\u201cI love seeing the joy in people\u2019s faces when they experience something different that I can lead them to,\u201d Dallow said.<\/p>\n
Former newsreader Simon Dallow will be a tour manager for a cruise down the Mekong River in Vietnam and Cambodia in September.<\/p>\n
His Instagram account @simon_saystravel features photos and videos of places he has travelled \u2013 both recent and from the distant past. \u201cTraveller. Journalist. Curious about people, culture and history. Hosting Riches of the Mekong. September 2026,\u201d it announces.<\/p>\n
The career sidestep isn\u2019t entirely random. Before his accomplished career as a news presenter, Dallow spent three years in his twenties working in Europe as a tour manager at Contiki Tours, where he met his former wife Alison Mau<\/a>.<\/p>\n These days, his taste in travel is at the luxury end. He\u2019s swapped the coaches for what will be a high-end boutique river cruise for just 12 passengers.<\/p>\n The two-week tour will include a seven-night voyage along the Mekong River, through Vietnam and Cambodia, organised by Auckland-based Travelwise Holidays.<\/p>\n Dallow said the Mekong River was a place he wanted to explore anyway. \u201cWhen this opportunity came up with Stuart [McKay] from Travelwise Holidays … it was a nice confluence of ideas and people.”<\/p>\n The tour will depart New Zealand on September 11 to take in some of Southeast Asia\u2019s popular sites, Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor Wat and the riverside markets and Buddhist monasteries of Phnom Penh, before winding up in Ho Chi Minh City.<\/p>\n McKay, who is one of the partners at Travelwise Holidays, told the Herald it would be Dallow\u2019s first hosted tour \u2013 and, he hopes, not his last.<\/p>\n \u201cSimon\u2019s a nice guy and a bit of a drawcard,\u201d he told the Herald. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to find a celebrity who\u2019s well-travelled, down-to-earth and personable.\u201d<\/p>\n McKay is already planning a European tour for next year and hopes Dallow will guide that too.<\/p>\n The two met years ago at the North Shore Rugby Club, where Dallow played. McKay said tour guiding involves far more than breezing through airports with clipboards and a room list.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of our guides are first-aid trained. They\u2019ve got to understand logistics and make sure people get from A to B safely and on time,\u201d he said. \u201cSimon\u2019s job is to make sure everyone\u2019s there and the luggage arrives.\u201d<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s the people management \u2013 the art of herding a group of strangers through foreign countries without anyone whining about what time dinner is served. <\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got to be patient because you get all sorts,\u201d McKay said. \u201cSometimes the older generation can be more challenging than the younger ones. Limited mobility, people set in their ways. We\u2019ve had people come on tour wanting dinner at 5pm. Well, we\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n Dallow says he doesn\u2019t miss the grind of reading daily stories about car crashes and spot news.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Europe, they focus on things that matter; we\u2019re focused on what we can get easily and what we can glean off social media\u201d he told the Herald.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat killed the buzz for me was the relentless grind. It became quite rote. When they told me a few years ago that I wasn\u2019t going to be considered for anything else [at TVNZ], that really changed things.<\/p>\n \u201cBut what killed me was Covid-19 and the 1pm press conferences. I\u2019d also experienced out in public overt hostility, which was confronting. There were a couple of versions of \u201dtell the f***ing truth\u201d and \u201cThere\u2019s going to be a Nuremberg-style trial for all those who are complicit\u201d and one guy went past and made a sign for a noose around my neck.”<\/p>\n Speaking from Paris this week, Dallow says he is exhausted, having clocked 20,000 steps hiking through the Grand Trianon in Versailles, where Napoleon lived. <\/p>\n Ten years ago, Dallow took his son Joel Dallow to Paris, Venice, Rome and London \u2013 and Florence. <\/p>\n Last year, Dallow\u2019s daughter Paris Dallow, named after the city of love, packed her bags and went on a Contiki tour to Europe.<\/p>\n \u201cShe said to me she had the best month of her life. I want to take them both back to Europe at some point,\u201d Dallow said.<\/p>\n A post from earlier this month shows Dallow standing in front of the Eiffel Tower filming a news-style piece to camera, alongside a still photograph from his first trip there in 1987 \u2013 a younger version of the broadcaster, before the silver hair and newsroom polish. <\/p>\n Before Paris, Dallow was in Singapore revisiting old haunts: Marina Bay Sands, the Gardens by the Bay, the infamous colonial-clad Raffles Hotel, and the hawker stalls where the food is fast, cheap, and delicious. It was his eighth time there.<\/p>\n \u201cI like Singapore, it\u2019s a great introduction to Asia, it\u2019s a bit theme-park-ish, but everyone speaks English, and it\u2019s very clean.\u201d<\/p>\n Dallow and his wife, Louise Colenbrander – who have been together 15 years – got married in February, then left New Zealand in April for several months in Europe.<\/p>\n After Paris, there\u2019ll be Bruges and Amsterdam, then on through Berlin, Prague, Vienna and Budapest. By July, they\u2019ll be in Italy, staying with friends in Puglia. August, if all goes to plan, will be spent in the South of France and London, catching up with family, then a week back in New Zealand and off to Vietnam.<\/p>\n Dallow signed off as TVNZ\u2019s newsreader<\/a> last November after more than 30 years at the national broadcaster and 16 years at the helm of 1News at Six.<\/p>\n On his final night<\/a>, the newsreader thanked long-time viewers, saying, \u201cIt\u2019s time for me to say farewell and sign off for my last 1News bulletin.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always firmly believed news readers should not be the news, so now I am no longer one, I can say it has been a genuine privilege to be on your screens and in your living rooms.<\/p>\n \u201cThank you for letting me be a small part of your evenings,\u201d he said with his voice cracking<\/a>.<\/p>\n He trained as a barrister and travel guide early in his career. Dallow joined TVNZ in 1993 and presented Newsnight alongside Mau and Marcus Lush.<\/p>\n He went on to front a range of TVNZ news and current affairs programmes over the following years, including the mid-evening news, One Tonight, Agenda and Q&A.<\/p>\nSimon Dallow in Egypt, 1992. The former newsreader was a tour guide when he met his former wife, Ali Mau.<\/p>\n
Simon Dallow is in Paris; he’s back there next year as a Tour Guide. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
As a tour guide, Simon Dallow will have to learn the art of herding strangers through Europe. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
Simon Dallow with former news co-host Wendy Petrie. Dallow doesn’t miss the relentless grind of reading the news and being confronted by hostile viewers after Covid-19 hit.<\/p>\n
Former New Anchor Simon Dallow visited Singapore this year, before Europe.<\/p>\n
Simon Dallow signed off as as TVNZ’s newsreader last year.<\/p>\n
Marcus Lush, Alison Mau and Simon Dallow. Dallow trained as a barrister before he became a newsreader.<\/p>\n