Liz Karen L. Jihuallanca

We had a great experience with both, booking our trip as well as enjoying the services provided. The booking went very smooth, our booking agent Liz was happy to fine tune their proposal to our needs and tried to accommodate our special needs. The communication was very clear and we had all the needed information at our fingertips. Overall it was a time efficient and very easy way of booking the trip of our dreams.
Our trip was so well organized too! The drivers were always on time, the guides were one of the best, we got all our entry and train/bus tickets upon arrival from our guide, the itinerary was set up in the most efficient and enjoyable way (you don’t know if it’s good until you experience it). Those who set up our itinerary definitely knew what they were doing! Moreover, we had a trip coordinator though out our trip so if we had any questions we had someone to contact. And Lisbeth was always quick to respond and help, not that we needed much of her assistance as the trip went smoothly from start to end.
Overall: the easy and most efficient way you can get for booking a trip and traveling without needing to do the hard work while on holiday.

Lisbeth at Andean Travel was excellent. She stayed in touch every bit of the way on our journey. There were many moving parts & she managed them all beautifully. She was extremely responsive always despite the fact part of our trip took place over a holiday.

Hotel Reviews

Holiday Inn Lima Airport

Lima

Staff were lovely-room was clean-beds were comfortable.

Authenticity & Character

They start serving breakfast at 4am!!

Location

We needed to stay at the airport as we flew out very early the morning after we arrived in Peru. The free shuttle was great & proximity to the airport excellent.

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Refugio Amazonas Lodge

Puerto Maldonado

Wow! The lodge is very beautiful but you should know your experience includes sleeping in a room with 3 walls-your room is completely open to the Amazon Rainforest! You must sleep under a very good mosquito net that stops all airflow and when it is hot as it was late Dec-Jan, it is really hot. The solar powered electricity is on from 4am-11pm so your fan goes off. I think they need to find a way to have small rechargeable fans inside the mosquito nets during the hot months. Speaking Spanish will enhance your experience here. I feel I missed a lot since I did not speak Spanish & our guide while lovely often could not properly convey his knowledge to us in English. Food was good & beautifully presented. Staff were very friendly. Loved the carbon neutral visit. Also be aware you have a fairly long cling with about 70-80 steps from the river to the lodge. The area is so beautiful & I did love all the sounds of the rainforest at night.

Authenticity & Character

You are one with nature with a room open to the rainforest!

Location

Staff

I think you need guides who speak better English for visitors who speak only English. The staff overall were lovely & helpful.

Cleanliness & Comfort

Everything was very clean but it was incredibly hot with no air movement once you were inside the mosquito net in the evening.

El Albergue Ollantaytambo Boutique Hotel

Cusco

Lovely hotel-great location if you are going to take the train to Machu Picchu. You are literally steps from boarding your train. You are in a gorgeous setting-flowering plants everywhere. The only thing we could have used was a ceiling fan or other fan in the room because there was no way to open your window in the evening without leaving your room open to someone coming in as the windows are low and no screens. Food in restaurant was very good.

Authenticity & Character

Lush garden setting. Bathrooms very modern. Comfy beds-nice size rooms.

Location

Right next to train station.

Staff

Super helpful. Got our laundry done there & our luggage stored while we visited Machu Picchu for an overnight stay. Collected everything when we returned. Also the Pachamanka lunch was great! Highly recommended.

Cleanliness & Comfort

El Mapi by Inkaterra

Lima

Rooms are very nice-hotel is lovely-staff are lovely. Unfortunately there is a lot of smoking happening-they have a smoking area right by the restaurant where the doors are often kept open so if you're not a smoker you were subjected to it if you sat in the bottom part of the restaurant. Also the room across from our balcony had 2 men who constantly chain smoked on their little balcony so we had smoke drifting into our room thru the open windows.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Not far from train station which was great. Lovely grounds. Comfy beds.

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Very clean. Our issue was with the smoking everywhere.

Antigua Casona San Blas

Cusco

Wow!! Great hotel-great staff-gorgeous setting-delicious breakfast included with room. Food excellent at the restaurant. Cool bar & outdoor seating with firepit. I cannot stress how wonderful & helpful the staff are. I highly recommend this hotel.

Authenticity & Character

Beautiful setting.

Location

Close to ATM, pharmacy.

Staff

If there were 10 stars they would get 10!!! Really great staff.

Cleanliness & Comfort

Super clean & comfy. When we arrived, there was a pot of hot water with a wonderful tea to help you relax and sleep and they brought hot water bottles up and put them in your bed every evening so when you got into bed, you had a nice warm bed to crawl into. It felt so luxurious. If you needed coca tea, you could call at any time and they would bring it to you. I can't say enough about this hotel.

Casa Andina Premium Puno

Puno

Really lovely hotel. Just know there are no elevators & lots of steps to climb if your room is not on the first floor, and even then you would have to climb upstairs to get to the main area of the hotel. Also, you are at an extremely high altitude in Puno. Need to be aware of this, as it does become difficult to breathe for some people. Puno is a beautiful town & Lake Titicaca is gorgeous. We watched an amazing storm rolling over the lake our first night, and it was a beautiful thing to see. Good room service!!

Authenticity & Character

Location

Our room looked over Lake Titicaca-gorgeous. We had a small balcony to sit on. The room was a nice size everything was modern.

Staff

Very helpful.

Cleanliness & Comfort

Very clean and comfy.

Activity Reviews

Shared Uros & Taquile Floating Islands tour

Puno

Amazing to see the floating islands & learn about their way of life on Uros. Bonus--be sure to take your passport with you as you can get a passport stamp here. Taquile is beautiful and you have the opportunity to interact with the people who live here as you did in Uros. Nice lunch, boat was very comfortable, just know it's about an eight hour + day.

Quality of Experience

One of the best days of our trip.

Food

Lunch was delicious. You could buy snacks on Uros.

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Wonderful guide. Very informative.

Transport

Comfortable seating on the boat. Shaded. Bring a rain jacket as it rained off & on.

Titicaca Train from {{start_location}} to {{end_location}} NC

Peru

Luxury train ride. Delicious food, beautiful service, gorgeous scenery. The 10 hours went by much more quickly than we could have imagined.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

We're a family of six with teens and a six-year-old, and Liz helped us pack it all into a 12-day trip to Peru! Ninety percent of the trip was incredible.

First, however, here's the part that sucked: A preventable snafu cost us a lot of $$. When we were too sick to hike, we were misinformed about train ticketing restrictions, which led us to lose $500 on rebooking fees. Also, every one of us got sick. Like, fevers, antibiotics, puking, oxygen, and hospital trips sick. Yes, we drank only bottled water, through filtered water bottles. It happens.

Here's the meh: We needed a little more mental preparation for the rigors of the Amazon section of the trip. It was 98 degrees with 90% humidity and swarms of mosquitos and roaches. Reading that is different than being ready for it. We needed different clothes to be more comfortable. Also, pretty much every single one of our flights was changed after we first booked it. We had to get up at 4 am a few times, which led to some grumpy family members later in the day.

Now, on to the great parts: We loved our first few days in Lima. The food tour in Barranco was a delicious introduction to a country filled with flavorful food. Even our picky eaters tried it all. We didn't give ourselves enough time in the colonial section of downtown Lima. Day two was the sea lion tour, which was a grand adventure. The boat trip was gorgeous. As you approach the island, it does smell bad but you get used to it, and swimming with the cuties for twenty minutes is well worth it. In the Amazon, we saw caiman, otters, wild macaws, parrots, four kinds of monkeys, and a ton of cool trees (rubber, cork). Corto Maltes was a beautiful lodge with hammocks and great food, and we loved cooling off in the pool. We flew to Cusco and then drove on to our favorite place, El Albergue in Ollantaytambo. This "boutique" hotel was paradise, with flowers everywhere and breathtaking views. There was a huge farm and a little school behind it. The place was a short (uphill) walk from the ruins towering above the town, the Plaza Mayor, and the souvenir market. The sacred valley ruins tour was ah-mazing for my history teacher heart and Jose was well-informed about so many different perspectives. We loved the llama trek and weaving demo with indigenous women. Since we were too sick to hike, I wish we had skipped staying in Aguas Calientes. Still, our hotel, Hatun Inti, was minimalist and clean. The Vistadome train ride - with party car! - was a highlight of the trip. Machu Picchu is even more marvelous in person and our guide, Javier, was a huge help in answering all of my questions. He did a great job with the Insta pix for the teens and the pacing for our slow kiddo and those of us feeling the altitude. Another train ride and then a drive to Cusco. The elevation here really buried some of us but we were all incredulous at the beauty of this colonial city. We stayed at Casa San Blas, which was super cute and had the perfect location. Situated on a hill, we could see the red roofs of Cusco below. San Blas is an artists' neighborhood and my artistic teens loved seeing the artists at work. From here, we did a pottery experience, a chocolate experience, went to an animal rescue center, and visited many ruins. I also recommend the Museo del Arte Precolombino and visiting the cathedral and church on the Plaza Mayor.

Although a few things went wrong, the combination of support and individual choice made for the perfect way to plan a family trip. Thank you, Liz, Lizbeth, Domingo, Jose, Javier, and so many others. I would recommend KimKim to other travelers in a heartbeat!

Hotel Reviews

Innside Lima Miraflores by Melia Hotels International

Miraflores

A good introduction to Peru, this hotel feels pretty familiar to Americans. Good breakfast and yummy room service. The front desk staff is really helpful. Located in a nice area of Miraflores, right near Kennedy Park.

Authenticity & Character

Nothing was really wrong, it was just pretty normal.

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Corto Maltes Amazon Lodge

Puerto Maldonado

Corto Maltes was a beautiful lodge with hammocks and great food, and we loved cooling off in the pool. Our guide, Mario, was an expert at spotting animals. We saw caiman, otters, wild macaws, parrots, four kinds of monkeys, and a ton of cool trees (rubber, cork). The boat ride to and from the lodge were beautiful and fresh. The massage at the lodge was well worth it. We were underprepared for the sheer volume of mosquitos and the small armies of roaches. Also, everyone stressed that we needed long sleeves and pants (which we did, for the hikes and such) but no one really mentioned that we needed a TON of extra clothing because everything would get wet and nothing would dry in 90% humidity. We could have been more comfortable if we were better prepared. Our littlest one got super sick here with a fever.

Authenticity & Character

The location, architecture and food make this place pretty amazing. I wish there was more of a cultural aspect as well.

Location

Right on the river with a big property filled with cool plants and animals, and a lookout tower.

Staff

We were there over Christmas and there was nothing special about it. Other lodges had cultural celebrations.

Cleanliness & Comfort

Wellllll - there was no air conditioning, spotty electricity and there were a lot of bugs.

El Albergue Ollantaytambo Boutique Hotel

Cusco

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Hatun Inti Classic Machupicchu

Machu Picchu

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Casa San Blas Boutique

Cusco

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Private Peruvian Food Tour in Artsy Barranco

Lima

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Shared Palomino Islands - Sealions tour

Lima

Quality of Experience

Food

There was no food. Provided snacks would have been great.

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

The boat was broken when we arrived, which delayed us.

Flight to {{end_location}} & Corto Maltes Lodge 1/3 (Sandoval Lake Program)

Peru

Quality of Experience

Food

It tasted great but a few of us got sick.

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Private Tour to Chinchero & Llama trek with Ancestral Weaving at Umasbamba town Experience

Sacred Valley

Quality of Experience

Food

Only tea was provided. We should have added lunch into our tour on this day because we were starving!

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Corto Maltes Lodge 2/3 (Sandoval Lake Program)

Puerto Maldonado

Quality of Experience

Food

No food.

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Corto Maltes Lodge 3/3 (Sandoval Lake Program), Flight to Cusco & Transfer to {{end_location}}

Peru

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Shared Short Inca Trail Trek & Machu Picchu by train 2/2 (Private Guided Tour in Machu Picchu)

Peru

Quality of Experience

Food

No food.

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Private Inca Pottery Classes (Kutiry)

Cusco

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Shared Mini Chocolate Workshop

Cusco

Quality of Experience

Food

Yummy chocolate

Guides, Drivers and Staff

NA

Transport

NA

Private tour to Sacseyhuaman, Cochahuasi & Pisac

Cusco

Quality of Experience

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport