Kimkim Trip Reviews for Thailand

We worked with Martin to book our July 2022 trip for 7 persons (5 adults and 2 teenagers) to Thailand. We were able to see 4 cities in ~10 days so it was a fast paced trip but we enjoyed all of the different experiences and new places. The highlights of the trip included visiting Happy Elephant sanctuary in Chiang Mai, staying in a tree house and on the lake in Khao Sak national park, and enjoying a day at the beach in Koh Samui. When we arrived in Bangkok we were grateful to check into our hotel right away so we could recharge after the long journey and really enjoyed the Tuk Tuk tour to see Bangkok by night and enjoy some local cuisine. We also really enjoyed our night time hike and river cruises in the Khao Sak national park. Martin was our local expert and helped plan our trip and answer all of our questions. All of our transfers and travel went flawlessly and we were very happy with the trip overall.

Hotel Reviews

Bodhi Serene Hotel

Chiang Mai

This hotel is located within walking distance to several temples and the Sunday night market in Chiang Mai. It has a very boutique feel with friendly staff, a wonderful pool, and a great breakfast buffet. Our room was upgraded to include a balcony and was very nicely furnished. Would definitely recommend this hotel and stay here again.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Very central location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Chatrium Hotel Riverside Bangkok

Bangkok

This hotel is exactly what you would expect from a big city 5 star hotel with an exceptional breakfast buffet. The location is good (keeping in mind Bangkok is a very big city) and the hotel is within walking distance to a 7/11 store. The pool was very large and well kept. The rooms are very spacious with every amenity you could need and are well cleaned and updated. I would definitely stay here again.

Authenticity & Character

Location

Staff

Cleanliness & Comfort

Activity Reviews

Cheow Lan Lake Explorer

Khao Sok

Our guide for Cheow Lan Lake was Liam and we loved the two days we spent with him. He was very knowledgeable about the plants and animals of the jungle and helped reassure us when we were nervous on our expeditions and answered all of our questions. We really enjoyed the lake cruises and walking trek we did with him to the Pakarang Cave. Would highly recommend him to other travelers.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Spend a Day with Elephants in Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai

We enjoyed our day playing with the elephants at Happy Elephant and learning about them from our friendly and knowledgeable guides. The best part of the day was playing with the elephants in the river and watching them give themselves a mud bath. The lunch provided was Pad Thai and it was very delicious however the down time afterward felt too long, we would have preferred to skip it entirely or just have 30 minutes for resting. The only part we did not enjoy was cutting down the grasses for the elephants, we understood it is a necessary part of the upkeep for elephants however we did not have proper attire (long pants/long sleeves) and those that did participate got many scratches and cuts from the sharp grasses.

Quality of Experience

Food

Guides, Drivers and Staff

Transport

Hoa Tran was AMAZING! super helpful, took her time to understand my preferences, flexed the itinerary accordingly, provided on the spot support, her availability was remarkable.. the list goes on of her off the chart service!
And The local guides.. super kind people and very helpful!
Just trust her and the team, and you go enjoy yourself with a memorable vacation..

From when I was first connected with Tha until even during the trip when I contacted her for a couple of questions she was very good. Answered all my many questions and organized an amazing trip while in Thailand. Thank you Tha we have a wonderful time .

Ha was awesome from the start! She offered a lot of great initial options, and we worked together over a few weeks to make this vacation everything we wanted it to be. We were spoiled from the moment we met Mr. Sauce and his driver at the Bangkok airport, when we met Ms. Mew and her driver at the Chiang Mai train station, and until our last driver dropped us off at the Bangkok airport at the end of our vacation. And Ha was in constant contact with me the entire time to make sure everything was perfect. I would highly recommend Ha and her team!

We decided to create our own "excursions" while traveling through Asia on a cruise. Linh helped us plan activities for three of the ports we visited. We gave her our destinations and she gave us various options to pick and choose from. Our first port was in Koh Sumai, Thailand, where Mr. Sonthaya gave us a great tour of all the island highlights and brought us to a beautiful beach side restaurant to enjoy the view and some local food.
Our second stop was in Laem Chabang, the port south of Bangkok. Ms. Angie and a driver picked us up from the port and drove us west of Bangkok, to ride a river boat that brought us to her favorite floating market, Don Wei Market. It did not disappoint, as it was a fascinating market filled with the smells, sounds and tastes of Thailand. We were truly immersed in the wonderful culture. We enjoyed tasting some foods while wandering and then ate a delicious lunch in a restaurant on the water. We boarded another boat and were taken to Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn), a tower on the Chao Phra river bank built in Khmer architectural style. It is the tallest temple in Thailand, decorated in beautiful ceramic pieces. We finished our afternoon in Chinatown, one of the largest in the world, then headed back to the ship in the evening.
Our third adventure was in beautiful Halong Bay in northern Vietnam. Our guide, Mr. Sam, met us early at the pier and brought us to a favorite coffee shop to have authentic Vietnamese, drip into your own cup, coffee. It has just a touch of sweetness from some added condensed milk and is the smoothest, non-bitter coffee! So enjoyable. Next we were brought to a pearl factory to learn and watch how oysters are inseminated, farmed, harvested, and pearls sorted for size and quality. We were then brought to Halong Bay, where we were given a private boat tour of the beautiful bay, filled with 1000's of islands. It was so relaxing and fascinating! We were brought to Sung Sot Cave (Surprise or Amazing Cave). Found by the French in 1901, this is one of the largest and most beautiful caves in the area! Be ready to do some walking! It truly was amazing! Back on the boat, we were served an amazing lunch of freshly steamed prawns, squid salad, stuffed crab and other delicious delicacies that had been caught by the captain and his first mate! It was too cold for kayaking that day, but that would have been a great option as well.
We were very please with Linh's help in finding us very informed and interesting guides. Every "excursion" went off without a hitch. I would highly recommend KimKim and their local guides next time you plan a trip or just plan excursions while on a cruise!

My wife and I had a great time in Thailand! Ha was a great planner who set up awesome tours and guides who were thoughtful, friendly and fun. All of transfers were well handled and right on schedule. Never having been to Thailand before it was an amazing trip and based on our experience would recommend to everyone.

The first time using KimKim for mine & my Mum’s 10 day trip to Thailand. I had visited the country a few times but it was a first for my Mum & therefore I wanted to incorporate places that I had been to that I thought Mum should experience as a first-timer, with places that I hadn’t been. We only had 10 days but decided to cover 3 areas, Bangkok (city life), Chang Mai (Countryside) & Koh Samui (beach). We went with the recommendations from Suwanna for accommodation & activities & she did a great job with all of them, the only thing we had to organise was our flights. It was also lovely to have everything organised from the get-go so we didn’t have to think about transfers or activities on arrival. The vehicles were of a much higher standard than expected & our guides were really friendly, knowledgeable & always on time. Our highlights were the 60k bike ride in Chang Mai & the cookery course in Koh Samui - fantastic! I would highly recommend KimKim & will definately use them again in the future.

My daughter and I used Kim Kim on our recent trip to Thailand which was fantastic. They took care of all our needs whilst we were there booking trips, transfers, hotels etc.. Everything worked like clockwork. The hotels were perfect and the guides very informative and all spoke English. We did a three centre trip taking in Bangkok, Chiang mai and Ko samui. The highlight for us both was completing the 60km cycle trip in Chiang mai. Having said that all the trips we booked were excellent giving us a great experience. These included a day tour in Bangkok, foodie tour at night by tuk tuk, traditional Thai dance night, trekking, cookery class, snorkelling, kayaking and Island hopping by speedboat. We would highly recommend Kim Kim.

Ha planned an unbelievable trip for us! She’s great!

We enjoyed so many experiences: elephant visit, hiking through the jungle, kayaking around the floating village, cycling round Angkor Wat, butterfly farm, night markets, temple visits, Aspara dance show, all smoothly organised by our guides. It was so nice to be chauffeured from airport to hotel to the visits for the day.

Fantastic trip for everyone in our family!

Tuk tuk tour was great. Chiang Mai hike was nice, guide there Danny was the best. Cooking class was really good. Krabi was our favorite. Snorkeling on Bali was excellent

We had a wonderful time in Thailand thanks to Suwanna, Tha, and all the local guides in the country! Royal Silk made us feel like lux travelers with airport pickups seamless transfers and kind and courteous service from all.

Some of our wonderful guides included:
Jungkey - The Tuk-tuk foodie tour was great and Jungkey kept us moving, eating, and enjoying.

Amy - Our private guide on our Bangkok tour made sure we saw much of the city beautiful sights, while being so pleasant to talk with, and had a great feel for the pace of the tour and where to take us. Excellent!

Roon - We loved Roon's quiet charm and sense of humor. He showed us many spots in Chiang-Mai and took his time to make sure we enjoyed as much as we could possibly.

Pom - Pom was so great! She took us on the hiking tour of Doi Inthanon. You could tell she had a lot of experience on the mountain and she was a wonderful guide with a warm heart and a great sense of pride in the mountain and it's surroundings. She was wonderful!

Tha was really responsive along our entire trip and we felt comfortable knowing she would always be available to help if needed. Su the local representative in Phuket was also amazing as she immediately reached out to us upon our arrival and helped us with our transfer and booking a dinner reservation and spa reservation. The recommendations by all were also wonderful.

We don't think we would have had nearly as good a time in Thailand had we not used KimKim to plug us into all the wonderful people at Royal Silk. Thank you so much for a wonderful experience and thank you to all the great guides throughout!

We had a great Thailand trip this past December. Working with Linh and her team was relatively easy and where able to customize the experience to our needs. Overall a positive experience for my husband and I, we had private tours and our guides were very professional and helpful. There were minor issues we faced (we were asked for tickets for transportation by the drivers, which were not given to us) but where addressed by the local KimKim team. I would strongly recommend to get a local SIM card on your mobile device, so that you can call/connect with other services as needed. Thank you Linh! We had an unforgettable trip :)

We had a superb experience with every detail custom-fitted so that we got to see as much as we wanted in the way that we wanted. Perfect in every respect.

Mr. Sauce was my tour guide while in Bangkok, he was extraordinary. He was very knowledgeable, kind and complacent. I loved the floating market, never seen anything like it. Miu was my tour guide while in Chiang Mai and she was awesome, my most memorable experience from Chiang Mai are the temples. Phi Phi islands is like being in fantasy island! I loved my entire trip, thank you so much for putting it together.

Supi did a great job putting together this trip. He was helpful and resolved any issues we had immediately. Planning is sometimes the hardest part of vacationing but he made it very easy and stress free for us. I would recommend Kim Kim in our future travels. The tours were very nice and we had a lot of fun. Everything was set up from Bangkok to Phuket and then from Phuket to Krabi. Thanks again Supi!

Our 10 day trip to Thailand was amazing. Suwanna, our Bangkok travel agent was brilliant. She organized two airport pick-ups, eliminating the stress of finding a cab, she connected us with some interesting joined group tours, and there were some individual tours with a tour guide. My husband and I really enjoyed the personalized tours as they provided rich opportunities to connect with local people and develop an understanding of the people and culture of Thailand. Most memorable was a Bangkok foodie tour in a tuktuk. We ate food that we would not have dared sample without guidance. Our guide was a young recent university graduate. She was delightful - charming and satirical and a lot of fun. Another highlight was a trip two hous north of Chaing Mai to an elephant sanctuary in a small Karen village in the middle of nowhere. We stopped at a village market to buy food four our lunch and for the elephant. We spent time feeding the elephant and washing him in the river.

Highly recommend KimKim and will use them again on my next big adventure! The travel company with whom KimKim matched us, Royal Silk Holidays was fantastic! Our main travel planners, Suwanna and Supi were great during the planning phase. Great communicators and truly tailored our trip for our interests and budget, making as many changes as we required. Our Thailand private tour guide, Niracha Saksopin (Pom) was fantastic! She and her driver were a huge part of our excellent experience. We will request her on our next visit.
Our outdoor "adventure" experience with 8 Adventures was phenomenal! Highly recommend them! Our guides, were top notch! Our 4-wheeler guide was kind, fun and attentive. Our hiking and home-stay guides, Oat and Jafu were terrific! The Lahu home-owner for our village home stay, Pim Weda, was so very nice and hospitable.
Our "Elephant Owner for a Day" experience at Patara Elephant Farm was even better than expected! Highly recommend!
Finally, the beautiful boutique hotel, Yaangcome Village was absolutely wonderful! Highly recommend!

Ha was great ! She responded fast and put together a greet trip for Thailand! We had tour guides and just drivers on our trip ! Everyone was on time and everything went as planned we had no issues , the hotels were great especially cape panwa was amazing !! The best one tour guide we had was in Chiang Mai he really went above and beyond and made the elephant day so great ! I would def book a trip with Kim Kim again!