Kimkim Trip Reviews for Colombia

The quality of the tours was amazing. Everywhere we went, we had dedicated drivers. The only thing I would change is the hotel in Cartagena. It felt a little run down and dirty. Otherwise, everything else was perfect! My favorite stay was in La Jorara.

Juan & his team made themselves available 24 hours a day, even when we had a flight delay.

Nathalie was great to work with. It might've been nice to have a "menu" of activities to choose from in each city. It would also be nice for the pricing to be broken down by activity/accommodation to better understand how the total was calculated.

Nathalie was very accommodating in the planning process, and checking in with us at the beginning and end of our trip was a nice touch. There were a couple of times that we would've liked to call her but couldn't because we didn't want to incur expensive international cell phone charges. It would've been nice to have been provided a cheap cell phone that we could've used to reach her if necessary - this is something we have had from other agencies for other trips.

Planning (with Nathalie) was excellent and everything that had been arranged went off really well.

Excellent service and always on-hand and attentive

Most of the trip was very good and well organized.

The Cartagena portion of the trip could have been better. There was some confusion with our day trIp to Rosario island. We didn't have the right information as to where to go and were told we needed a voucher which we never received. Tour guides in Cartagena tried to change our tour times and insisted on taking us to emerald shops (twice) even after we said we didn't want to go there.

Taxi drivers always showed up on time. Most guides were very good. Our favorite tour guides were Angelica in bogota and David in the coffee region.

I absolutely loved my (2) treks with Expediciones Colombia (in partnership with the other two companies my guides were from). To make the trip better, I would have liked to hike with others. I was alone with my guide and was hoping to make some new friends! So, that was disappointing. I'm not sure why Expediciones couldn't find more trekkers since I made the reservation months in advance for that purpose (of finding other trekkers). The trek itself and the scenery were excellent. Thank you!

Tara's emails were excellent, but I was corresponding with Jules. On the day I needed to contact him, he was held up in an area that didn't have good reception (returning from his rafting trip). It would have been helpful to have had Tara's phone number or my guide's (Erwin's number) so I could speak with someone else instead regarding packing and logistics for the following morning.

It is truly difficult to put into words how amazing our trip to Colombia was! When my friend and I initially decided to travel to Colombia, I did some research and found that there were SO MANY places that looked amazing, but some of them were a little off the beaten path and it seemed like going with a guide would be the best option. I had previously done a private tour with a local guide in India, and it was such an amazing experience that I was hoping to find something similar in Colombia. This is when I found Kimkim and was connected with Jules.

Jules, Tara, and their team really went above and beyond helping us plan the tour. They were very responsive to our questions (and there were a lot of them), and they worked with us for at least a month, going back and forth with different tour options until we had planned a trip that fit our budget and our desired itinerary. I'm sure I drove them a little crazy, but they were extremely kind, patient, and professional throughout the entire planning process. Jules was so enthusiastic about all of the places that we wanted to visit, and it was obvious that he was very genuine and excited for us to be experiencing a side of Colombia that a lot of tourists never see.

Since Jules had another obligation, he set us up with Nico, one of his teammates, as our tour guide for the majority of our tour. Nico was super laid back and fun (and funny!), and we had an amazing time touring with him to La Cienaga Grande/Nueva Valencia, Taironaka Reserve, La Guajira, and Medellin. He was very knowledgeable about all of the places we went, and he was also kind enough to share with us some personal stories about his life and about growing up in Medellin, a city I really never thought I would visit, but one that ended up being really vibrant and beautiful, and that I am so glad I was able to visit. During our 4 days with Nico, we visited a village on stilts in the middle of the swap, cooled off in a peaceful river after a very hot day and spent the night at an archaeological reserve, drove through La Guajira desert and interacted with the Wayuu people, swam in the Caribbean at the most insanely gorgeous beach (that we literally had to ourselves) in Cabo de la Vela, saw Flamingos in the wild, and toured a coffee plantation in Medellin! Every single place we went was incredible in its own way.

After we left Nico in Medellin, we lucky enough to go on a 2-day rafting trip on the Rio Verde, with our guides Mael and Lucho, who were also super cool guys, and who obviously love what they do. It is hard to pick my favorite part of the trip, but the rafting trip was definitely up there. The drive to the town of San Francisco was beautiful, and the 3-hour hike through the mountains down to the river was some of the most beautiful, lush green scenery that I have ever seen. We camped in the jungle that night, and saw fireflies, shooting stars, butterflies, birds, and even a monkey! The next day we rafted for about 3 or 4 hours, swam in a gorgeous waterfall, and just enjoyed the beauty that surrounded us.

This trip was truly unforgettable, thanks to Jules, Tara, Nico, Mael, and Lucho, and also the wonderful drivers that we had for different parts of the trip. I only wish I could have stayed longer! Thank you all SO much!! It truly was a magical experience that exceeded our expectations. There is really nothing better than swimming in the Caribbean on a beach that you have almost entirely to yourselves and seeing Flamingos in the wild.

Tara was very friendly, quick to respond to my messages, and also very helpful in tailoring our trip to make it fit our budget and desired itinerary. I really appreciate her help with adjusting our plans when one of our friends was unable to come on the trip due to work.

Thank you, Tara!

Jules, Tara and the staff at Expedition Colombia helped us to plan an AMAZING itinerary, but once we began our active holiday, the places we went and sights we experienced were beyond anything I could've dreamed. The entire trip was truly extraordinary. I figured Colombia was a beautiful place, but everything far surpassed all of my expectations! A great big thanks to the team of wonderful and charming people at Expedition Colombia! The knowledgeable and charismatic guides for our adventures (Nicho, Mael and Lucho) and drivers made our experience that much better. I highly recommend an active holiday with Expedition Colombia for anyone who is looking for a truly memorable, once in a lifetime experience in Colombia. Thanks again for such an incredible time!!!!!

Tara was incredibly friendly, knowledgable, helpful and responsive while coordinating with her to plan our amazing itinerary in Colombia. She is an absolute pleasure to work with!

We enjoyed our activities. However, on two occasions our guide/driver arrived earlier than listed so they had to wait for us a bit. I hope they didn't mind! Also, the hotel for our beach excursion was not aware that we were to have access to a room for changing and leaving out items as described in our outline (so we were unable to do so). No big deal though.

Nathalie was very helpful and patient during the planning stages. She listed to what we wanted and was flexible with our requests. We enjoyed working with her!

Nathalie was awesome and she gave us everything we asked for and the price was perfect!!! We had an awesome time and a lot of that was KimKim making all our arrangements!! It is so nice to get off a plane tired and just see s sign with your name on it!!! Love it!! And even my friends said we will use KimKim again for future travels!! Thank you so much for a great trip!!!

Suggest that the trip summary include the start times of tours.

Nathalie was great

The events and activities we did were amazing and highly enjoyable. We were sad that Natalie was not available to help us or answer our questions while we were here. No one picked us up at the airport in Cali and the Calanoa transport was told the wrong time for our flight. Otherwise, Natalie was very helpful and we have had a great trip.

You guys provided a great itinerary, but I think it also would have been nice to know some other details beforehand. i.e., the walk down to rio verde is rigid and pretty long, wear good shoes. There are no showers or sinks at the camp site. Bring plenty of water, etc.

I put in the passport for that one person from our group was a vegetarian and there was no vegetarian dinner option. :(

For future groups, I would recommend providing a luggage requirement. We were told in the van on the way to the river that there would be limited space in the dry bags. It would have been nice to know ahead of time so we could have packed minimally instead of having to re-pack bags on the side of the road and leave things in the van.

It was fantastic and planned very well. We had a great time. My only comment would be more detail in the overall itinerary so we don't have to bounce around kimkim trying to find different pieces of information about each activity.

The hotel we stayed at in Santa Marta was not great. The lack of air conditioning was a big problem. Also our guide for the hike in Tayrona did not speak much English and was therefore not very helpful. Other than that, the trip was great!

It was weird that I just got one travel agent, and that there was no choice at all -- an agent that ended up being good, if not perfect. I felt there was no particular reason I got this agent as opposed to any other--why this person? What was so great about them? What was special about who they were, or why I they were the person who should plan my trip?

Communication could have been better. We went 3 days without hearing anything, and then found out that our itinerary needed changes. Trip was still amazing, but going through that was nerve racking.

We were very pleased with our experience in Cartagena and Isla Mucura. We did not appreciate the difficulty of the 13.3-mile hike planned for our second day in Colombia. (For example, we did not know how long the hike would be. We had an estimate of how many hours in would last, but not of the difficulty.) We are in good shape, but this was a daunting scramble though and over boulders and with a 300-meter plus gain in altitude in a tropical jungle.
We were disappointed in the Casa Lina Hotel in Palominos and in the Casa Amarilla Hotel in Mompox. The language barrier was high in both locations, the beds were uncomfortable and the staff were correct but not friendly.

We seemed to have difficulty understanding each other. When we needed help with a billing dispute (in Mompox) and in adjusting our itinerary (in Palominos), she was not readily available.
As in other aspects of the trip, we were to blame for some of this. We should have pursued more subjects before we left, regarding temperatures, hiking difficulties, sunscreen, etc. I was also disappointed when we were asked for full payment earlier than I expected.

I can't say enough what a pleasure it was working with these folks for our trip into the Amazon for our honeymoon. From the time I made the initial contact with KimKim until the end of our adventure, we felt like we were the only concern they had. We worked with Nathalie on the front end for lining the trip up and making sure we had everything we needed. She was very thorough and polite, and kept in excellent contact with me prior to the trip.
Once we arrived at the airport in Leticia we waited a few minutes for our ride to show up and then were taken straight down to the office to get ready for our 4 day trek into the Amazon jungle! Thats where we met with our guide Ramiro, were promptly issued some rubber muck boots, and went over some necessities for our trip. We didn't bring enough mosquito repellent or rain ponchos, so we made a quick stop at the store to grab some and then had a nice lunch with our guide at a restaurant there in town. Once we were ready to roll, we hopped in a cab and were driven about 20 minutes outta town, where we got out and the 3 of us began walking through the jungle. Immediately I was feeling grateful that they gave us the rubber boots and told us to grab more Deet!! We eventually started fondly calling the bug repellent "Amazonian Cologne". It worked great though and really as long as we kept some on, the mosquitoes really didn't bother us that much.
We walked for maybe a couple hours into the jungle to a Maloka and met with some of the native people there working on the plantation. Our guide Ramiro knew the people well and immediately introduced us and explained what they were working on. We had some supper and just hung out for a little bit until it got dark. Then we went for a hike into the jungle to look at the nocturnal wildlife, which was really awesome to see everything!! We saw all kinds of cool stuff! That night we met with the Shaman and shared his Mumbai. We had a good talk with him and learned a bit about their culture, which we found very interesting!
The next day we woke up & had breakfast & then hiked for several hours through the jungle to a remote Lodge where we showered & relaxed for awhile. After supper we hiked for about 15 minutes to a huge tree where we repelled UP about 100 feet to a big platform just above the jungle canopy. Ramiro was given instructions by the company to leave us alone in the tree house for a few hours, since it was our honeymoon, so he set us up with some rose petals, grapes & chocolates, and a bottle of champagne, and then they went back to the lodge for a few hours so we could have some privacy ;) The next morning we woke up to see the sun rise over the jungle, zip lined out of that tree into another tree platform, and repelled down to the ground. What an experience! We hiked for a couple hours to the river and boarded some kayaks and took off paddling. It was high water season so the river was swollen up and into the jungle so we had a lot to look at from the kayaks. We paddled a couple hours and finally made it across a big lake to another Lodge where we ate lunch and met our boat captain. The last leg of our journey was in a small boat where we got to see a bunch more wildlife, including sloths, toucans, monkeys, pink dolphins, grey dolphins, green parrots, and piranhas! We fished for and caught piranhas and took them back to the lodge where they cooked them for us! They were great! We drank some cachacas with the folks who run the lodge and then went off to bed. The next day we boarded the boat again and made our way back to Leticia to conclude our trip.
All in all I would say our Amazon jungle experience was truly amazing! The people that we met were all so nice, courteous, and respectful, and you could tell they sincerely appreciated our business. We feel that we made lifelong friends with our guide Ramiro, and hope to stay in contact with him through Facebook. He had everything lined out perfectly and even cooked most of the food we ate on the trip! What seemed like an amazing trip to us was literally just another day to him. He has done hundreds if not thousands of those trips and we felt safe the entire time.
I would highly recommend this company for your trip into the Amazon. They did a great job for us and was worth every dollar we spent on it!!! A+

The overall experience and final results were good but communication was frustrating. You do everything by internet which is fine for a young generation but for a senior generation this impersonal approach is difficult and when in transit usually without wi-fi availability it becomes challenging. Unfortunately our contact left your company at a critical time although both girls were excellent.

The overall plan was generic but the notification of pickups was and van drivers were last minute. The local transport companies and drivers you contracted were outstanding punctual and polite. In our party, 3 did not speak any Spanish and I fluent in both ended doing all the translating and acting as a guide not a big deal but if you are going to expand tourists from North America you should try to get ones with a little English.

From Pasto to Cali travel company Tierra y Cielo as well as driver Henry Patoja and guide in Medellin Maria Elena Marín were A1. Travel companies Cali Salento and salento Medellin I give a A. English guide in Salento was charming but English very limited. Your hotel choices Le park in Medellin was good and ideally situated and Hacienda Cairo was excellent and highly recommended. As a born Colombian living in Canada I was happy to show my wife and friends Colombia in a positive way and very happy with your arrangements

Over Xmas, I now intend bringing my children and grandchildren for a two-week visit and hope we can work together again.

Pick up info at each point was last minute, all else was well. Nathalie and Katheryn were good.

Nathalie was the best. We had her redo our itinerary maybe a dozen times and consistently received prompt responses and a ton of help. Nathalie even helped us with arrangements not booked through her, like finding tickets for a football game in Medellin. Within the first ten minutes of arriving to our first destination, Nathalie called us to make sure we were okay. Everything about her service exceeded our expectations.

The Cambio hacienda restaurant staff was mostly not interested in service, the dinners and coffee was substandard and the room was in poor condition.

Katherine was very patient with us in the planning stage and equally attentive throughout the trip.