Ready, Set, Explore!... with MoaTours and Real Living.

At Real Living we believe that travelling not only keeps you young, but it also expands your mind and contributes to a more vibrant and fulfilled life. Living in one of our retirement villages offers a lock-up-and-leave lifestyle, enabling our residents to go on adventures without the hassle of home ownership.

Knowing that so many of our residents take advantage of this, Real Living decided to run a photo travel competition in 2023 in conjunction with MoaTours, a New Zealand family business with holidays designed especially for mature travellers.

We invited our residents to send us their favourite travel pictures, without any specific technical requirements. The judges at MoaTours assessed the photos based on the stories they conveyed rather than the technical quality.

The no-pressure approach of the competition attracted many of our residents and the number of entries exceeded our expectations. After weeks of deliberations, the judges at MoaTours selected three winners. The first prize was this fabulous picture of Mount Cook: “We chose this picture because it depicted the story of The Aoraki Cloud Piercer, and not everyone gets to witness this majestic sight. This photo tells the story of how it was so aptly named”, says Lauren Mason from MoaTours.

Elva from Warkworth Oaks won the competition’s Grand Prize, a $500 discount voucher that will allow her to embark on an exciting journey with this exceptional New Zealand travel company. Founded in 2008, MoaTours offers small group tours for mature travellers, with all inclusive costs. Elva was thinking of investing her $500 discount voucher towards a 5-day Great Barrier Island Escape with her husband.

The winner of the second prize was Lesley from Epsom Village, with one of the funniest entries of the competition, a picture taken in 2011 in the Sahara Desert. Lesley won a gorgeous food and beverages hamper inspired by the MoaTours trips. “I was thrilled to win second prize with this picture, taken in Aswan (Egypt) in 2011. Mickey was apparently the prettiest camel of the tour, which didn’t say much for the others! Getting on a camel is not easy, but with such helpful camel attendants, at the end we succeded. I have always liked this photo, in fact had it printed as a computer mouse mat, which I still have.”

The third prize was a $100 MacPac voucher that was awarded to Janice from Warkworth Oaks. Janice took this picture in 1996 outside a dilapidated miners shack in Reefton. Lauren from MoaTours explained that “We picked this picture because we think that braveness and adventure is the theme behind the photo. It was snowing and cold, yet these dare devils roamed off the beaten track to discover this dwelling."

Real Living’s 2023 Photo travel competition proved to be a resounding success, and we’re very grateful that MoaTours jumped so enthusiastically in our mission to inspire our residents to follow their dreams.

If you’d like to know more about joining our community go to https://www.realliving.co.nz/ to explore our available properties. 

If you're interested in MoaTours head to their website https://www.moatours.co.nz/ to find your new adventure!