Meet John, Active Adventures Guide
Born in Bình Thuận, Vietnam and raised in Minnesota, John has always been drawn to exploring the world. As soon as he saved the bare minimum to travel, John left home to do just that. He made his way back to Vietnam where he tracked down and found his birth family. He is the eldest of 5 siblings and hopes he can do well for his family in both Vietnam and the United States. Aotearoa is where he calls home now and in the guide’s off season he works planting trees for forestry and native revegetation. When he’s not skating, climbing or planting trees, you can find him puttering around in the veggie garden.
What's your favorite travel destination?
One of my favorite aspects of traveling is exploration, so I suppose anywhere I haven’t yet been would be exciting to visit. My answer would be Aotearoa if I didn’t already live here!
What's your favorite adventure activity?
My favorite adventure activity is called “through skating” – it is called this by myself and a handful of other people because it’s quite a niche sport. The goal of a “through skate” is to cross a country from A to B via longboard armed with a tent, electrolytes and a couple extra left shoes. I’ve had the privilege to compete through skates of Cuba, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and of course beautiful Aotearoa / New Zealand.
What has been your most inspiring adventure experience?
I rode for a while through Japan with a bikepacker named Artis who had been biking for over two years. He was telling me about his recent experience in Uzbekistan where he would have to sleep almost all day through +45 °C (+113°F) and deliriously bike through the night. I found it intriguing, inspiring, and slightly outrageous.
When did you first get the travel bug?
When I was 16 I tracked down my birth mother in Vietnam and at 19 I left home to connect with my mother, brothers and sisters. I ended up living in the bustling metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City for around a year while I began forming a relationship with my birth family outside of the city.
What is your favorite trip to lead?
Typical politician, but it’s hard to choose! I have guided almost all of the tours we offer – many of them have a similar base plan, but even the slight differences give each tour its own personality. I love the glorious downhill from Ohau to Quailburn on our Alps to Ocean trip, I get goosebumps on the Cessna flight into Siberia Valley on the Classic South Island Adventure, and I absolutely froth the challenging 2,000+ steps up to Sealy Tarns in Aoraki / Mount Cook National Park on the Ultimate South Island Adventure.
Why did you want to guide for Active Adventures?
I became a guide at Active Adventures for the chance to showcase the magic I found here in Aotearoa / New Zealand to all our visitors. I’m not kiwi originally; I ended up here by chance and chose to stay. I visited New Zealand in 2021 and became unexpectedly stuck here during the Pandemic – a blessing in disguise as it turns out. Being “stuck” quickly became sticking around as I formed my community here and became enamored with the flora, fauna and wild spaces here. I chose to become a guide because I am genuinely passionate about this country. Guiding has allowed me to immerse myself in the cycle of learning more about my environment here, sharing it with others, and then learning even more.
What's a destination you'd like to travel to, that you haven't been to yet?
One of my dreams is to visit Rockland in South Africa. Rocklands is known for its world class sandstone bouldering and high density of steep intermediate to advanced boulder problems.
Do you have any favorite hobbies or special talents?
I generally enjoy riding anything that rolls with wheels. I also spend a fair amount of time climbing on rocks. Recently I’ve picked up trying to learn how to edit videos on Davinci Resolve. Special talents… I can speak a bit of Mandarin; I can eat a moderately large bowl of shell on edamame without stopping, I can confidently misuse punctuation in my writing without it bothering me later – I can move my adam’s apple up and down on command!
