Somewhere between the pickup van and the trailhead, cell service disappears completely. That’s exactly where Trips and Tramps needs guests checked in, waivers signed, before the wilderness swallows the signal for good.
Steve Norris and his wife Kate run small-group hikes through Fiordland National Park’s Milford, Routeburn, and Kepler tracks, three of the most famous trails in the world, across 3.3 million acres served by a single public road. “It’s a huge wilderness area,” Steve said. Whatever tool runs their check-in can’t just tolerate a bad connection. It has to work with none at all.
Checking In Where There’s No Signal
Most digital waiver and check-in tools assume Wi-Fi. Wherewolf doesn’t need it. When a Trips and Tramps guide picks up guests for the drive to Milford Sound, guests climb into the van and are handed a custom-branded iPad, then sign in on the way, no signal required.
“One of the advantages of using Wherewolf is that it doesn’t require any Wifi to store the data.”
— Kate Norris, Trips and Tramps
Guest data sits on the iPad until the van gets back to the depot, then uploads in one batch at the end of the day, cutting out the time paper check-ins used to cost them.
Guest Data That Still Meets Health and Safety Standards
Secure data storage matters as much for compliance as convenience. Health and safety requirements have only grown as the business has scaled, and having guest records ready on the Wherewolf Dashboard, even offline, means Steve and Kate can follow up fast if something goes wrong on the trail.
Turning Guest Data Into a Better Hike
Since 2017, Steve and Kate have used the data Wherewolf collects to understand how guests actually spend their time in Fiordland, not guess at it.
“We looked at our winter data on Wherewolf and it showed that our guests spend a majority of their time with us when they are in Fiordland, so we really need to make it a unique experience that they will remember for a long time.”
— Kate Norris, Trips and Tramps
That insight now shapes how they train guides. Most Fiordland visitors are once-in-a-lifetime tourists who will never come back, so there’s no second chance to get the experience right.
Filling the Data Gap Third-Party Agents Left Behind
The Milford Sound day trip is their highest-volume product, and for years it was also their biggest blind spot. Most of those bookings come through third-party agents who don’t share contact or demographic details. Wherewolf’s check-in closes that gap by capturing the data directly from the guest, regardless of how they booked.
“It is centralized and we can easily download it and analyse it however we see fit.”
That data now feeds directly into their marketing. “We use the data in our marketing. Our online campaigns can be quite targeted. It’s very useful data,” Kate said.
In Fiordland, Offline Isn’t a Workaround. It’s the Whole Point.
For a business built around 3.3 million acres and one road, a check-in tool that needs Wi-Fi was never going to work. Wherewolf just had to work where Trips and Tramps actually operates, in the van, on the way to the trailhead, wherever the signal runs out.