities.

In 2017 Colin registered his own small group tours company called Mondumo Small Group Tours. With Mondumo Colin currently runs a few 2 week small group tours of New Zealand each year and is now beginning to branch out to Australia as well. There are other destinations on the horizon too for when the time is right.

Colin has featured as a TV tour guide in shows with NHK Japan, the Discovery Channel and Rick Steves Europe. Colin is still a member of the Scottish Tourist Guides Association and also of ProGuides New Zealand, he is the current Area Representative for Oceania for the World Federation of Tourist Guides Associations. In his spare time Colin likes to cook, exercise, play guitar and sing. He is also a Scotch whisky enthusiast.

For more information about Colin and his tours, check out these links:

Facebook: @mondumotours

Twitter: @colinmairs

Instagram: @colinmairs | @mondumotours

YouTube: Colin Mairs

Newsletter: www.bit.ly/mondumo