Chris McCarty

Chris did a great job putting together a memorable trip around Iceland, encouraging us to explore some of the more remote areas. We had all kinds of weather from sleet and snow and wind to warm sun. No problem at Lake Myvatn with bugs, probably because it was a bit cool. Good marsh bird watching there and at Djupivogur. Loved Seydisfjordur and the newly renovated guesthouse, Vio Lonio. Appreciated being pointed to the various little museum: Sheep Farming Museum in Holmavik, Herring Museum in Siglufjordur, Heritage Museum in Isafjordur and others. The Kia he rented for us handled the mildly terrifying, narrow dirt roads up and down the fjords beautifully. Other memorable hotels were the Vogafjos Farm House at Lake Myvatn, Guesthouse Skalafell outside Skaftafell Park., and Helgugata Guesthouse in Borgarnes. Less memorable were the Fosshotel in Patreksfjordur (costly and less unique) and the Arnastapi Cottages (beautiful location, but be sure to ask for a guesthouse or hotel room with an unobstructed view of the ocean. Also, no good place for dinner). The Sea Monster Museum was pretty lame, but some might like it. Waterfalls were all spectacular and we even saw some crazy kayakers go over one as part of a film shoot.) I'd also recommend the Insight Guide, Explore Iceland as an adjunct to Chris' suggestions. Thanks for everything!

Great trip overall. Chris was very responsive and easy to work with and has been supportive of working with me to address the few issues that did come up on the trip.

KimKim really is a great service. Chris (online) listened to what I wanted to see in Iceland and planed things out perfectly. We were on a very short trip — just 4 days, but we got to see everything we wanted and then some. Our actual tour guide Rhenar (hope I'm spelling that correctly) was amazing. He drove the mini van and told us about every location we went. Rhenar really brought Iceland to life for us—telling us all about the volcanic activity, the glaciers, the ego-thermal areas, and so much more. He even entertained us with stories of Icelandic folk-law. He really knew his stuff. Our group was just 13 people—the perfect size. We stopped between sights for amazing photo opps—of course its hard to take a bad picture in Iceland. People say Iceland is expensive—but between Rhenar taking us to get affordable sandwiches for lunch and finding out of the way restaurants in the evening —I'd say it's well worth the trip.

Great trip
Beautiful country
Great and friendly service
I will use your services again!
Thank you

Chris was very helpful in helping select, discuss, and finalize the exactly right itinerary for my trip needs. All the details were quickly, efficiently and correctly handled. Very thorough knowledge of all aspects of local life and entertainment and fantastic value overall as a service.

I procrastinated my trip planning to Iceland until it was a week before my departure and I decided to try Kimkim. Chris was pleasant to work with and the process was seamless. It took less than 2 days to complete the planning as I wasn’t very picky on what I wanted to do and just let Chris do his work.

Chris did a great job helping plan our unforgettable trip.

I have a few suggestions; please advice traveler to Lake Myran (sp) of the absolutely aweful sworn of black flys in the area. We couldn’t walk around the lake because we were not prepared for the flys. We were pretty disappointed as the area and walked looked beautiful. Face nets are essential.
Also, toward the fiords in the northeast coast, were advices to take road 92 to 96. These roads are now just highway one.
Lastly, our last accommodation took cash only! We were ill prepared for this as well. Luckily, the women was kind and took what we had. Which was only less than half what we owed.
Otherwise, these were our only problems, and they were minimal!

Thank you for a wonderful trip.

Shaky. Definitely made it right - but I think we all would have preferred a smoother communication channel and not necessarily between us and Chris but rather getting the needed info to us to smooth the process i.e. direct contact info for accommodations (phone #'s!), the very important knowledge that an accommodation does not accept credit cards even though the reservation was secured with a credit card. Little things that need to be tightened up.
We could book through booking.com ourselves and accomplish the same thing, we were looking for the "smoothing" aspect using Kim Kim.
As for the suggestions of places to visit and time to allow, I think Chris did an exceptional job! All of the accommodations were perfect for our trip and the vehicle suited the terrain we were traversing.
Despite the various hiccups, we all loved Iceland and our experience overall.

What an amazing country and a well planned trip! Plenty to do and see.

Only issue was a few rough roads which could have been avoided that weren't really appropriate for an RV. In particular the road north of Detifoss. Best to approach from the south which is bitumen.

I am SO glad we used Kimkim to organize our trip. I can't believe how quickly the time passed between booking our flights and when it was actually time to fly out. All of that planning I thought I'd have time to do disappeared in 6 months. It was so convenient to have an idea of the distances to travel, what to see and where, things to skip when we were short on time, and the highlights of each location. It brought a lot of peace of mind and much-needed structure to our road trip.

Chris provided exactly what we asked for, and went above and beyond when we needed last minute help and changes. His timeline gave us plenty to do on each day, and while we couldn't quite fit in every single thing, it was nice to know we already had our next destination planned and there was no time spent wondering where to go next.