André Larsen

Thanks for a fantastic trip. We loved the experience and our time spent in Norway. Thank you to Andre for making it a memorable occasion. From tailoring the experience to our liking to being flexible in adding day guides at places we wanted. I have to say overall we were very satisfied.
I do have two suggestions for improvements. Both are not under your control, so just future recommendations. 1. Oslo city center is very noisy during the summer evenings and without air conditioning we... read more

Thanks for a fantastic trip. We loved the experience and our time spent in Norway. Thank you to Andre for making it a memorable occasion. From tailoring the experience to our liking to being flexible in adding day guides at places we wanted. I have to say overall we were very satisfied.
I do have two suggestions for improvements. Both are not under your control, so just future recommendations. 1. Oslo city center is very noisy during the summer evenings and without air conditioning we are force to keep windows open in the hotel room, which leads to late lot of street noise and sleepless nights. 2. During Norway holidays, nothing is operational. Including restaurants, transport or even grocery stores. Need to account for those especially if you are in remote locations like Kalvag.

Trip was great. Andre was very responsive to our questions. We had a tour guide cancelation on the first day and he quickly found us another. He also quickly helped verify our kayaking trip when the company had questions about a voucher #.

A few thoughts about the locations:
We didn't know what to expect at each location, and relied on the local experts for that. That being said, Bergan was a nice jumping off point. Flam was probably our favorite mainly because of the bike ride and... read more

Trip was great. Andre was very responsive to our questions. We had a tour guide cancelation on the first day and he quickly found us another. He also quickly helped verify our kayaking trip when the company had questions about a voucher #.

A few thoughts about the locations:
We didn't know what to expect at each location, and relied on the local experts for that. That being said, Bergan was a nice jumping off point. Flam was probably our favorite mainly because of the bike ride and kayaking. 3 days there was just right because we had activities planned for each day. Had there not been any activities, there is nothing to do there as it's a cruise ship port with nothing but tourist shops. The hotel was nice in Bergan and Flam.
The visit to Bordund on our way to Skei was great. Skei didn't have much to do as it seemed like a midpoint between driving destinations. The hotel there was just ok.
The next stop was Gerainger. The location of the hotel was amazing. This was another tourist/cruise ship stop. We never went down into town as there wasn't much to see there. instead we went on some nice hikes up to the waterfall and up to the viewpoint of the fjord above the hotel. That was very nice. The last stop was Alesund. I read a lot about this town and everything written said it was an amazing town, lots to see and do. We had 3 nights there which was 2 nights too many. Walking around the town, it was nice, but it looked like any other mid size European town. There also wasn't a whole lot to see. When looking at activities to do in town, almost every one was something that we had already done (day trip to Gerainger, Stave Churches, kayaking....). There really didn't seem like a whole lot to do there. The day long road trip to Trollstigen was really nice. I found a few other stops along the way which made it more interesting (Andalsnes and Valldalen didn't offer much to see).

Overall, the countryside was incredibly beautiful and we wouldn't have been able to see it had we not rented a car and drove through the smaller villages and towns. Kimkim was very helpful in arranging the tip, but some of the locations didn't offer much to see.

Thanks again!

I enjoy planning and booking trips on my own, however for this last minute vacation I felt pressured. We would be meeting family in Europe then travelling on together for just 5 full days in Norway. The itinerary (Norway in a Nutshell based) involved several connections by train and ferry at the beginning of tourist season, and I was worried that by the time I did my research the tickets we wanted would be unavailable. So I decided to let kimkim expert Andre handle everything. Good move;... read more

I enjoy planning and booking trips on my own, however for this last minute vacation I felt pressured. We would be meeting family in Europe then travelling on together for just 5 full days in Norway. The itinerary (Norway in a Nutshell based) involved several connections by train and ferry at the beginning of tourist season, and I was worried that by the time I did my research the tickets we wanted would be unavailable. So I decided to let kimkim expert Andre handle everything. Good move; no worries and everything went smoothly. Andre sent a detailed plan that included the tickets for the Norway in a Nutshell trains/ferries; information for the hotel bookings for two nights in Oslo, two in Balestrand and two in Bergen; directions and options for transportation from the airport to the hotel in Oslo, and how to get to the airport in Bergen. He tailored activites and sight-seeing according to our interests and offered hotel options to fit our preferences. The communication was excellent, and Andre had great suggestions and lots of patience with my many questions as the plans were tweaked. We enjoyed the Bergen and Flam trains and the ferry to the glaciers in Fjaerland, and a highlight was the quiet time we spent in Balestrand. Jon at the Midtnes Hotel was a very thoughful and accomodating host (picking us up unexpectedly at the dock, and offering earlier breakfast times around our ferry trips) and our room had million dollar views. I would highly recommend Andre and kimkim.

Overall really solid job with the trip planning and execution from the KimKim team and happy with their service - I would recommend it to others. (I worked with Andre and Ingrid.) I booked on short notice and they were able to turnaround a fun, cost-effective, well-organized trip built around the input I provided (interests, timeframe, preferences, etc.) Pre-trip communication was timely and thorough, they were quick to adapt activities based on seasonanilty and want made sense with... read more

Overall really solid job with the trip planning and execution from the KimKim team and happy with their service - I would recommend it to others. (I worked with Andre and Ingrid.) I booked on short notice and they were able to turnaround a fun, cost-effective, well-organized trip built around the input I provided (interests, timeframe, preferences, etc.) Pre-trip communication was timely and thorough, they were quick to adapt activities based on seasonanilty and want made sense with thoughtful recommednations. Covered a ton of ground and saw a wonderful mix of natural and urban sites and activities in a Wednesday to Sunday window.

Though not significant enough to dock the ratings relative to all the wonderful things provided with the trip, the criticism I'll highlight is to provide more detail around some of the transportation for future trips with the below examples in mind for mine that were pain points:

1) "At 17:00 the transport to Aurland will pick you up from the Flam station (same place you arrived by train)": Didn't have any detail around which company and/or individual this was, any contacts for them, or what I should be looking for which would have been helpful. Eventually asked around and was able to find the cab driver that had been booked by asking various people in the train station lot if they were there for a , but we were both waiting for each other for awhile and eventually asked if he was there for a pick-up.

2) "You'll catch the five-hour ferry to Bergen through the stunning Sognefjord, arriving to the city in the evening." Ticket had a company name [Norled] and route cities listed, but no clear instructions on where to pick up the ferry in a city with extensive feasible port locations. (Booking company [Norled] was closed on the weekends for the departure day and no contacts were available here.) This was a stressful scramble when asking a dozen locals (including the hotel) were unable to help direct me to where I'd need to be to board the ferry based on the information provided. Ended up walking along a dangerous one-way road with my luggage before eventually hitch-hiking with a local that was more familiar with the ferry system and just making the ferry in time because of it. Situation was panicked and making my flight home would have been difficult with few alternatives if I hadn't gotten lucky finding a friendly local here to help me out in a significant way. Reached out to KimKim here, they weren't available immediately when the need was urgent, but they did eventually get back to me in a pretty quick turnaround that would have been otherwise fully acceptable had it not been an immediate need.

Otherwise, found the activities to be great, accomodations reasonable (and close to transportation), and trip thoughtfully planned/enjoyable at a solid rate. Enjoyed my time in Norway with a lot of special experiences that would be difficult to find without KimKim's service. The reps were knowledgable, kind, and thoughtful and would be a returning user after my first experience with them.